H 


OF  THT 

UNIVERSITY 
Qf  ILLINOIS 


2.91 


The  person  charging  this  material  is  re¬ 
sponsible  for  its  return  to  the  library  from 
which  it  was  withdrawn  on  or  before  the 
Latest  Date  stamped  below. 

Theft,  mutilation,  and  underlining  of  books  are  reasons 
for  disciplinary  action  and  may  result  in  dismissal  from 
the  University. 

To  renew  call  Telephone  Center,  333-8400 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS  LIBRARY  AT  URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 


MOV  21 

1!79  J 

** 

MOV 

1  5192S  fiuGi 

nut 

J  O  V./  D 

MAY 

2  0 1381,  m 

3  0  2  1335 

m 

4  l<  81  oc 

T  5  0  4985 

'JAN 

4  1982 

MU 

■  .  NOV 

048J? 

L  8  1985 

JUN  1 ! 

>  IQgi  Ss&C 

J  iv:  1Y  If  i 

0  1  1385 

f 

mfi 

D€T  ■ 

h  m  ’  j 

JH 1 9 1981 

OCT  3 

0£C  1 

1 

2  £84 

~  La" 

ft  ^ . 

>  •  -)lt 

■„"  - - 

ZZL 

«  ! 

- 

CO 

2  Q  Ck 

.  ^  —  a. 

Um  ^ 

L16T— 0-1096 

THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH 


A  STUDY  IN  MAGIC  AND  RELIGION 


BY 

Sir  JAMES  GEORGE  FRAZER,  F.R.S.,  F.B.A. 

FELLOW  OF  TRINITY  COLLEGE,  CAMBRIDGE 


HON.  D.C.L.,  OXFORD;  LION.  LITT.  D.  ,  CAMBRIDGE  AND  DURHAM; 
HON.  LL.  D. ,  GLASGOW;  DOCTOR  HONORIS  CAUSA  OF  THE 

-  >  i 

UNIVERSITIES  OF  PARIS  AND  STRASBOURG 


ABRIDGED  EDITION 


MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  LIMITED 
ST.  MARTIN’S  STREET,  LONDON 


1923 


COPYRIGHT 


First  Edition  November  1922 
Reprinted  January  1923 


PRINTED  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN 


O  l 

H  pv 


PREFACE 

The  primary  aim  of  this  book  is  to  explain  the  remarkable  rule  which 
regulated  the  succession  to  the  priesthood  of  Diana  at  Aricia.  When 
I  first  set  myself  to  solve  the  problem  more  than  thirty  years  ago,  I 
thought  that  the  solution  could  be  propounded  very  briefly,  but  I  soon 
found  that  to  render  it  probable  or  even  intelligible  it  was  necessary 
to  discuss  certain  more  general  questions,  some  of  which  had  hardly 
been  broached  before.  In  successive  editions  the  discussion  of  these 
ai;d  kindred  topics  has  occupied  more  and  more  space,  the  enquiry 
has  branched  out  in  more  and  more  directions,  until  the  two  volumes 
of  the  original  work  have  expanded  into  twelve.  Meantime  a  wish 
has  often  been  expressed  that  the  book  should  be  issued  in  a  more 
compendious  form.  This  abridgment  is  an  attempt  to  meet  the  wish 
and  thereby  to  bring  the  work  within  the  range  of  a  wider  circle  of 
readers.  While  the  bulk  of  the  book  has  been  greatly  reduced,  I 
have  endeavoured  to  retain  its  leading  principles,  together  with  an 
amount  of  evidence  sufficient  to  illustrate  them  clearly.  The  language 
of  the  original  has  also  for  the  most  part  been  preserved,  though 
here  and  there  the  exposition  has  been  somewhat  condensed.  In 
order  to  keep  as  much  of  the  text  Us  possible  I  have  sacrificed  all  the 
notes,  and  with  them  all  exact  references  to  my  authorities.  Readers 
who  desire  to  ascertain  the  source  of  any  particular  statement  must 
therefore  consult  the  larger  work,  which  is  fully  documented  and 
'  provided  with  a  complete  bibliography. 

In  the  abridgment  I  have  neither  added  new  matter  nor  altered 
the  views  expressed  in  the  last  edition  ;  for  the  evidence  which  has 
come  to  my  knowledge  in  the  meantime  has  on  the  whole  served 
either  to  confirm  my  former  conclusions  or  to  furnish  fresh  illustra¬ 
tions  of  old  principles.  Thus,  for  example,  on  the  crucial  question 
of  the  practice  of  putting  kings  to  death  either  at  the  end  of  a  fixed 
period  or  whenever  their  health  and  strength  began  to  fail,  the  body 
of  evidence  which  points  to  the  wide  prevalence  of  such  a  custom  has 


VI 


PREFACE 


been  considerably  augmented  in  the  interval.  A  striking  instance  o.. 
a  limited  monarchy  of  this  sort  is  furnished  by  the  powerful  mediaeval 
kingdom  of  the  Khazars  in  Southern  Russia,  where  the  kings  were 
liable  to  be  put  to  death  either  on  the  expiry  of  a  set  term  or  whenever 
some  public  calamity,  such  as  drought,  dearth,  or  defeat  in  war, 
seemed  to  indicate  a  failure  of  their  natural  powers.  The  evidence 
for  the  systematic  killing  of  the  Khazar  kings,  drawn  from  the  accounts 
of  old  Arab  travellers,  has  been  collected  by  me  elsewhere.1  Africa, 
again,  has  supplied  several  fresh  examples  of  a  similar  practice  of 
regicide.  Among  them  the  most  notable  perhaps  is  the  custom 
formerly  observed  in  Bunyoro  of  choosing  every  year  from  a  particular 
clan  a  mock  king,  who  was  supposed  to  incarnate  the  late  king,  co¬ 
habited  with  his  widows  at  his  temple-tomb,  and  after  reigning  for  a  week 
was  strangled.2  The  custom  presents  a  close  parallel  to  the  ancient 
Babylonian  festival  of  the  Sacaea,  at  which  a  mock  king  was  dressed  in 
the  royal  robes,  allowed  to  enjoy  the  real  king’s  concubines,  and  after 
reigning  for  five  days  was  stripped,  scourged,  and  put  to  death.  That 
festival  in  its  turn  has  lately  received  fresh  light  from  certain  Assyrian 
inscriptions,3  which  seem  to  confirm  the  interpretation  which  I  formerly 
gave  of  the  festival  as  a  New  Year  celebration  and  the  parent  of  the 
Jewish  festival  of  Purim.4  Other  recently  discovered  parallels  to 
the  priestly  kings  of  Aricia  are  African  priests  and  kings  who  used  to 
be  put  to  death  at  the  end  of  seven  or  of  two  years,  after  being  liable 
in  the  interval  to  be  attacked  and  killed  by  a  strong  man,  who  there¬ 
upon  succeeded  to  the  priesthood  or  the  kingdom.5 

With  these  and  other  instances  of  like  customs  before  us  it  is  no 
longer  possible  to  regard  the  rule  of  succession  to  the  priesthood  of 
Diana  at  Aricia  as  exceptional ;  it  clearly  exemplifies  a  widespread 
institution,  of  which  the  most  numerous  and  the  most  similar  cases 
have  thus  far  been  found  in  Africa.  How  far  the  .facts  point  to  an 
early  influence  of  Africa  on  Italy,  or  even  to  the  existence  of  an  African 
population  in  Southern  Europe,  I  do  not  presume  to  say.  The  pre- 

1  J.  G.  Frazer,  “The  Killing  of  the  Khazar  Kings,”  Folk-lore ,  xxviii.  (1917)  pp. 
382-407. 

2  Rev.  J.  Roscoe,  The  Soul  of  Central  Africa  (London,  1922),  p.  200.  Compare 
J.  G.  Frazer,  “  The  Mackie  Ethnological  Expedition  to  Central  Africa,”  Man ,  xx. 
(1920)  p.  181. 

3  H.  Zimmern,  Ztim  babylonischen  Neujahrsfest  (Leipzig,  1918).  Compare  A.  H. 
Sayce,  in  fournal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society ,  July  1921,  pp.  440-442. 

4  The  Golden  Bough,  Part  VI.  The  Scapegoat ,  pp.  354  sqq. ,  412  sqq. 

6  P.  Amaury  Talbot,  in  Joto-nal  of  the  African  Society ,  July  1916,  pp.  309^.;  id., 
in  Folk-lore,  xxvi.  (1916)  pp.  79  sq. ;  H.  R.  Palmer,  in  fournal  of  the  African  Society, 
July  1912,  pp.  403,  407  sq. 


i 


/ 


PREFACE 


Vll 


historic  relations  between  the  two  continents  are  still  obscure  and 
still  under  investigation. 

Whether  the  explanation  which  I  have  offered  of  the  institution  is 
correct  or  not  must  be  left  to  the  future  to  determine.  I  shall  always 
be  ready  to  abandon  it  if  a  better  can  be  suggested.  Meantime  in 
committing  the  book  in  its  new  form  to  the  judgment  of  the  public 
I  desire  to  guard  against  a  misapprehension  of  its  scope  which  appears 
to  be  still  rife,  though  I  have  sought  to  correct  it  before  now.  If  in 
the  present  work  I  have  dwelt  at  some  length  on  the  worship  of  trees, 
it  is  not,  I  trust,  because  I  exaggerate  its  importance  in  the  history  of 
religion,  still  less  because  I  would  deduce  from  it  a  whole  system  of 
mythology  ;  it  is  simply  because  I  could  not  ignore  the  subject  in 
attempting  to  explain  the  significance  of  a  priest  who  bore  the  title  of 
King  of  the  Wood,  and  one  of  whose  titles  to  office  was  the  plucking 
of  a  bough — the  Golden  Bough — from  a  tree  in  the  sacred  grove. 
But  I  am  so  far  from  regarding  the  reverence  for  trees  as  of  supreme 
importance  for  the  evolution  of  religion  that  I  consider  it  to  have  been 
altogether  subordinate  to  other  factors,  and  in  particular  to  the  fear 
of  the  human  dead,  which,  on  the  whole,  I  believe  to  have  been  prob¬ 
ably  the  most  powerful  force  in  the  making  of  primitive  religion.  I 
hope  that  after  this  explicit  disclaimer  I  shall  no  longer  be  taxed  with 
embracing  a  system  of  mythology  which  I  look  upon  not  merely  as 
false  but  as  preposterous  and  absurd.  But  I  am  too  familiar  with 
the  hydra  of  error  to  expect  that  by  lopping  off  one  of  the  monster’s 
heads  I  can  prevent  another,  or  even  the  same,  from  sprouting  again. 
I  can  only  trust  to  the  candour  and  intelligence  of  my  readers  to  rectify 
this  serious  misconception  of  my  views  by  a  comparison  with  my  own 
express  declaration. 

J.  G.  FRAZER. 

i  Brick  Court,  Temple, 

London,  June  1922. 


Longior  undecimi  nobis  decimique  libelli 
A  rtatus  labor  est  et  breve  rasit  opus. 
Plura  legant  vacui. 


Martial,  xii.  5, 


CONTENTS 


/ 


CHAP. 

i.  The  King  of  the  Wood  . 

§  i.  Diana  and  Virbius 
v  §  2.  Artemis  and  Hippolytus 
§  3.  Recapitulation 

11.  Priestly  Kings  .... 

hi.  Sympathetic  Magic 

§  1.  The  Principles  of  Magic 
§  2.  Homoeopathic  or  Imitative  Magic 
§  3.  Contagious  Magic 
§  4.  The  Magician’s  Progress 

iv.  Magic  and  Religion 

v.  The  Magical  Control  of  the  Weather 

§  1.  The  Public  Magician 
§  2.  The  Magical  Control  of  Rain 
§  3.  The  Magical  Control  of  the  Sun 
§  4.  The  Magical  Control  of  the  Wind 

vi.  Magicians  as  Kings  '  . 

vii.  Incarnate  Human  Gods  . 

viii.  Departmental  Kings  of  Nature  . 

ix.  The  Worship  of  Trees 

§  1.  Tree-spirits  .... 

§  2.  Beneficent  Powers  of  Tree-spirits 

x.  Relics  of  Tree-worship  in  Modern  Europe 

xi.  The  Influence  of  the  Sexes  on  Vecetation 

xii.  The  Sacred  Marriage 

§  1.  Diana  as  a  Goddess  of  Fertility 
§  2.  The  Marriage  of  the  Gods 

xiii  ,  The  Kings  of  Rome  and  Alba 
§  1.  Numa  and  Egeria 
§  2.  The  King  as  Jupiter  . 


PAGE 

I 

I 

6 

7 

9 

1 1 
i~i 

12 
37 
45_ 

48 

60 

60 

62 

78 

80 

83 

9i 

106 

109 
109 
n  7 
120 
135 
139 

139 

142 

146 

146 

148 


ix 


CHAP. 


CONTENTS 

v^nAi  • 

xiv.  The  Succession  to  the  Kingdom  in  Ancient  Latium 

xv.  The  Worship  of  the  Oak 


xvi.  Dianus  and  Diana 


xvii.  The  Burden  of  Royalty 

§  i.  Royal  and  Priestly  Taboos  . 

§  2.  Divorce  of  the  Spiritual  from  the  Temporal  Power 

xviii.  The  Perils  of  the  Soul 

§  i.  The  Soul  as  a  Mannikin 

§  2.  Absence  and  Recall  of  the  Soul 

§  3.  The  Soul  as  a  Shadow  and  a  Reflection 


xix.  Tabooed  Acts  . 

§  1.  Taboos  on  Intercourse  with  Strangers 
§  2.  Taboos  on  Eating  and  Drinking 
§  3.  Taboos  on  showing  the  Face 
§  4.  Taboos  on  quitting  the  House 
§  5.  Taboos  on  leaving  Food  over 


xx.  Tabooed  Persons 

§  1.  Chiefs  and  Kings  tabooed  . 

§  2.  Mourners  tabooed  . 

§  3.  Women  tabooed  at  Menstruation  and  Childbi 
§  4.  Warriors  tabooed 
§  5.  Manslayers  tabooed 
8  6.  Hunters  and  Fishers  tabooed 


h 


XXL 


The  Meaning  of  Taboo 


Tabooed  Things 

§  L 

§  2.  Iron  tabooed 

§  3.  Sharp  Weapons  tabooed 

§  4.  Blood  tabooed 

§  5.  The  Head  tabooed 

§  6.  Hair  tabooed 

§  7.  Ceremonies  at  Hair-cutting  . 

§  8.  Disposal  of  Cut  Hair  and  Nails 
§  9.  Spittle  tabooed 
§  10.  Foods  tabooed 
§11.  Knots  and  Rings  tabooed 


\\ 


PAGE 


152 

159 

l6  I 


l68 

168 

175 

178 

178 

l80 

I  89 


194 

194 

198 

199 

200 
200 


202 
202 
205 
207 
210 
2  12 
2l6 


ll 


223 
223 
224 
226 
22  7 
230 
231 
233 
233 
237 


238 

23S 


xxii.  Tabooed  Words 

§  1.  Personal  Names  tabooed 
§  2.  Names  of  Relations  tabooed 
§  3.  Names  of  the  Dead  tabooed 

§  4.  Names  of  Kings  and  other  Sacred  Persons  tabooed 
§  5.  Names  of  Gods  tabooed 


244 

244 

249 

.V' 

N>7 

260 


/ 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

XXIII. 


Our  Debt  to  the  Savage 

xxiv.  The  Killing  of  the  Divine  King 
§  i.  The  Mortality  of  the  Gods 


§  2.  Kings  killed  when  their  Strength  fails 
§  3.  Kings  killed  at  the  End  of  a  Fixed  Term 


'/xxv, 

v/xxvi; 


I  XXXVII. 

*/xxviii. 


Temporary  Kings 

Sacrifice  of  the  King’s  Son  . 

Succession  to  the  Soul 

The  Killing  of  the  Tree-spirit 

8  1.  The  Whitsuntide  Mummers 


XXIX. 

XXX. 

XXXI. 

XXXII. 

XXXIII. 

XXXIV. 

XXXV. 

XXXVI. 

XXXVII. 

XXXVIII. 

XXXIX. 


§  2.  Burying  the  Carnival 
§  3.  Carrying  out  Death 
§  4.  Bringing  in  Summer 
§  5.  Battle  of  Summer  and  Winter 
§  6.  Death  and  Resurrection  of  Kostrubonko 
§  7.  Death  and  Revival  of  Vegetation 
§  8.  Analogous  Rites  in  India 
§  9.  The  Magic  Spring 

The  Myth  of  Adonis  . 


Adonis  in  Syria 
Adonis  in  Cyprus 
The  Ritual  of  Adonis 
The  Gardens  of  Adonis 
The  Myth  and  Ritual  of  Attis 
Attis  as  a  God  of  Vegetation 
Human  Representatives  of  Attis 
Oriental  Religions  in  the  West 
The  Myth  of  Osiris  . 

The  Ritual  of  Osiris 

§  1.  The  Popular  Rites 


XL. 


II 


XLL 


§  2.  The  Official  Rites 
The  Nature  of  Osiris 
§  1.  Osiris  a  Corn-god 
§  2.  Osiris  a  Tree-spirit 
§  3.  Osiris  a  God  of  Fertility 
§  4.  Osiris  a  God  of  the  Dead 

Isis 


! 


xi 

PAGE 

262 

264^ 

264 

265 

274 

283 

289 

293 

296 

296 

301 

3°7 

3ii 

316 

317 

318 

319 

32V 

324 

327 

329 

33SU 

34i 

347 

352 

353 
356 
362 

368 
368' 
373  \ 
377 

377 

380 

381 

381 

382 


XII 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

xlii.  Osiris  and  the  Sun 
xliii.  Dionysus 

xliv.  Demeter  and  Persephone 


NL3T  The  Corn-mother  and  the  Corn-maiden  in  Northern 
Europe  ... 

xlvi.  The  Corn-mother  in  many  Lands 
§  I.  The  Corn-mother  in  America 
§  2.  The  Rice-mother;  in  the  East  Indies  . 

§  3’  The  Spirit  of  the  Corn  embodied  in  Human  Beings 
§  4.  The  Double  Personification  of  the  Corn  as  Mother  and 
Daughter 

XLVII.  Lityerses 

■ _  •  •  •  . 

§  1.  Songs  of  the  Corn-reapers 

§  2.  Killing  the  Corn-spirit 

§  3.  Human  Sacrifices  for  the  Crops 

§  4.  The  Corn-spirit  slain  in  his  Human  Representatives 


XLViii.  The  Corn-spirit  as  an  Animal 


§  1. 

§2. 
§  3- 
§  4- 

§  5- 

§6. 

§  7- 

§  8. 

§  9- 
§  10. 


Animal  Embodiments  of  the  Corn-spirit 
The  Corn-spirit  as  a  Wolf  or  a  Dog  . 
The  Corn-spirit  as  a  Cock  . 

The  Corn-spirit  as  a  Hare  . 

The  Corn-spirit  as  a  Cat 
The  Corn-spirit  as  a  Goat 
The  Corn-spirit  as  a  Bull,  Cow,  or  Ox 
The  Corn-spirit  as  a  Horse  or  Mare  . 


The  Corn-spirit  as  a  Pig  (Boar  or  Sow) 

On  the  Animal  Embodiments  of  the  Corn-spirit 


PAGE 

384 

385 

393  j 
399  N 

, 

412 

412 

413 
419 


420 


424 

425 
43i 


447 


447 

448 
450 

452 

453 

454 
457 

459 

460 

462 


xlix.  Ancient  Deities  of  Vegetation  as  Animals 
§  1.  Dionysus,  the  Goat  and  the  Bull 
§  2.  Demeter,  the  Pig  and  the  Horse 
§  3.  Attis,  Adonis,  and  the  Pig  . 

§  4.  Osiris,  the  Pig  and  the  Bull 
§  5.  Virbius  and  the  Horse 

l.  Eating  the  God 

§  1.  The  Sacrament  of  First-fruits 
§  2.  Eating  the  God  among  the  Aztecs 
§  3.  Many  Manii  at  Aricia 


464 

464 

469 

471 

472 
476 

479 

479 

4-88 

491 

4 

4( 


li.  Homoeopathic  Magic  of  a  Flesh  Diet 


CHAP. 

LII. 


LIII. 

LIV. 


k/lv. 


/ 

LVI. 


'  LVII, 


LVIII. 


LIX. 

LX. 


LX  I. 
LXII. 


CONTENTS 

Killing  the  Divine  Animal 
§  1.  Killing  the  Sacred  Buzzard 
§  2.  Killing  the  Sacred  Ram 
§  3.  Killing  the  Sacred  Serpent 
§  4.  Killing  the  Sacred  Turtles 
§  5.  Killing  the  Sacred  Bear 

The  Propitiation  of  Wild  Animals  by  Hunters 

Types  of  Animal  Sacrament 

§  1.  The  Egyptian  and  the  Aino  Types  of  Sacrament 
§  2.  Processions  with  Sacred  Animals 

The  Transference  of  Evil 


§  1.  The  Transference  to  Inanimate  Objects 
§  2.  The  Transference  to  Animals 
§  3.  The  Transference  to  Men 
§  4-  The  Transference  of  Evil  in  Europe 
The  Public  Expulsion  of  Evils 
§1.  The  Omnipresence  of  Demons 
§  2.  The  Occasional  Expulsion  of  Evils 
§  3-  The  Periodic  Expulsion  of  Evils 
PUB  I  TC  s  GAPE  GOATS  ■  ■ 

•  •  • 

§  1.  The  Expulsion  of  Embodied  Evils 
§  2.  The  Occasional  Expulsion  of  Evils  in  a  Material  Vehicl 
§  3.  The  Periodic  Expulsion  of  Evils  in  a  Material  Vehicle 
§  4.  On  Scapegoats  in  General 
Human  Scapegoats  in  Classical  Antiquity 
§  1.  The  Human  Scapegoat  in  Ancient  Rome. 

~~  T  2*  H*he TTurnan  Scapegoat  in  Ancient  Greece 
§  3.  The  Roman  Saturnalia 
Killing  the  God  in  Mexico 
Between  Heaven  and  Earth 
§1.  Not  to  touch  the  Earth 
§  2.  Not  to  see  the  Sun  . 

§  3.  The  Seclusion  of  Girls  at  Puberty 

§  4.  Reasons  for  the  Seclusion  of  Girls  at  Puberty 
The  Myth  of  Balder 
The  Fire-festivals  of  Europe 
§  1.  The  Fire-festivals  in  general 
The  Lenten  Fires 
The  Easter  Fires 
The  Beltane  Fires 


§ 

I. 

The 

§ 

2. 

The 

§ 

3. 

The 

§ 

4- 

The 

§ 

5- 

The 

§ 

6. 

The 

§ 

7- 

The 

§ 

8. 

The 

Xlll 

PAGE 

499 

499 

500 

501 

502 
505 
518 


532 

532 

535; 

538 

538 

540 

542 

543 
546 

546 

547 
55i 
562 

562 

563 

566 

574 

577 

577 

578 

583 

587 

592 

592 

595 

595 

603 

607 

609 

609 

609 

614 

617 

622 

632 

636 

638 


xiv  ’  CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

lxiii.  The  Interpretation  of  the  Fire-festivals  .  .641 

§  1.  On  the  Fire-festivals  in  general  .  .  .641 

§  2.  The  Solar  Theory  of  the  Fire-festivals  .  .  643 

§  3.  The  Purificatory  Theory  of  the  Fire-festivals  .  .647 

lxiv.  The  Burning  of  Human  Beings  in  the  Fires  .  .650 

§  1.  The  Burning  of  Effigies  in  the  Fires  .  .  .  650 

§  2.  The  Burning  of  Men  and  Animals  in  the  Fires  .  652 


lxv.  Balder  and  the  Mistletoe 

lxvi.  The  External  Soul  in  Folk-tales 

lxvii.  The  External  Soul  in  Folk-custom  . 

§  1.  The  External  Soul  in  Inanimate  Things 
§  2.  The  External  Soul  in  Plants 
§  3.  The  External  Soul  in  Animals 
§  4.  The  Ritual  of  Death  and  Resurrection 

lxvhl  The  Golden  Bough 


lxix.  Farewell  to  Nemi 


Index 


658 

667 

679 

679 

681 

683 

691 

701 

7 11 

715 


The  Golden  Bough  .....  Frontispiece 


V. 


THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH 


MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA  •  MADRAS 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •  BOSTON  •  CHICAGO 
DALLAS  •  SAN  FRANCISCO 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


I* 


% 


CHAPTER  I 


THE  KING  OF  THE  WOOD 

§  i.  Diana  and  Virbius. — -Who  does  not  know  Turner’s  picture  of  the 
Golden  Bough  ?  The  scene,  suffused  with  the  golden  glow  of  imagina¬ 
tion  in  which  the  divine  mind  of  Turner  steeped  and  transfigured  even 
the  fairest  natural  landscape,  is  a  dream-like  vision  of  the  little  wood¬ 
land  lake  of  Nemi — “  Diana’s  Mirror,”  as  it  was  called  by  the  ancients. 
No  one  who  has  seen  that  calm  water,  lapped  in  a  green  hollow  of  the 
Alban  hills,  can  ever  forget  it.  The  two  characteristic  Italian  villages 
which  slumber  on  its  banks,  and  the  equally  Italian  palace  whose 
terraced  gardens  descend  steeply  to  the  lake,  hardly  break  the  stillness 
and  even  the  solitariness  of  the  scene.  Dian  herself  might  still  linger 
by  this  lonely  shore,  still  haunt  these  woodlands  wild. 

In  antiquity  this  sylvan  landscape  was  the  scene  of  a  strange  and 
recurring  tragedy.  On  the  northern  shore  of  the  lake,  right  under  the 
precipitous  cliffs  on  which  the  modern  village  of  Nemi  is  perched, 
stood  the  sacred  grove  and  sanctuary  of  Diana  Nemorensis,  or  Diana 
of  the  Wood.  The  lake  and  the  grove  were  sometimes  known  as  the 
lake  and  grove  of  Aricia.  But  the  town  of  Aricia  (the  modern  La 
Riccia)  was  situated  about  three  miles  off,  at  the  foot  of  the  Alban 
Mount,  and  separated  by  a  steep  descent  from  the  lake,  which  lies  in 
a  small  crater-like  hollow  on  the  mountain  side.  In  this  sacred  grove 
there  grew  a  certain  tree  round  which  at  any  time  of  the  day,  and 
probably  far  into  the  night,  a  grim  figure  might  be  seen  to  prowl.  In 
his  hand  he  carried  a  drawn  sword,  and  he  kept  peering  warily  about 
him  as  if  at  every  instant  he  expected  to  be  set  upon  by  an  enemy.  He 
was  a  priest  and  a  murderer ;  and  the  man  for  whom  he  looked  was 
sooner  or  later  to  murder  him  and  hold  the  priesthood  in  his  stead. 
Such  was  the  rule  of  the  sanctuary.  A  candidate  for  the  priesthood- 
could  only  succeed  to  office  by  slaying  the  priest,  and  having  slain  him, 
he  retained  office  till  he  was  himself  slain  by  a  stronger  or  a  craftier. 

The  post  which  he  heJd  >y  this  precarious  Anure  carried  with  it 
the  title  of  ,  but  surely  no  crowned  head  ever  lay  uneasier,  or 
was  visited  by  more  evil  dreams,  than  his.  For  year  in  year  out,  in 
summed  and  winter,  in  fair  weather  and  in  foul,  he  had  to  keep  his 
lonel/j^atch,  and  whenever  he  snatched  a  troubled  slumber  it  was  at 
fhetai  fl  of  his  life.  The  least  relaxation  of  his  vigilance,  the  smallest 
perpetuent  of  his  strength  of  limb  or  skill  of  fence,  put  him  in  jeopardy  ; 
in  Lati\irs  might  seal  his  death-warrant.  To  gentle  and  pious  pilgrims 
festivabhrine  the  sight  of  him  might  well  seem  to  darken  the  fair  land- 
were  n<as  when  a  cloud  suddenly  blots  the  sun  on  a  bright  day.  The 

i  B 


ii 


2 


THE  KING  OF  THE  WOOD 


CH. 


dreamy  blue  of  Italian  skies,  the  dappled  shade  of  summer  woods, 
and  the  sparkle  of  waves  in  the  sun,  can  have  accorded  but  ill  with 
that  stern  and  sinister  figure.  Rather  we  picture  to  ourselves  the 
scene  as  it  may  have  been  witnessed  by  a  belated  wayfarer  on  one  of 
those  wild  autumn  nights  when  the  dead  leaves  are  falling  thick,  and 
the  winds  seem  to  sing  the  dirge  of  the  dying  year.  It  is  a  sombre 
picture,  set  to  melancholy  music— the  background  of  forest  showing 
black  and  jagged  against  a  lowering  and  stormy  sky,  the  sighing  of 
the  wind  in  the  branches,  the  rustle  of  the  withered  leaves  under  foot, 
the  lapping  of  the  cold  water  on  the  shore,  and  in  the  foreground, 
pacing  to  and  fro,  now  in  twilight  and  now  in  gloom,  a  dark  figure  with 
a  glitter  of  steel  at  the  shoulder  whenever  the  pale  moon,  riding  clear 
of  the  cloud-rack,  peers  down  at  him  through  the  matted  boughs. 

The  strange  rule  of  this  priesthood  has  no  parallel  in  classical 
antiquity,  and  cannot  be  explained  from  it.  To  find  an  explanation 
we  must  go  farther  afield.  No  one  will  probably  deny  that  such  a 
custom  savours  of  a  barbarous  age,  and,  surviving  into  imperial  times, 
stands  out  in  striking  isolation  from  the  polished  Italian  society  of  the 
day,  like  a  primaeval  rock  rising  from  a  smooth-shaven  lawn.  It  is  the 
very  rudeness  and  barbarity  of  the  custom  which  allow  us  a  hope  of 
explaining  it.  For  recent  researches  into  the  early  history  of  man 
have  revealed  the  essential  similarity  with  which,  under  many  super¬ 
ficial  differences,  the  human  mind  has  elaborated  its  first  crude  philo¬ 
sophy  of  life.  Accordingly,  if  we  can  show  that  a  barbarous  custom, 
like  that  of  the  priesthood  of  Nemi,  has  existed  elsewhere  ;  if  we  can 
detect  the  motives  which  led  to  its  institution  ;  if  we  can  prove  that 
these  motives  have  operated  widely,  perhaps  universally,  in  human 
society,  producing  in  varied  circumstances  a  variety  of  institutions 
specifically  different  but  generically  alike  ;  if  we  can  show,  lastly,  that 
these  very  motives,  with  some  of  their  derivative  institutions,  were 
actually  at  work  in  classical  antiquity  ;  then  we  may  fairly  infer  that 
at  a  remoter  age  the  same  motives  gave  birth  to  the  priesthood  of 
Nemi.  Such  an  inference,  in  default  of  direct  evidence  as  to  how  the 
priesthood  did  actually  arise,  can  never  amount  to  demonstration. 
But  it  will  be  more  or  less  probable  according  to  the  degree  of  com¬ 
pleteness  with  which  it  fulfils  the  conditions  I  have  indicated.  The 
object  cA  this  book  is,  by  meeting  these  conditions,  to  offer  a  fairly 
probable  explanation  of  the  priesthood  6  :  Nemi. 

I  begin  by  setting  fostE  the  few  fact  and  legends  which  have  come 
down  to  us  on  the  subject.  According  to  one  stuiy  +he  worship  of 
Diana  at  Nemi  was  instituted  by  Orestes,  who,  after  killing  Thoas, 
king  of  the  Tauric  Chersonese  (the  Crimea),  fled  with  his  siste:  o  Italy, 
bringing  with  him  the  image  of  the  Tauric  Diana  hidden  in  ,  faggot 
of  sticks.  After  his  death  his  bones  were  transported  from  A  t^ 
Rome  and  buried  in  front  of  the  temple  of  Saturn,  on  the  Caj 
slope,  beside  the  temple  of  Concord.  The  bloody  ritual  which 
ascribed  to  the  Tauric  Diana  is  familiar  to  classical  readers  ;  it 
that  every  stranger  who  landed  on  the  shore  was  sacrificed  • 


I 


DIANA  AND  VIRBIUS 


3 


altar.  But  transported  to  Italy,  the  rite  assumed  a  milder  form. 
Within  the  sanctuary  at  Nemi  grew  a  certain  tree  of  which  no  branch 
might  be  broken.  Only  a  runaway  slave  was  allowed  to  break  off, 
if  he  could,  one  of  its  boughs.  Success  in  the  attempt  entitled  him 
to  fight  the  priest  in  single  combat,  and  if  he  slew  him  he  reigned 
in  his  stead  with  the  title  of  King  of  the  Wood  ( Rex  Nemorensis). 
According  to  the  public  opinion  of  the  ancients  the  fateful  branch  was 
that  Golden  Bough  which,  at  the  Sibyl’s  bidding,  Aeneas  plucked 
before  he  essayed  the  perilous  journey  to  the  world  of  the  dead.  The 
flight  of  the  slave  represented,  it  was  said,  the  flight  of  Orestes  ;  his 
combat  with  the  priest  was  a  reminiscence  of  the  human  sacrifices  once 
offered  to  the  Taunc  Diana.  This  rule  of  succession  by  the  sword 
was  observed  down  to  imperial  times  ;  for  amongst  his  other  freaks 
Caligula,  thinking  that  the  priest  of  Nemi  had  held  office  too  long, 
hired  a  more  stalwart  ruffian  to  slay  him ;  and  a  Greek  traveller,  who 
visited  Italy  in  the  age  of  the  Antonines,  remarks  that  down  to  his 
time  the  priesthood  was  still  the  prize  of  victory  in  a  single  combat. 

Of  the  worship  of  Diana  at  Nemi  some  leading  features  can  still  be 
made  out.  From  the  votive  offerings  which  have  been  found  on  the 
site,  it  appears  that  she  was  conceived  of  especially  as  a  huntress,  and 
further  as  blessing  men  and  women  with  offspring,  and  granting 
expectant  mothers  an  easy  delivery.  Again,  fire  seems  to  have  played 
a  foremost  part  in  her  ritual.  For  during  her  annual  festival,  held  on 
the  thirteenth  of  August,  at  the  hottest  time  of  the  year,  her  grove 
shone  with  a  multitude  of  torches,  whose  ruddy  glare  was  reflected  by 
the  lake  ;  and  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  Italy  the  day  was 
kept  with  holv  -ites  at  every  domestic  hearth.  Bronze  statuettes 
found  in  -^r  precinct  represent  goddess  herself  holding  a  torch  in 
her  raised  right  hand  ;  and  women  whose  prayers  had  been  heard  by 
her  came  crowned  with  wreaths  and  bearing  lighted  torches  to  the 
Sanctuary  in  fulfilment  of  their  vows.  Some  one  unknown  dedicated 
a  perpetually  burning  lamp  in  a  little  shrine  at  Nemi  for  the  safety  of 
the  Emperor  Claudius  and  his  family.  The  terra-cotta  lamps  which 
have  been  discovered  in  the  grove  may  perhaps  have  served  a  like 
purpose  for  humbler  persons.  If  so,  the  analogy  of  the  custom  to  the 
Catholic  practice  of  dedicating  holy  candles  in  churches  would  be 
obvious.  Further,  the  title  of  Vesta  borne  by  Diana  at  Nemi  points 
clearly  to  the  maintenance  of  a  perpetual  holy  fire  in  her  sanctuary. 
A  large  circular  basement  at  the  north-east  corner  of  the  temple,  raised 
on  three  steps  and  bearing  traces  of  a  mosaic  pavement,  probably 
supported  a  round  temple  of  Diana  in  her  character  of  Vesta,  like  the 
round  temple  of  Vesta  in  the  Roman  Forum.  Here  the  sacred  fire 
would  seem  to  have  been  tended  by  Vestal  Virgins,  for  the  head  of  a 
Vestal  in  terra-cotta  was  found  on  the  spot,  and  the  worship  of  a 
perpetual  fire,  cared  for  by  holy  maidens,  appears  to  have  been  common 
in  Latium  from  the  earliest  to  the  latest  times.  Further,  at  the  annual 
festival  of  the  goddess,  hunting  dogs  were  crowned  and  wild  beasts 
were  not  molested ;  young  people  went  through  a  purificatory  ceremony 

frl 


4 


THE  KING  OF  THE  WOOD 


CH. 


in  her  honour  ;  wine  was  brought  forth,  and  the  feast  consisted  of  a 
kid,  cakes  served  piping  hot  on  plates  of  leaves,  and  apples  still  hanging 
in  clusters  on  the  boughs. 

But  Diana  did  not  reign  alone  in  her  grove  at  Nemi.  Two  lesser 
divinities  shared  her  forest  sanctuary.  One  was  Egeria,  the  nymph 
of  the  clear  water  which,  bubbling  from  the  basaltic  rocks,  used  to 
fall  in  graceful  cascades  into  the  lake  at  the  place  called  Le  Mole, 
because  here  were  established  the  mills  of  the  modern  village  of  Nemi. 
The  purling  of  the  stream  as  it  ran  over  the  pebbles  is  mentioned  by 
Ovid,  who  tells  us  that  he  had  often  drunk  of  its  water.  Women  with 
child  used  to  sacrifice  to  Egeria,  because  she  was  believed,  like  Diana, 
to  be  able  to  grant  them  an  easy  delivery.  Tradition  ran  that  the 
nymph  had  been  the  wife  or  mistress  of  the  wise  king  Numa,  that  he 
had  consorted  with  her  in  the  secrecy  of  the  sacred  grove,  and  that  the 
laws  which  he  gave  the  Romans  had  been  inspired  by  communion 
with  her  divinity.  Plutarch  compares  the  legend  with  other  tales 
of  the  loves  of  goddesses  for  mortal  men,  such  as  the  love  of  Cybele 
and  the  Moon  for  the  fair  youths  Attis  and  Endymion.  According 
to  some,  the  trysting-place  of  the  lovers  was  not  in  the  woods  of  Nemi 
but  in  a  grove  outside  the  dripping  Porta  Capena  at  Rome,  where 
another  sacred  spring  of  Egeria  gushed  from  a  dark  cavern.  Every 
day  the  Roman  Vestals  fetched  water  from  this  spring  to  wash  the 
temple  of  Vesta,  carrying  it  in  earthenware  pitchers  on  their  heads. 
In  Juvenal’s  time  the  natural  rock  had  been  encased  in  marble,  and 
the  hallowed  spot  was  profaned  by  gangs  of  poor  Jews,  who  were 
suffered  to  squat,  like  gypsies,  in  the  grove.  We  may  suppose  that 
the  spring  which  fell  into  the  lake  of  Nemi  was  the  true  original  Egeria, 
and  that  wb°u  the  first  settlers  mnved  uuwn  irom  the  hills  to 

the  banks  of  the  Tiber  they  brought  the  nymph  with  them  ana  f^and. 
a  new  home  for  her  in  a  grove  outside  the  gates.  The  remains  of 
baths  which  have  been  discovered  within  the  sacred  precinct,  together 
with  many  terra-cotta  models  of  various  parts  of  the  human  body, 
suggest  that  the  waters  of  Egeria  were  used  to  heal  the  sick,  who  may 
have  signified  their  hopes  or  testified  their  gratitude  by  dedicating 
likenesses  of  the  diseased  members  to  the  goddess,  in  accordance  with 
a  custom  which  is  still  observed  in  many  parts  of  Europe.  To  this  day 
it  would  seem  that  the  spring  retains  medicinal  virtues. 

The  other  of  the  minor  deities  at  Nemi  was  Virbius.  Legend  had 
it  that  Virbius  was  the  young  Greek  hero  Hippolytus,  chaste  and  fair, 
who  learned  the  art  of  venery  from  the  centaur  Chiron,  and  spent  all 
his  days  in  the  greenwood  chasing  wild  beasts  with  the  virgin  huntress 
Artemis  (the  Greek  counterpart  of  Diana)  for  his  only  comrade. 
Proud  ol  her  divine  society,  he  spurned  the  love  of  women,  and  this 
proved  his  bane.  For  Aphrodite,  stung  by  his  scorn,  inspired  his 
stepmother  Phaedra  with  love  of  him  ;  and  when  he  disdained  her 
wicked  advances  she  falsely  accused  him  to  his  father  Theseus.  The 
slander  was  believed,  and  Theseus  prayed  to  his  sire  Poseidon  to 
avenge  the  imagined  wrong.  So  while  Hippolytus  drove  in  a  chariot 


I 


DIANA  AND  VIRBIUS 


by  the  shore  of  the  Saronic  Gulf,  the  sea-god  sent  a  fierce  bull  forth 
from  the  waves.  The  terrified  horses  bolted,  threw  Hippolytus  from 
the  chariot,  and  dragged  him  at  their  hoofs  to  death.  But  Diana,  for 
the  love  she  bore  Hippolytus,  persuaded  the  leech  Aesculapius  to 
bring  her  fair  young  hunter  back  to  life  by  his  simples.  Jupiter, 
indignant  that  a  mortal  man  should  return  from  the  gates  of  death, 
thrust  down  the  meddling  leech  himself  to  Hades.  But  Diana  hid 
her  favourite  from  the  angry  god  in  a  thick  cloud,  disguised  his  features 
by  adding  years  to  his  life,  and  then  bore  him  far  away  to  the  dells  of 
Nemi,  where  she  entrusted  him  to  the  nymph  Egeria,  to  live  there, 
unknown  and  solitary,  under  the  name  of  Virbius,  in  the  depth  of  the 
Italian  forest.  There  he  reigned  a  king,  and  there  he  dedicated  a 
|  precinct  to  Diana.  He  had  a  comely  son,  Virbius,  who,  undaunted 
!  by  his  father’s  fate,  drove  a  team  of  fiery  steeds  to  join  the  Latins  in 
the  war  against  Aeneas  and  the  Trojans.  Virbius  was  worshipped  as 
a  god  not  only  at  Nemi  but  elsewhere  ;  for  in  Campania  we  hear  of  a 
special  priest  devoted  to  his  service.  Horses  were  excluded  from  the 
i  Arician  grove  and  sanctuary  because  horses  had  killed  Hippolytus. 

:  It  was  unlawful  to  touch  his  image.  Some  thought  that  he  was  the 
sun.  “  But  the  truth  is,”  says  Servius,  “  that  he  is  a  deity  associated 
with  Diana,  as  Attis  is  associated  with  the  Mother  of  the  Gods,  and 
Erichthonius  with  Minerva,  and  Adonis  with  Venus.”  What  the 
nature  of  that  association  was  we  shall  enquire  presently.  Here  it  is 
worth  observing  that  in  his  long  and  chequered  career  this  mythical 
personage  has  displayed  a  remarkable  tenacity  of  life.  For  we  can 
hardly  doubt  that  the  Saint  Hippolytus  of  the  Roman  calendar,  who 
was  dragged  by  horses  to  death  on  the  thirteenth  of  August,  Diana’s 
own  day,  is  no  other  than  the  Greek  hero  of  the  same  name,  who,  after 
dying  twice  over  as  a  heathen  sinner,  has  been  happily  resuscitated 
as  a  Christian  saint. 

It  needs  no  elaborate  demonstration  to  convince  us  that  the  stories" 
told  to  account  for  Diana’s  worship  at  Nemi  are  unhistorical.  Clearly 
they  belong  to  that  large  class  of  myths  which  are  made  up  to  explain 
the  origin  of  a  religious  ritual  and  have  no  other  foundation  than  the 
resemblance,  real  or  imaginary,  which  may  be  traced  between  it  and 
some  foreign  ritual.  The  incongruity  of  these  Nemi  myths  is  indeed 
transparent,  since  the  foundation  of  the  worship  is  traced  now  to 
Orestes  and  now  to  Hippolytus,  according  as  this  or  that  feature  of 
the  ritual  has  to  be  accounted  for.  The  real  value  of  such  tales  is 
that  they  serve  to  illustrate  the  nature  of  the  worship  by  providing  a 
standard  with  which  to  compare  it ;  and  further,  that  they  bear 
[witness  indirectly  to  its  venerable  age  by  showing  that  the  true  origin 
was  lost  in  the  mists  of  a  fabulous  antiquity.  In  the  latter  respect 
these  Nemi  legends  are  probably  more  to  be  trusted  than  the  apparently 
historical  tradition,  vouched  for  by  Cato  the  Elder,  that  the  sacred 
grove  was  dedicated  to  Diana  by  a  certain  Egerius  Baebius  or  Laevius 
of  Tusculum,  a  Latin  dictator,  on  behalf  of  the  peoples  of  Tusculum, 
'Aricia,  Lanuvium,  Laurentum,  Cora,  Tibur,  Pometia,  and  Ardea. 


6 


THE  KING  OF  THE  WOOD 


CH. 


This  tradition  indeed  speaks  for  the  great  age  of  the  sanctuary,  since 
it  seems  to  date  its  foundation  sometime  before  495  b.c.,  the  year  in 
which  Pometia  was  sacked  by  the  Romans  and  disappears  from  history. 
But  we  cannot  suppose  that  so  barbarous  a  rule  as  that  of  the  Arician 
priesthood  was  deliberately  instituted  by  a  league  of  civilised  com¬ 
munities,  such  as  the  Latin  cities  undoubtedly  were.  It  must  have 
been  handed  down  from  a  time  beyond  the  memory  of  man,  when 
Italy  was  still  in  a  far  ruder  state  than  any  known  to  us  in  the  historical 
period.  The  credit  of  the  tradition  is  rather  shaken  than  confirmed 
by  another  story  which  ascribes  the  foundation  of  the  sanctuary  to  a 
certain  Manius  Egerius,  who  gave  rise  to  the  saying,  “  There  are  many 
Manii  at  Aricia.”  This  proverb  some  explained  by  alleging  that 
Manius  Egerius  was  the  ancestor  of  a  long  and  distinguished  line, 
whereas  others  thought  it  meant  that  there  were  many  ugly  and 
deformed  people  at  Aricia,  and  they  derived  the  name  Manius  from 
Mania,  a  bogy  or  bugbear  to  frighten  children.  A  Roman  satirist 
uses  the  name  Manius  as  typical  of  the  beggars  who  lay  in  wait  for 
pilgrims  on  the  Arician  slopes.  These  differences  of  opinion,  together 
with  the  discrepancy  between  Manius  Egerius  of  Aricia  and  Egerius 
Laevius  of  Tusculum,  as  well  as  the  resemblance  of  both  names  to  the 
mythical  Egeria,  excite  our  suspicion.  Yet  the  tradition  recorded 
by  Cato  seems  too  circumstantial,  and  its  sponsor  too  respectable,  to 
allow  us  to  dismiss  it  as  an  idle  fiction.  Rather  we  may  suppose  that 
it  refers  to  some  ancient  restoration  or  reconstruction  of  the  sanctuary, 
which  was  actually  carried  out  by  the.  confederate  states.  At  any 
rate  it  testifies  to  a  belief  that  the  grove  had  been  from  early  times  a 
common  place  of  worship  for  many  of  the  oldest  cities  of  the  country, 
if  not  for  the  whole  Latin  confederacy. 

§  2.  Artemis  and  Hippolytus. — I  have  said  that  the  Arician  legends  , 
of  Orestes  and  Hippolytus,  though  worthless  as  history,  have  a  certain 
value  in  so  far  as  they  may  help  us  to  understand  the  worship  at  Nemi 
better  by  comparing  it  with  the  ritual  and  myths  of  other  sanctuaries.  5 
We  must  ask  ourselves,  Why  did  the  authors  of  these  legends  pitch  f 
upon  Orestes  and  Hippolytus  in  order  to  explain  Virbius  and  the  { 
King  of  the  Wood  ?  In  regard  to  Orestes,  the  answer  is  obvious. 
He  and  the  image  of  the  Tauric  Diana,  which  could  only  be  appeased  1 
with  human  blood,  were  dragged  in  to  render  intelligible  the  murderous  1 
rule  of  succession  to  the  Arician  priesthood.  In  regard  to  Hippolytus 
the  case  is  not  so  plain.  The  manner  of  his  death  suggests  readily 
enough  a  reason  for  the  exclusion  of  horses  from  the  grove  ;  but  this 
by  itself  seems  hardly  enough  to  account  for  the  identification.  We 
must  try  to  probe  deeper  by  examining  the  worship  as  well  as  the 
legend  or  myth  of  Hippolytus. 

He  had  a  famous  sanctuary  at  his  ancestral  home  of  Troez er-' 
situated  on  that  beautiful,  almost  landlocked  bay,  where  groves  <ie 
oranges  and  lemons,  with  tall  cypresses  soaring  like  dark  spires  abon(^ 
the  garden  of  the  Hesperides,  now  clothe  the  strip  of  fertile  shore  dd- 1 
the  foot  of  the  rugged  mountains.  Across  the  blue  water  of  ther 


I 


ARTEMIS  AND  HIPPOLYTUS 


tranquil  bay,  which  it  shelters  from  the  open  sea,  rises  Poseidon's 
sacred  island,  its  peaks  veiled  in  the  sombre  green  of  the  pines.  On 
this  fair  coast  Hippolytus  was  worshipped.  Within  his  sanctuary 
stood  a  temple  with  an  ancient  image.  His  service  was  performed 
by  a  priest  who  held  office  for  life  :  every  year  a  sacrificial  festival 
was  held  in  his  honour  ;  and  his  untimely  fate  was  yearly  mourned, 
with  weeping  and  doleful  chants,  by  unwedded  maids.  Youths  and 
maidens  dedicated  locks  of  their  hair  in  his  temple  before  marriage. 
His  grave  existed  at  Troezen,  though  the  people  would  not  show  it. 
It  has  been  suggested,  with  great  plausibility,  that  in  the  handsome 
Hippolytus,  beloved  of  Artemis,  cut  off  in  his  youthful  prime,  and 
yearly  mourned  by  damsels,  we  have  one  of  those  mortal  lovers  of 
a  goddess  who  appear  so  often  in  ancient  religion,  and  of  whom  Adonis 
is  the  most  familiar  type.  The  rivalry  of  Artemis  and  Phaedra  for 
the  affection  of  Hippolytus  reproduces,  it  is  said,  under  different 
names,  the  rivalry  of  Aphrodite  and  Proserpine  for  the  love  of  Adonis, 
for  Phaedra  is  merely  a  double  of  Aphrodite.  The  theory  probably 
does  no  injustice  either  to  Hippolytus  or  to  Artemis.  For  Artemis  was 
originally  a  great  goddess  of  fertility,  and,  on  the  principles  of  early 
religion,  she  who  fertilises  nature  must  herself  be  fertile,  and  to  be  that 
she  must  necessarily  have  a  male  consort.  On  this  view,  Hippolytus  was 
the  consort  of  Artemis  at  Troezen,  and  the  shorn  tresses  offered  to  him 
by  the  Troezenian  youths  and  maidens  before  marriage  were  designed 
to  strengthen  his  union  with  the  goddess,  and  so  to  promote  the  fruit¬ 
fulness  of  the  earth,  of  cattle,  and  of  mankind.  It  is  some  confirma¬ 
tion  of  this  view  that  within  the  precinct  of  Hippolytus  at  Troezen 
there  were  worshipped  two  female  powers  named  Damia  and  Auxesia, 
whose  connexion  with  the  fertility  of  the  ground  is  unquestionable. 
When  Epidaurus  suffered  from  a  dearth,  the  people,  in  obedience  to 
I  an  oracle,  carved  images  of  Damia  and  Auxesia  out  of  sacred  olive- 
wood,  and  no  sooner  had  they  done  so  and  set  them  up  than  the  earth 
bore  fruit  again.  Moreover,  at  Troezen  itself,  and  apparently  within 
the  precinct  of  Hippolytus,  a  curious  festival  of  stone-throwing  was 
held  in  honour  of  these  maidens,  as  the  Troezenians  called  them  ; 
and  it  is  easy  to  show  that  similar  customs  have  been  practised  in 
many  lands  for  the  express  purpose  of  ensuring  good  crops.  In  the 
story  of  the  tragic  death  of  the  youthful  Hippolytus  we  may  discern 
an  analogy  with  similar  tales  of  other  fair  but  mortal  youths  who  paid 
with  their  lives  for  the  brief  rapture  of  the  love  of  an  immortal  goddess. 
These  hapless  lovers  were  probably  not  always  mere  myths,  and  the 
legends  which  traced  their  spilt  blood  in  the  purple  bloom  of  the  violet, 
the  scarlet  stain  of  the  anemone,  or  the  crimson  flush  of  the  rose  were 
no  idle  poetic  emblems  of  youth  and  beauty  fleeting  as  the  summer 
flowers.  Such  fables  contain  a  deeper  philosophy  of  the  relation  of 
the  life  of  man  to  the  life  of  nature — a  sad  philosophy  which  gave 
birth  to  a  tragic  practice.  What  that  philosophy  and  that  practice 
\vere,  we  shall  learn  later  on. 

.  j  §  3.  Recapitulation. — We  can  now  perhaps  understand  why  the 


8 


THE  KING  OF  THE  WOOD 


CH. 


l/ 


ancients  identified  Hippolytus,  the  consort  of  Artemis,  with  Virbius,' 
who,  according  to  Servius,  stood  to  Diana  as  Adonis  to  Venus,  on 
Attis  to  the  Mother  of  the  Gods.  For  Diana,  like  Artemis,  was  a) 
goddess  of  fertility  in  general,  and  of  childbirth  in  particular.  As 
such  she,  like  her  Greek  counterpart,  needed  a  male  partner.  That 
partner,  if  Servius  is  right,  was  Virbius.  In  his  character  of  the 
founder  of  the  sacred  grove  and  first  king  of  Nemi,  Virbius  is  clearly 
the  mythical  predecessor  or  archetype  of  the  line  of  priests  who  served 
Diana  under  the  title  of  Kings  of  the  Wood,  and  who  came,  like  him, 
one  after  the  other,  to  a  violent  end.  It  is  natural,  therefore,  tc 
conjecture  that  they  stood  to  the  goddess  of  the  grove  in  the  same  ' 
relation  in  which  Virbius  stood  to  her  ;  in  short,  that  the  mortal  Kin£  < 
of  the  Wood  had  for  his  queen  the  woodland  Diana  herself.  If  the 
sacred  tree  which  he  guarded  with  his  life  was  supposed,  as  seems  ‘ 
probable,  to  be  her  special  embodiment,  her  priest  may  not  only  have! 
worshipped  it  as  his  goddess  but  embraced  it  as  his  wife.  There  is 
at  least  nothing  absurd  in  the  supposition,  since  even  in  the  time  o^ 
Pliny  a  noble  Roman  used  thus  to  treat  a  beautiful  beech-tree  ii1^ 
another  sacred  grove  of  Diana  on  the  Alban  hills.  He  embraced  it 
he  kissed  it,  he  lay  under  its  shadow,  he  poured  wine  on  its  trunks 
Apparently  he  took  the  tree  for  the  goddess.  The  custom  of  physic1* 
ally  marrying  men  and  women  to  trees  is  still  practised  in  India  an(* 
other  parts  of  the  East.  Why  should  it  not  have  obtained  in  ancient 
Latium  ? 

Reviewing  the  evidence  as  a  whole,  we  may  conclude  that  th^ 
worship  of  Diana  in  her  sacred  grove  at  Nemi  was  of  great  importance 
and  immemorial  antiquity;  that  sjie  was  revered  as_the  goddess  oft 
woodlands  and  of  wild  creatures,  probably  also  of  Homsstic-cattl* 
andot  the  fruits  of  the  earth~thatshy_was  belie  vedJXL.bless  men  and 
women  with  offspring  and  to  aid  mothers  in  childbed  ;  that  her  holj 
fire,  tended  by  chaste  virgins,  burned  perpetuallyln  a  round  tempi  i 
within  the  precinct ;  that  associated  with  her  was  a  water-nymp]! 
Egeria  who  discharged  one  of  Diana’s  own  functions  by  succourin' 
women  in  travail,  and  who  was  popularly  supposed  to  have  mate<> 
with  an  old  Roman  king  in  the  sacred  grove  ;  further,  that  Diana  c 
the  Wood  herself  had  a  male  companion  Virbius  by  name,  who  wa- 
to  her  what  Adonis  was  to  Venus,  or  Attis  to  Cybeje  ;  and,  lastly 
that  this  mythical  Virbius  was  represented  in  historical  times  by  ! 
line  of  priests  known,  as  Kings  of  the.. Wood,  who  regularly  perishe< 
by  the  swords  of  their  successors,  and  whose  lives  were  in  a  manned 
bound  up  with  a  certain  free  in  tEej^rove.  because  so  long  as  tha' 
tree  jvas  unhijured^they  were  safe  from  affack. 

Clearly  these  cbncTusibns~do  not  of  themselves  suffice  to  explain 
the  peculiar  rule  of  succession  to  the  priesthood.  But  perhaps  th 
survey  of  a  wider  field  may  lead  us  to  think  that  they  contain  in  geri 
the  solution  of  the  problem.  To  that  wider  survey  we  must  no^ 
address  ourselves.  It  will  be  long  and  laborious,  but  may  posses 
something  of  the  interest  and  charm  of  a  voyage  of  discovery,  in  whic 


[ 


PRIESTLY  KINGS 


9 


le  shall  visit  many  strange  foreign  lands,  with  strange  foreign  peoples, 
nd  still  stranger  customs.  The  wind  is  in  the  shrouds  :  we  shake 
ut  our  sails  to  it,  and  leave  the  coast  of  Italy  behind  us  for  a  time. 


CHAPTER  II 

PRIESTLY  KINGS 

]he  questions  which  we  have  set  ourselves  to  answer  are  mainly 
t,vo  :  first,  why  had  Diana’s  priest  at  Nemi,  the  King  of  the  Wood, 
o  slay  his  predecessor  ?  second,  why  before  doing  so  had  he  to  pluck 
he  branch  of  a  certain  tree  which  the  public  opinion  of  the  ancients 
dentified  with  Virgil’s  Golden  Bough  ? 

The  first  point  on  which  we  fasten  is  the  priest’s  title.  Why  was 
Le  called  the  King  of  the  Wood  ?  Why  was  his  office  spoken  of  as  a 
dngdom  ? 

The  union  of  a  royal  title  with  priestly  duties  was  common  in 
indent  Italy  and  Greece.  At  Rome  and  in  other  cities  of  Latium 
here  was  a  priest  called  the  Sacrificial  King  or  King  of  the  Sacred 
dtes,  and  his  wife  bore  the  title  of  Queen  of  the  Sacred  Rites.  In 
epublican  Athens  the  second  annual  magistrate  of  the  state  was  called 
he  King,  and  his  wife  the  Queen  ;  the  functions  of  both  were  religious, 
dany  other  Greek  democracies  had  titular  kings,  whose  duties,  so  far  as 
:hey  are  known,  seem  to  have  been  priestly,  and  to  have  centred  round 
:he  Common  Hearth  of  the  state.  Some  Greek  states  had  several 
)f  these  titular  kings,  who  held  office  simultaneously.  At  Rome  the 
;radition  was  that  the  Sacrificial  King  had  been  appointed  after  the 
ibolition  of  the  monarchy  in  order  to  offer  the  sacrifices  which  before 
lad  been  offered  by  the  kings.  A  similar  view  as  to  the  origin  of 
:he  priestly  kings  appears  to  have  prevailed  in  Greece.  In  itself 
:he  opinion  is  not  improbable,  and  it  is  borne  out  by  the  example 
)f  Sparta,  almost  the  only  purely  Greek  state  which  retained  the 
singly  form  of  government  in  historical  times.  For  in  Sparta  all 
state  sacrifices  were  offered  by  the  kings  as  descendants  of  the  god. 
One  of  the  two  Spartan  kings  held  the  priesthood  of  Zeus  Lacedaemon, 
the  other  the  priesthood  of  Heavenly  Zeus. 

This  combination  of  priestly  functions  with  royal  authority  is 
familiar  to  every  one.  Asia  Minor,  for  example,  was  the  seat  of 
various  great  religious  capitals  peopled  by  thousands  of  sacred  slaves, 
ind  ruled  by  pontiffs  who  wielded  at  once  temporal  and  spiritual 
authority,  like  the  popes  of  mediaeval  Rome.  Such  priest-ridden 
ities  were  Zela  and  Pessinus.  Teutonic  kings,  again,  in  the  old 
leathen  days  seem  to  have  stood  in  the  position,  and  to  have  exercised 
he  powers,  of  high  priests.  The  Emperors  of  China  offered  public 
sacrifices,  the  details  of  which  were  regulated  by  the  ritual  books. 
The  King  of  Madagascar  was  high-priest  of  the  realm.  At  the  great 


10 


PRIESTLY  KINGS 


CE 

festival  of  the  new  year,  when  a  bullock  was  sacrificed  for  the  gooc 
of  the  kingdom,  the  king  stood  over  the  sacrifice  to  offer  prayer  ana 
thanksgiving,  while  his  attendants  slaughtered  the  animal.  In  the 
monarchical  states  which  still  maintain  their  independence  among  the 
Gallas  of  Eastern  Africa,  the  king  sacrifices  on  the  mountain  tops  an<^ 
regulates  the  immolation  of  human  victims  ;  and  the  dim  light  <  c 
tradition  reveals  a  similar  union  of  temporal  and  spiritual  power, 
royal  and  priestly  duties,  in  the  kings  of  that  delightful  region  j 
Central  America  whose  ancient  capital,  now  buried  under  the  rani 
growth  of  the  tropical  forest,  is  marked  by  the  stately  and  mysterioa 
ruins  of  Palenque. 

When  we  have  said  that  the  ancient  kings  were  commonly  priesb 
also,  we  are  far  from  having  exhausted  the  religious  aspect  of  their 
office.  In  those  days  the  divinity  that  hedges  a  king  was  no  empty 
fon*  of  speech,  but  the  expression  of  a  sober  belief.  Kings  were 
revered,  in  many  cases  not  merely  as  priests,  that  is,  as  intercessors 
between  man  and  god,  but  as  themselves  gods,  able  to  bestow  upon 
their  subjects  and  worshippers  those  blessings  which  are  commonly 
supposed  to  be  beyond  the  reach  of  mortals,  and  are  sought,  if  at  all,  j 
only  by  prayer  and  sacrifice  offered  to  superhuman  and  invisible  (< 
beings.  Thus  kings  are  often  expected  to  give  rain  and  sunshine  in 
due  season,  to  make  the  crops  grow,  and  so  on.  Strange  as  this 
expectation  appears  to  us,  it  is  quite  of  a  piece  with  early  modes  of 
thought. \  A  savage  hardly  conceives  the  distinction  commonly  drawn  \ 
by  more  advanced  peoples  between  the  natural  and  the  supernatural,  j 
To  him  the  world  is  to  a  great  extent  worked  by  supernatural  agents, 
that  is,  by  personal  beings  acting  on  impulses  and  motives  like  his 
own,  liable  like  him  to  be  moved  by  appeals  to  their  pity,  their  hopes, 
and  their  fears.  In  a  world  so  conceived  he  sees  no  limit  to  his  power 
of  influencing  the  course  of  nature  to  his  own  advantage.  Prayers, 
promises,  or  threats  may  secure  him  fine  weather  and  an  abundant 
crop  from  the  gods  ;  and  if  a  god  should  happen,  as  he  sometimes  \ 
believes,  to  become  incarnate  in  his  own  person,  then  he  need  appeal  j 
to  no  higher  being  ;  he,  the  savage,  possesses  in  himself  all  the  powers 
necessary  to  further  his  own  well-being  and  th*c  of  his  fellow-men. 

This  is  one  way  in  which  the  idea  of  a  man-god  is  reached.  But 
there  is  another.  Along  with  the  view  of  the  world  as  pervaded  by 
spiritual  forces,  savage  man  has  a  different,  and  probably  still  older, 
conception  in  which  we  may  detect  a  germ  of  the  modern  notion  of 
natural  law  or  the  view  of  nature  as  a  series  of  events  occurring  in  an 
invariable  order  without  the  intervention  of  personal  agency.  The 
germ  of  which  I  speak  is  involved  in  that  sympathetic  magic,  as  it  may  j 
be  called,  which  plays  a  large  part  in  most  systems  of  superstition.  \ 
In  early  society  the  king  is  frequently  a  magician  as  well  as  a  priest  C 
indeed  he  appears  to  have  often  attained  to  power  by  virtue  of  hii 
supposed  proficiency  in  the  black  or  white  art.  Hence  in  order  tcL 
understand  the  evolution  of  the  kingship  and  the  sacred  character! 
with  which  the  office  has  commonly  been  invested  in  the  eyes  of  savagei 


' 


Ill 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  MAGIC 


ii 


or  barbarous  peoples,  it  is  essential  to  have  some  acquaintance  with 
the  principles  of  magic  and  to  form  some  conception  of  the  extraordinary 
hold  which  that  ancient  system  of  superstition  has  had  on  the  human 
mind  in  all  ages  and  all  countries.  Accordingly  I  propose  to  consider 
■the  subject  in  some  detail. 


CHAPTER  III 

SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC 

i§  i.  The  Principles  of  Magic. — If  we  analyse  the  principles  of  thought 
ion  which  magic  is  based,  they  will  probably  be  found  to  resolve  th$m- 
iselves  into  two  :  first,  that  like  produces  like,  or  that  an  effect  resembles 
its  cause  ;  and,  second,  that  things  which  have  once  been  in  contact 
with  each  other  continue  to  act  on  each  other  at  a  distance  after  the 
[physical  contact  has  been  severed.  The  former  principle  may  be 
called  the  Law  of  Similarity,  the  latter  the  Law  of  Contact  or  Contagion. 
From  the  first  of  these  principles,  namely  the  Law  of  Similarity,  the 
magician  infers  that  he  can  produce  any  effect  he  desires  merely  by 
imitating  it  :  from  the  second  he  infers  that  whatever  he  does  to  a 
material  object  will  affect  equally  the  person  with  whom  the  object  was 
once  in  contact,  whether  it  formed  part  of  his  body  or  not.  Charms 
based  on  the  Law  of  Similarity  may  be  called  Homoeopathic  or  Imita¬ 
tive  Magic.  Charms  based  on  the  Law  of  Contact  or  Contagion  may 
be  called  Contagious  Magic.  To  denote  the  first  of  these  branches  of 
magic  the  term  Homoeopathic  is  perhaps  preferable,  for  the  alternative 
term  Imitative  or  Mimetic  suggests,  if  it  does  not  imply,  a  conscious 
agent  who  imitates,  thereby  limiting  the  scope  of  magic  too  narrowly. 
For  the  same  principles  which  the  magician  applies  in  the  practice  of 
his  art  are  implicitly  believed  by  him  to  regulate  the  operations  of 
inanimate  nature  ;  in  other  words,  he  tacitly  assumes  that  the  Laws 
of  Similarity  and  Contact  are  of  universal  application  and  are  not 
limited  to  human  actions.  In  short,  magic  is  a  spurious  system  of 
natural  law  as  well  as  a  fallacious  guide  of  conduct ;  it  is  a  false  science 
as  well  as  an  abortive  art.  Regarded  as  a  system  of  natural  law,  that 
is,  as  a  statement  of  the  rules  which  determine  the  sequence  of  events 
throughout  the  world,  it  may  be  called  Theoretical  Magic  :  regarded 
as  a  set  of  precepts  which  human  beings  observe  in  order  to  compass 
their  ends,  it  may  be  called  Practical  Magic.  At  the  same  time  it  is 
to  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  primitive  magician  knows  magic  only  on 
its  practical  side  ;  he  never  analyses  the  mental  processes  on  which 
his  practice  is  based,  never  reflects  on  the  abstract  principles  involved 
in  his  actions.  With  him,  as  with  the  vast  majority  of  men,  logic  is 
i  implicit,  not  explicit :  he  reasons  just  as  he  digests  his  food  in  complete 
ignorance  of  the  intellectual  and  physiological  processes  which  are 
essential  to  the  one  operation  and  to  the  other.  In  short,  to  him 


12 


SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC 


CH. 


magic  is  always  an  art,  never  a  science  ;  the  very  idea  of  science  is 
lacking  in  his  undeveloped  mind.  It  is  for  the  philosophic  student 
to  trace  the  train  of  thought  which  underlies  the  magician’s  practice  ; 
to  draw  out  the  few  simple  threads  of  which  the  tangled  skein  is  com¬ 
posed  ;  to  disengage  the  abstract  principles  from  their  concrete 
applications  ;  in  short,  to  discern  the  spurious  science  behind  the 
bastard  art. 

If  my  analysis  of  the  magician’s  logic  is  correct,  its  two  great 
principles  turn  out  to  be  merely  two  different  misapplications  of 
the  association  of  ideas.  Homoeopathic  magic  is  founded  on  the 
association  of  ideas  by  similarity  :  contagious  magic  is  founded  on  the 
association  of  ideas  by  contiguity.  Homoeopathic  magic  commits 
the  mistake  of  assuming  that  things  which  resemble  each  other  are  the 
same  :  contagious  magic  commits  the  mistake  of  assuming  that  things 
which  have  once  been  in  contact  with  each  other  are  always  in  contact. 
But  in  practice  the  two  branches  are  often  combined  ;  or,  to  be  more 
exact,  while  homoeopathic  or  imitative  magic  may  be  practised  by 
itself,  contagious  magic  will  generally  be  found  to  involve  an  application 
of  the  homoeopathic  or  imitative  principle.  Thus  generally  stated 
the  two  things  may  be  a  little  difficult  to  grasp,  but  they  will  readily 
become  intelligible  when  they  are  illustrated  by  particular  examples. 
Both  trains  of  thought  are  in  fact  extremely  simple  and  elementary. 
It  could  hardly  be  otherwise,  since  they  are  familiar  in  the  concrete, 
though  certainly  not  in  the  abstract,  to  the  crude  intelligence  not  only 
of  the  savage,  but  of  ignorant  and  dull-witted  people  everywhere. 
Both  branches  of  magic,  the  homoeopathic  and  the  contagious,  may 
conveniently  be  comprehended  under  the  general  name  of  Sympathetic 
Magic,  since  both  assume  that  things  act  on  each  other  at  a  distance 
through  a  secret  sympathy,  the  impulse  being  transmitted  from  one 
to  the  other  by  means  of  what  we  may  conceive  as  a  kind  of  invisible 
ether,  not  unlike  that  which  is  postulated  by  modern  science  for  a 
precisely  similar  purpose,  namely,  to  explain  how  things  can  physically, 
affect  each  other  through  a  space  which  appears  to  be  empty. 

It  may  be  convenient  to  tabulate  as  follows  the  branches  of  magic 
according  to  the  laws  of  thought  which  underlie  them  : 


Sympathetic  Magic 
( 'Law  of  Sympathy ) 


Contagious  Magic 
[Law  of  Contact ) 


Homoeopathic  Magic 
[Law  of  Similarity) 


I  will  now  illustrate  these  two  great  branches  of  sympathetic  magic 
by  examples,  beginning  with  homoeopathic  magic. 

§  2.  Homoeopathic  or  Imitative  Magic. — Perhaps  the  most  familiar 
application  of  the  principle  that  like  produces  like  is  the  attempt  which 
has  been  made  by  many  peoples  in  many  ages,  to  injure  or  destroy 
an  enemy  by  injuring  or  destroying  an  image  of  him,  in  the  belief  that, 
just  as  the  image  suffers,  so  does  the  man,  and  that  when  it  perishes 


Ill 


HOMOEOPATHIC  OR  IMITATIVE  MAGIC 


13 


he  must  die.  A  few  instances  out  of  many  may  be  given  to  prove  at 
once  the  wide  diffusion  of  the  practice  over  the  world  and  its  remark- 
lable  persistence  through  the  ages.  For  thousands  of  years  ago  it  was 
known  to  the  sorcerers  of  ancient  India,  Babylon,  and  Egypt,  as  well 
as  of  Greece  and  Rome,  and  at  this  day  it  is  still  resorted  to  by  cunning 
,and  malignant  savages  in  Australia,  Africa,  and  Scotland.  Thus  the 
North  American  Indians,  we  are  told,  believe  that  by  drawing  the 
figure  of  a  person  in  sand,  ashes,  or  clay,  or  by  considering  any  object 
as  his  body,  and  then  pricking  it  with  a  sharp  stick  or  doing  it  any 
! other  injury,  they  inflict  a  corresponding  injury  on  the  person  repre¬ 
sented.  For  example,  when  an  Ojebway  Indian  desires  to  work  evil 
on  any  one,  he  makes  a  little  wooden  image  of  his  enemy  and  runs  a 
needle  into  its  head  or  heart,  or  he  shoots  an  arrow  into  it,  believing 
(that  wherever  the  needle  pierces  or  the  arrow  strikes  the  image,  his 
foe  will  the  same  instant  be  seized  with  a  sharp  pain  in  the  correspond¬ 
ing  part  of  his  body ;  but  if  he  intends  to  kill  the  person  outright,  he 
I  burns  or  buries  the  puppet,  uttering  certain  magic  words  as  he  does 
so.  The  Peruvian  Indians  moulded  images  of  fat  mixed  with  grain  to 
hfiitate  the  persons  whom  they  disliked  or  feared,  and  then  burned  the 
effigy  on  the  road  where  the  intended  victim  was  to  pass.  This  they 
!  called  burning  his  soul. 

A  Malay  charm  of  the  same  sort  is  as  follows.  Take  parings  of 
nails,  hair,  eyebrows,  spittle,  and  so  forth  of  your  intended  victim, 
[enough  to  represent  every  part  of  his  person,  and  then  make  them 
up  into  his  likeness  with  wax  from  a  deserted  bees’  comb.  Scorch 
the  figure  slowly  by  holding  it  over  a  lamp  every  night  for  seven  nights, 
and  say  : 

“  It  is  not  wax  that  I  am  scorching, 

It  is  the  liver,  heart,  and  spleen  of  So-and-so  that  I  scorch.” 

After  the  seventh  time  burn  the  figure,  and  your  victim  will  die. 
This  charm  obviously  combines  the  principles  of  homoeopathic  and 
contagious  magic  ;  since  the  image  which  is  made  in  the  likeness  of 
an  enemy  contains  things  which  once  were  in  contact  with  him,  namely, 
his  nails,  hair,  and  spittle.  Another  form  of  the  Malay  charm,  which 
resembles  the  Ojebway  practice  still  more  closely,  is  to  make  a  corpse 
of  wax  from  an  empty  bees’  comb  and  of  the  length  of  a  footstep  ; 
then  pierce  the  eye  of  the  image,  and  your  enemy  is  blind  ;  pierce  the 
stomach,  and  he  is  sick  ;  pierce  the  head,  and  his  head  aches  ;  pierce 
the  breast,  and  his  breast  will  suffer.  If  you  would  kill  him  outright, 
transfix  the  image  from  the  head  downwards  ;  enshroud  it  as  you 
would  a  corpse  ;  pray  over  it  as  if  you  were  praying  over  the  dead  ; 
then  bury  it  in  the  middle  of  a  path  where  your  victim  will  be  sure  to 
step  over  it.  In  order  that  his  blood  may  not  be  on  your  head,  you 
should  say  : 

“  It  is  not  I  who  am  burying  him, 

It  is  Gabriel  who  is  burying  him.” 

Thus  the  guilt  of  the  murder  will  be  laid  on  the  shoulders  of  the  arch¬ 
angel  Gabriel,  who  is  a  great  deal  better  able  to  bear  it  than  you  are. 


I4  SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC  ch. 

If  homoeopathic  or  imitative  magic,  working  by  means  of  images, 
has  commonly  been  practised  for  the  spiteful  purpose  of  putting 
obnoxious  people  out  of  the  world,  it  has  also,  though  far  more  rarely, 
been  employed  with  the  benevolent  intention  of  helping  others  into 
it.  In  other  words,  it  has  been  used  to  facilitate  childbirth  and  to 
procure  offspring  for  barren  women.  Thus  among  the  Bataks  of 
Sumatra  a  barren  woman,  who  would  become  a  mother,  will  make  a 
wooden  image  of  a  child  and  hold  it  in  her  lap,  believing  that  this 
will  lead  to  the  fulfilment  of  her  wish.  In  the  Babar  Archipelago, 
when  a  woman  desires  to  have  a  child,  she  invites  a  man  who  is 
himself  the  father  of  a  large  family  to  pray  on  her  behalf  to  Upulero,  1 
the  spirit  of  the  sun.  A  doll  is  made  of  red  cotton,  which  the  woman  j 
clasps  in  her  arms,  as  if  she  would  suckle  it.  Then  the  fathei  of 
many  children  takes  a  fowl  and  holds  it  by  the  legs  to  the  woman’s 
head,  saying,  "  O  Upulero,  make  use  of  the  fowl ;  let  fall,  let  descend 
a  child,  I  beseech  you,  I  entreat  you,  let  a  child  fall  and  descend 
into  my  hands  and  on  my  lap.”  Then  he  asks  the  woman,  “  Has 
the  child  come  ?  ”  and  she  answers,  “  Yes,  it  is  sucking  already.” 
After  that  the  man  holds  the  fowl  on  the  husband’s  head,  and  mumbles 
some  form  of  words.  Lastly,  the  bird  is  killed  and  laid,  togethei  with 
some  betel,  on  the  domestic  place  of  sacrifice.  When  the  ceremony  is 
over,  word  goes  about  in  the  village  that  the  woman  has  been  brought 
to  bed,  and  her  friends  come  and  congratulate  her.  Here  the  pretence 
that  a' child  has  been  born  is  a  purely  magical  rite  designed  to  secure, 
by  means  of  imitation  or  mimicry,  that  a  child  really  shall  be  born  ; 
but  an  attempt  is  made  to  add  to  the  efficacy  of  the  rite  by  means 
of  prayer  and  sacrifice.  To  put  it  otherwise,  magic  is  here  blent  with 

and  reinforced  by  religion.  .  . 

Among  some  of  the  Dyaks  of  Borneo,  when  a  woman  is  m  hard 

labour,  a  wizard  is  called  in,  who  essays  to  facilitate  the  delivery  in  a* 
rational  manner  by  manipulating  the  body  of  the  sufferer.  Meantime 
another  wizard  outside  the  room  exerts  himself  to  attain  the  same  1 
end  by  means  which  we  should  regard  as  wholly  irrational.  He,  in  1 
fact,  pretends  to  be  the  expectant  mother  ;  a  large  stone  attached  to 
his  stomach  by  a  cloth  wrapt  round  his  body  represents  the  child  in 
the  womb,  and,  following  the  directions  shouted  to  him  by  his  colleague  1 
on  the  real  scene  of  operations,  he  moves  this  make-believe  baby  about 
on  his  body  in  exact  imitation  of  the  movements  of  the  real  baby  till 

the  infant  is  born. 

The  same  principle  of  make-believe,  so  dear  to  children,  has  led 
other  peoples  to  employ  a  simulation  of  birth  as  a  form  of  adoption,1 
and  even  as  a  mode  of  restoring  a  supposed  dead  person  to  life.  If1 
you  pretend  to  give  birth  to  a  boy,  or  even  to  a  great  bearded  manj 
who  has  not  a  drop  of  your  blood  in  his  veins,  then,  in  the  eyes  of 
primitive  law  and  philosophy,  that  boy  or  man  is  really  your  son  to' 
all  intents  and  purposes.  Thus  Diodorus  tells  us  that  when  Zeus 
persuaded  his  jealous  wife  Hera  to  adopt  Hercules,  the  goddess  got, 
into  bed,  and  clasping  the  burly  hero  to  her  bosom,  pushed  him  through! 


II 


HOMOEOPATHIC  OR  IMITATIVE  M 
ler  robes  and  let  him  fall  to  the  ground  in  imitation  ol 

1  .  1  1  •  •  -a-.  .,  . 


iim  through  her  clothes  ;  ever  afterwards  he  is 
on,  and  inherits  the  whole  property  of  his  adoptive 
he  Berawans  of  Sarawak,  when  a  woman  desires 
ip  man  or  woman 
‘he  adopting 
flows  the  adopted 
*.s  soon  as  he 

lossoms  of  the  areca  palm,  and  tied  to  the  woman.  Th_^^ 
lother  and  the  adopted  son  or  daughter,  thus  bound  te|i|l 
3  the  end  of  the  house  and  back  again  in  front  of 


V  : 


Stators. 


'he  tie  established  between  the  two  by  this  gi?tpir^|  iimtation  of 
jhildbirth  is  very  strict ;  an  offence  conimitte^^g^iffs't  mi  adopted 


:  against  a  real 


hild  is  reckoned  more  heinous  than  one 
hild.  In  ancient  Greece  any  man  who  had  J$eeji Supposed  erroneously 
b  be  dead,  and  for  whom  in  his  absence  rites  had  been  per- 

irmed,  was  treated  as  dead  to  society  till  he  rgone  through  the 
)rm  of  being  born  again.  He  was  passed  %jpigh  a  woman's  lap, 
aen  washed,  dressed  in  swaddling-clothes,  -  and  put  out  to  nurse. 
Jot  until  this  ceremony  had  been  .punctually'  performed  might  he 
aix  freely  with  living  folk.  In  ancient  India,  undef  similar  circum- 
ances,  the  supposed  dead  man  had,  to  pass  the  first  night  after  his 
burn  in  a  tub  filled  with  a  mixture  of  fat  and  water ;  there  he  sat 
ith  doubled-up  fists  and  without  uttering  a  syllable,  like  a  child  in 
ie  womb,  while  over  him  were  performed  all  the  sacraments  that 
'rere  wont  to  be  celebrated  over  a  pregnant  woman.  Next  morning 
e  got  out  of  the  tub  and  went  through  once  more  all  the  other  sacra- 
iients  he  had  formerly  partaken  of  from  his  youth  up  ;  in  particular, 
e  married  a  wife  or  espoused  his  old  one  over  again  with  due  solemnity. 

Another  beneficent  use  of  homoeopathic  magic  is  to  heal  or  prevent 
ckness.  The  ancient  Hindoos  performed  an  elaborate  ceremony, 
ased  on  homoeopathic  magic,  for  the  cure  of  jaundice.  Its  main 
ift  was  to  banish  the  yellow  colour  to  yellow  creatures  and  yellow 


lings,  such  as  the  sun,  to  which  it  properly  belongs,  and  to  procure 
>r  the  patient  a  healthy  red  colour  from  a  living,  vigorous  source, 
amely  a  red  bull.  With  this  intention,  a  priest  recited  the  following 
lell :  “  Up  to  the  sun  shall  go  thy  heart-ache  and  thy  jaundice  : 
l  the  colour  of  the  red  bull  do  we  envelop  thee  !  We  envelop  thee 
l  red  tints,  unto  long  life.  May  this  person  go  unscathed  and  be 
ee  of  yellow  colour  !  The  cows  whose  divinity  is  Rohini,  they  who, 
loreover,  are  themselves  red  (rohinih) — in  their  every  form  and 
/ery  strength  we  do  envelop  thee.  Into  the  parrots,  into  the  thrush, 
d  we  put  thy  jaundice,  and,  furthermore,  into  the  yellow  wagtail 
b  we  put  thy  jaundice."  While  he  uttered  these  words,  the  priest, 


SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC 


CH. 


and  giuja 

person 
the  bird  13! 


Le  the  rosy  hue  of  health  into  the  sallow  patient,  gave 
sip  which  was  mixed  with  the  hair  of  a  red  bull  ,  he 
lover  the  animal’s  back  and  made  the  sick  man  drink 
[him  on  the  skin  of  a  red  bull  and  tied  a  piece  of  the 
‘Then  in  order  to  improve  his  colour  by  thoroughly 
■e  yellow  taint,  he  proceeded  thus.  He  first  daubed  him 
/foot  with  a  yellow  porridge  made  of  turmeric  or  curcuma 
rint),  set  him  on  a  bed,  tied  three  yellow  birds,  to  wit  a 
tush,  and  a  yellow  wagtail,  by  means  of  a  yellow  string 
the  bed  ;  then  pouring  water  over  the  patient,  he  washed  | 
porridge,  and  with  it  no  doubt  the  jaundice,  from  him  | 
After  that,  by  way  of  giving  a  final  bloom  to  his  com- 
:  some  hairs  of  a  red  bull,  wrapt  them  m  gold  leaf, 
feio  the  patient’s  skin.  The  ancients  held  that  if  a 
-'from  jaundice  looked  sharply  at  a  stone-curlew,  and 
[.  sal^dik^  at  him,  he  was  cured  of  the  disease.  Such 
**  ~rt  Plutarch,  “and  such  the  temperament  of  the 
jut  and  receives  the  malady  which  issues,  like 
eyesight.”  So  well  recognised  among  bird- 
^Kroperty  of  the  stone-curlew  that  when 
" s  for  sale  they  kept  it  carefully  covered, 
iould  look  at  it  and  be  cured  for  nothing. 


is  the  natur 
creature  that  it 
a  stream,  through 
fanciers  was  this  ^ 
they  had  one  offlB 

lest  a  jaundiced  peh^-p-oxx™.*  —  - .  .  1 

The  virtue  of  the  bircPmy  not  in  its  colour  but  m  its  large  golden  eye, 
which  naturally  drew  out  the  yellow  jaundice.  Pliny  tells  of  another, 
or  perhaps  the  same,  bird,  to  which  the  Greeks  gave  their  name  for 
jaundice,  because  if  a  jaundiced -man  saw  it,  the  disease  left  him  and 
slew  the  bird.  He  mentions  also  a  stone  which  was  supposed  to  cure  ’ 
jaundice  because  its  hue  resembled  that  of  a  jaundiced  skin. 

t)ne  of  She  great  merits  of  homoeopathic  magic  is  that  it  enables 
the  crSeixo  be  performed  on  the  person  of  the  doctor  instead  of. on 
that  of  his  victim,  who  is  thus  relieved  of  all  trouble  and  inconvenience, 
while  he  sees  his  medical  man  writhe  in  anguish  before  him.  For 
example,  the  peasants  of  Perche,  in  France,  labour  under  the  impression 
that  a  prolonged  fit  of  vomiting  is  brought  about  by  the  patient  i 
stomach  becoming  unhooked,  as  they  call  it,  and  so  falling  down. 
Accordingly,  a  practitioner  is  called  in  to  restore  the  organ  to  it# 
proper  place.  After  hearing  the  symptoms  he  at  once  throws  himself 
into  the  most  horrible  contortions,  for  the  purpose  of  unhooking  his: 
own  stomach.  Having  succeeded  in  the  effort,  he  next  hooks  it  up 
again  in  another  series  of  contortions  and  grimaces,  while  the  patient 
experiences  a  corresponding  relief.  Fee  five  francs.  In  like  manner 
a  Dyak  medicine-man,  who  has  been  fetched  in  a  case  of  illness  will 
lie  down  and  pretend  to  be  dead.  He  is  accordingly  treated  like  a 
corpse  is  bound  up  in  mats,  taken  out  of  the  house,  and  deposited  on 
the  ground.  After  about  an  hour  the  other  medicine-men  loose  the 
pretended  dead  man  and  bring  him  to  life  ;  and  as  he  recovers,  the 
sick  person  is  supposed  to  recover  too.  A  cure  f°r  a  tumour,  based 
on  the  principle  of  homoeopathic  magic,  is  prescribed  by  Marcellus 


hi  HOMOEOPATHIC  OR  IMITATIVE  MAGIC  17 

|  of  Bordeaux,  court  physician  to  Theodosius  the  First,  in  his  curious 
work  on  medicine.  It  is  as  follows.  Take  a  root  of  vervain,  cut  it 
across,  and  hang  one  end  of  it  round  the  patient’s  neck,  and  the  other 
in  the  smoke  of  the  fire.  As  the  vervain  dries  up  in  the  smoke,  so 
the  tumour  will  also  dry  up  and  disappear.  If  the  patient  should 
afterwards  prove  ungrateful  to  the  good  physician,  the  man  of  skill 
can  avenge  himself  very  easily  by  throwing  the  vervain  into  water  ) 
for  as  the  loot  absorbs  the  moisture  once  more,  the  tumour  will  return. 
The  same  sapient  writer  recommends  you,  if  you  are  troubled  with 
pimples,  to  watch  for  a  falling  star,  and  then  instantly,  while  the  star 
is  still  shooting  from  the  sky,  to  wipe  the  pimples  with  a  cloth  or 
anything  that  comes  to  hand.  Just  as  the  star  falls  from  the  sky, 
so  the  pimples  will  fall  from  your  body  ;  only  you  must  be  very  careful 

not  to  wipe  them  with  your  bare  hand,  or  the  pimples  will  be  trans¬ 
ferred  to  it. 

Further,,  homoeopathic  and  in  general  sympathetic  magic  plays  a 
great  part  in  the  measures  taken  by  the  rude  hunter  or  fisherman 
to  secure  an  abundant  supply  of  food.  On  the  principle  that  like 
produces  like,  many  things  are  done  by  him  and  his  friends  in  deliberate 
imitation  of  the  result  which  he  seeks  to  attain  ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  many  things  are  scrupulously  avoided  because  they  bear  some 
more  or  less  fanciful  resemblance  to  others  which  would  really  be 
disastrous. 

Nowhere  is  the  theory  of  sympathetic  magic  more  systematically 
carried  into  practice  for  the  maintenance  of  the  food  supply  than  in 
1  the  barren  regions  of  Central  Australia.  Here  the  tribes  are  divided 
into  a  number  of  totem  clans,  each  of  which  is  charged  with  the  duty 
of  multiplying  their  totem  for  the  good  of  the  community  by  means 
of  magical  ceremonies.  Most  of  the  totems  are  edible  animals  and 
plants,  and  . the  general  result  supposed  to  be  accomplished  by  these 
ceremonies  is  that  of  supplying  the  tribe  with  food  and  other  neces¬ 
saries.  Often  the  rites  consist  of  an  imitation  of  the  effect  which  the 
people  desire  to  produce  ;  in  other  words,  their  magic  is  homoeopathic 
or  imitative.  Thus  among  the  Warramunga  the  headman  of  the  white 
cockatoo  totem  seeks  to  multiply  white  cockatoos  by  holding  an  effigy 
of  the  bird  and  mimicking  its  harsh  cry.  Among  the  Arunta  the  men 
of  the  witchetty  grub  totem  perform  ceremonies  for  njLultiplying  the 
grub  which  the  other  members  of  the  tribe  use  as  food.  One  of  the 
ceremonies  is  a  pantomime  representing  the  fully  developed  insect  in 
the  act  of  emerging  from  the  chrysalis.  A  long  narrow  structure  of 
branches  is  set  up  to  imitate  the  chrysalis  case  of  the  grub.  In  this 
structure  a  number  of  men,  who  have  the  grub  for  their  totem,  sit  and 
jsing  of  the  creature  in  its  various  stages.  Then  they  shuffle  out  of  it  in 
a  squatting  posture,  and  as  they  do  so  they  sing  of  the  insect  emerging 
Ifrom  the  chrysalis.  This  is  supposed  to  multiply  the  numbers  of  the 
Igru.bs.  Again,  in  order  to  multiply  emus,  which  are  an  important 
[article  of  food,  the  men  of  the  emu  totem  paint  on  the  ground  the 
sacred  design  of  their  totem,  especially  the  parts  of  the  emu  which 


jS  SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC  CH. 

they  like  best  to  eat,  namely,  the  fat  and  the  eggs.  Round  this 
painting  the  men  sit  and  sing.  Afterwards,  performers,  wearing  head¬ 
dresses  to  represent  the  long  neck  and  small  head  of  the  emu,  mimic 
the  appearance  of  the  bird  as  it  stands  aimlessly  peering  about  m  all 

directions.  1 

The  Indians  of  British  Columbia  live  largely  upon  the  fish  which 

abound  in  their  seas  and  rivers.  If  the  fish  do  not  come  in  due  season, 
and  the  Indians  are  hungry,  a  Nootka  wizard  will  make  an  image  of  aj 
swimming  fish  and  put  it  into  the  water  in  the  direction  from  which 
the  fish  generally  appear.  This  ceremony,  accompanied  by  a  prayer  j 
to  the  fish  to  come,  will  cause  them  to  arrive  at  once.  The  islanders 
of  Torres  Straits  use  models  of  dugong  and  turtles  to  charm  dugong 
and  turtle  to  their  destruction.  The  Toradjas  of  Central  Celebes 
believe  that  things  of  the  same  sort  attract  each  other  by  means  of 
their  indwelling  spirits  or  vital  ether.  Hence  they  hang  up  the  jaw¬ 
bones  of  deer  and  wild  pigs  in  their  houses,  in  order  that  the  spirits 
which  animate  these  bones  may  draw  the  living  creatures  of  the  same 
kind  into  the  path  of  the  hunter.  In  the  island  of  Nias,  when  a  wild 
pig  has  fallen  into  the  pit  prepared  for  it,  the  animal  is  taken  out  and 
its  back  is  rubbed  with  nine  fallen  leaves,  in  the  belief  that  this  will 
make  nine  more  wild  pigs  fall  into  the  pit,  just  as  the  nine  leaves  fell 
from  the  tree.  In  the  East  Indian  islands  of  Saparoea,  Harockoe, 
and  Noessa  Laut,  when  a  fisherman  is  about  to  set  a  trap  for  fish  in  the 
sea,  he  looks  out  for  a  tree,  of  which  the  fruit  has  been  much  pecked 
at  by  birds.  From  such  a  tree  he  cuts  a  stout  branch  and  makes  of  it 
the  principal  post  in  his  fish-trap  ;  for  he  believes  that,  just  as  the  tree 
lured  many  birds  to  its  fruit,  so  the  branch  cut  from  that  tree  will  lure 
many  fish  to  the  trap. 

The  western  tribes  of  British  New  Guinea  employ  a  charm  to  aid 
the  hunter  in  spearing  dugong  or  turtle.  A  small  beetle,  which  haunts 
coco-nut  trees,  is  placed  in  the  hole  of  the  spear-haft  into  which  the 
spear-head  fits.  This  is  supposed  to  make  the  speai-head  stick  fast 
in  the  dugong  or  turtle,  just  as  the  beetle  sticks  fast  to  a  man  s  skir 
when  it  bites  him.  When  a  Cambodian  hunter  has  set  his  nets  anc 
taken  nothing,  he  strips  himself  naked,  goes  some  way  off,  then  strolls 
up  to  the  net  as  if  he  did  not  see  it,  lets  himself  be  caught  in  it,  and  I 
cries,  “  Hillo  !  what's  this  ?  I  m  afraid  I  m  caught.  After  that  thej 
net  is  sure  to  catch  game.  A  pantomime  of  the  same  sort  has  beeiii! 
acted  within  living  memory  in  our  Scottish  Highlands,  Ihe  Revj 
James  Macdonald,  now  of  Reay  in  Caithness,  tells  us  that  in  his  boy-j 
hood  when  he  was  fishing  with  companions  about  Loch  Aline  and  they! 
had  had  no  bites  for  a  long  time,  they  used  to  make  a  pretence  o. 
throwing  one  of  their  fellows  overboard  and  hauling  him  out  of  th( 
water,  as  if  he  were  a  fish  ;  after  that  the  trout  or  silloch  would  begin 
to  nibble,  according  as  the  boat  was  on  fresh  or  salt  water.  Before 
a  Carrier  Indian  goes  out  to  snare  martens,  he  sleeps  by  himself  foi 
about  ten  nights  beside  the  fire  with  a  little  stick  pressed  down  on  his 
neck.  This  naturally  causes  the  fall-stick  of  his  trap  to  drop  down 


hi  HOMOEOPATHIC  OR  IMITATIVE  MAGIC  19 

on  the  neck  of  the  marten.  Among  the  Galelareese,  who  inhabit  a 
district  in  the  northern  part  of  Halmahera,  a  large  island  to  the  west 
of  New  Guinea,  it  is  a  maxim  that  when  you  are  loading  your  gun  to 
go  out  shooting,  you  should  always  put  the  bullet  in  your  mouth  before 
you  insert  it  in  the  gun  ;  for  by  so  doing  you  practically  eat  the  game 
that  is  to  be  hit  by  the  bullet,  which  therefore  cannot  possibly  miss 
the  mark.  A  Malay  who  has  baited  a  trap  for  crocodiles,  and  is 
awaiting  results,  is  careful  in  eating  his  curry  always  to  begin  by 
swallowing  three  lumps  of  rice  successively  ;  for  this  helps  the  bait  to 
slide  more  easily  down  the  crocodile’s  throat.  He  is  equally  scrupulous 
not  to  take  any  bones  out  of  his  curry  ;  for,  if  he  did,  it  seems  clear 
that  the  sharp-pointed  stick  on  which  the  bait  is  skewered  would 
similarly  work  itself  loose,  and  the  crocodile  would  get  off  with  the 
bait.  Hence  in  these  circumstances  it  is  prudent  for  the  hunter, 
before  he  begins  his  meal,  to  get  somebody  else  to  take  the  bones  out 
of  his  curry,  otherwise  he  may  at  any  moment  have  to  choose  between 
swallowing  a  bone  and  losing  the  crocodile. 

This  last  rule  is  an  instance  of  the  things  which  the  hunter  abstains 
from  doing  lest,  on  the  principle  that  like  produces  like,  they  should 
spoil  his  luck.  For  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  system  of  sympathetic 
magic  is  not  merely  composed  of  positive  precepts  ;  it  comprises  a 
very  large  number  of  negative  precepts,  that  is,  prohibitions.  It  tells 
you  not  merely  what  to  do,  but  also  what  to  leave  undone.  The 
positive  precepts  are  charms  :  the  negative  precepts  are  taboos.  In 
fact  the  whole  doctrine  of  taboo,  or  at  all  events  a  large  part  of  it, 
would  seem  to  be  only  a  special  application  of  sympathetic  magic, 
with  its  two  great  laws  of  similarity  and  contact.  Though  these  laws 
are  certainly  not  formulated  in  so  many  words  nor  even  conceived  in 
the  abstract  by  the  savage,  they  are  nevertheless  implicitly  believed 
by  him  to  regulate  the  course  of  nature  quite  independently  of  human 
will. .  He  thinks  that  if  he  acts  in  a  certain  way,  certain  consequences 
I  will  inevitably  follow  in  virtue  of  one  or  other  of  these  laws  ;  and  if 
the  consequences  of  a  particular  act  appear  to  him  likely  to  prove 
disagreeable  or  dangerous,  he  is  naturally  careful  not  to  act  in  that 
way  lest  he  should  incur  them.  In  other  words,  he  abstains  from 
doing  that  which,  in  accordance  with  his  mistaken  notions  of  cause 
and  effect,  he  falsely  believes  would  injure  him  ;  in  short,  he  subjects 
himself  to  a  taboo.  Thus  taboo  is  so  far  a  negative  application  of 
practical  magic.  Positive  magic  or  sorcery  says,  “  Do  this  in  order 
that  so  and  so  may  happen.”  Negative  magic  or  taboo  says,  “  Do 
|  not  do  this,  lest  so  and  so  should  happen.”  The  aim  of  positive  magic 
or  sorcery  is  to  produce  a  desired  event  ;  the  aim  of  negative  magic 
or  taboo  is  to  avoid  an  undesirable  one.  But  both  consequences,  the 
desirable  and  the  undesirable,  are  supposed  to  be  brought  about  in 
accordance  with  the  laws  of  similarity  and  contact.  And  just  as  the 
■  desired  consequence  is  not  really  effected  by  the  observance  of  a 
magical  ceremony,  so  the  dreaded  consequence  does  not  really  result 
from  the  violation  of  a  taboo.  If  the  supposed  evil  necessarily  followed 


20 


SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC 


CII. 


a  breach  of  taboo,  the  taboo  would  not  be  a  taboo  but  a  piecept  of  1 
morality  or  common  sense.  It  is  not  a  taboo  to  say,  Do  not  put  your  | 
hand  in  the  fire  ”  ;  it  is  a  rule  of  common  sense,  because  the  forbidden 
action  entails  a  real,  not  an  imaginary  evil.  In  short,  those  negative 
precepts  which  we  call  taboo  are  just  as  vain  and  futile  as  those  positive 
precepts  which  we  call  sorcery.  The  two  things  are  merely  opposite 
sides  or  poles  of  one  great  disastrous  fallacy,  a  mistaken  conception 
of  the  association  of  ideas.  Of  that  fallacy,  sorcery  is  the  positive,  # 
and  taboo  the  negative  pole.  If  we  give  the  general  name,  of  magic 
to  the  whole  erroneous  system,  both  theoretical  and  practical,  then 
taboo  may  be  defined  as  the  negative  side  of  practical  magic.  To  put 
this  in  tabular  form  : 


Magic 


Practical 

(Magic  as  a  pseudo-art) 


Theoretical 

(Magic  as  a  pseudo-science) 


Negative  Magic 
or 

Taboo 


Positive  Magic 
or 

Sorcery 


I  have  made  these  remarks  on  taboo  and  its  relations  to  magic 
because  I  am  about  to  give  some  instances  of  taboos  observed  by 
hunters,  fishermen,  and  others,  and  I  wished  to  show  that  they  fall 
under  the  head  of  Sympathetic  Magic,  being  only  particular  applica¬ 
tions  of  that  general  theory.  Thus,  among  the  Esquimaux  boys  are 
forbidden  to  play  cat’s  cradle,  because  if  they  did  so  their  fingers  might , 
in  later  life  become  entangled  in  the  harpoon-line.  Here  the  taboo 
is  obviously  an  application  of  the  law  of  similarity,  which  is  the  basis 
of  homoeopathic  magic  :  as  the  child’s  fingers  are  entangled  by  the 
string  in  playing  cat’s  cradle,  so  they  will  be  entangled  by  the  harpoon¬ 
line  when  he  is  a  man  and  hunts  whales.  Again,  among  the  Huzuls 
of  the  Carpathian  Mountains  the  wife  of  a  hunter  may  not  spin  while 
her  husband  is  eating,  or  the  game  will  turn  and  wind  like  the  spindle, 
and  the  hunter  will  be  unable  to  hit  it.  Here  again  the  taboo  is  clearly 
derived  from  the  law  of  similarity.  So,  too,  in  most  parts  of  ancient 
Italy  women  were  forbidden  by  law  to  spin  on  the  highroads  as  they 
walked,  or  even  to  carry  their  spindles  openly,  because  any  such  action 
was  believed  to  injure  the  crops.  Probably  the  notion  was  that  the 
twirling  of  the  spindle  would  twirl  the  corn-stalks  and  prevent  them 
from  growing  straight.  So,  too,  among  the  Ainos  of  Saghalien  a 
pregnant  woman  may  not  spin  nor  twist  ropes  for  two  months  before 
her  delivery,  because  they  think  that  if  she  did  so  the  child’s  guts 
might  be  entangled  like  the  thread.  For  a  like  reason  in  Bilaspore, 
a  district  of  India,  when  the  chief  men  of  a  village  meet  in  council, 
no  one  present  should  twirl  a  spindle  ;  for  they  think  that  if  such  a 
thing  were  to  happen,  the  discussion,  like  the  spindle,  would  move  in 


Ill 


HOMOEOPATHIC  OR  IMITATIVE  MAGIC 


21 


a  circle  and  never  be  wound  up.  In  some  of  the  East  Indian  islands 
any  one  who  comes  to  the  house  of  a  hunter  must  walk  straight  in  ; 
he  may  not  loiter  at  the  door,  for  were  he  to  do  so,  the  game  would  in 
like  manner  stop  in  front  of  the  hunter’s  snares  and  then  turn  back, 
instead  of  being  caught  in  the  trap.  For  a  similar  reason  it  is  a  rule 
with  the  Toradjas  of  Central  Celebes  that  no  one  may  stand  or  loiter 
on  the  ladder  of  a  house  where  there  is  a  pregnant  woman,  for  such 
delay  would  retard  the  birth  of  the  child  ;  and  in  various  parts  of 
Sumatra  the  woman  herself  in  these  circumstances  is  forbidden  to 
stand  at  the  door  or  on  the  top  rung  of  the  house-ladder  under  pain  of 
suffering  hard  labour  for  her  imprudence  in  neglecting  so  elementary 
a  precaution.  Malays  engaged  in  the  search  for  camphor  eat  their 
food  dry  and  take  care  not  to  pound  their  salt  fine.  The  reason  is 
that  the  camphor  occurs  in  the  form  of  small  grains  deposited  in  the 
cracks  of  the  trunk  of  the  camphor-tree.  Accordingly  it  seems  plain 
to  the  Malay  that  if,  while  seeking  for  camphor,  he  were  to  eat  his  salt 
finely  ground,  the  camphor  would  be  found  also  in  fine  grains  ;  whereas 
by  eating  his  salt  coarse  he  ensures  that  the  grains  of  the  camphor 
will  also  be  large.  Camphor  hunters  in  Borneo  use  the  leathery  sheath 
of  the  leaf-stalk  of  the  Penang  palm  as  a  plate  for  food,  and  during  the 
whole  of  the  expedition  they  will  never  wash  the  plate,  for  fear  that 
the  camphor  might  dissolve  and  disappear  from  the  crevices  of  the  tree. 
Apparently  they  think  that  to  wash  their  plates  would  be  to  wash  out 
the  camphor  crystals  from  the  trees  in  which  they  are  imbedded.  The 
chief  product  of  some  parts  of  Laos,  a  province  of  Siam,  is  lac.  This  is  a 
resinous  gum  exuded  by  a  red  insect  on  the  young  branches  of  trees,  to 
which  the  little  creatures  have  to  be  attached  by  hand.  All  who  engage 
in  the  business  of  gathering  the  gum  abstain  from  washing  themselves 
and  especially  from  cleansing  their  heads,  lest  by  removing  the  parasites 
from  their  hair  they  should  detach  the  other  insects  from  the  boughs. 
Again,  a  Blackfoot  Indian  who  has  set  a  trap  for  eagles,  and  is  watching 
it,  would  not  eat  rosebuds  on  any  account ;  for  he  argues  that  if  he 
did  so,  and  an  eagle  alighted  near  the  trap,  the  rosebuds  in  his  own 
stomach  would  make  the  bird  itch,  with  the  result  that  instead  of 
swallowing  the  bait  the  eagle  would  merely  sit  and  scratch  himself. 
Following  this  train  of  thought  the  eagle  hunter  also  refrains  from 
using  an  awl  when  he  is  looking  after  his  snares  ;  for  surely  if  he  were 
to  scratch  with  an  awl,  the  eagles  would  scratch  him.  The  same 
disastrous  consequence  would  follow  if  his  wives  and  children  at  home 
used  an  awl  while  he  is  out  after  eagles,  and  accordingly  they  are 
forbidden  to  handle  the  tool  in  his  absence  for  fear  of  putting  him  in 
bodily  danger. 

Among  the  taboos  observed  by  savages  none  perhaps  are  more 
numerous  or  important  than  the  prohibitions  to  eat  certain  foods, 
and  of  such  prohibitions  many  are  demonstrably  derived  from  the 
law  of  similarity  and  are  accordingly  examples  of  negative  magic. 
Just  as  the  savage  eats  many  animals  or  plants  in  order  to  acquire 
certain  desirable  qualities  with  which  he  believes  them  to  be  endowed, 


22 


SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC 


CH. 


so  he  avoids  eating  many  other  animals  and  plants  lest  he  should  ] 
acquire  certain  undesirable  qualities  with  which  he  believes  them  to 
be  infected.  In  eating  the  former  he  practises  positive  magic  ;  m 
abstaining  from  the  latter  he  practises  negative  magic.  Many  examples 
of  such  positive  magic  will  meet  us  later  on  ;  here  I  will  give  a  few 
instances  of  such  negative  magic  or  taboo.  For  q^ample,  in  Mada¬ 
gascar  soldiers  are  forbidden  to  eat  a  number  of  foods  lest  on  the 
principle  of  homoeopathic  magic  they  should  be  tainted  by  certain 
dangerous  or  undesirable  properties  which  are  supposed  to  inhere  in 
these  particular  viands.  Thus  they  may  not  taste  hedgehog,  as 
it  is  feared  that  this  animal,  from  its  propensity  of  coiling  up  into  a 
ball  when  alarmed,  will  impart  a  timid  shrinking  disposition  to  those 
who  partake  of  it.”  Again,  no  soldier  should  eat  an  ox’s  knee,  lest 
like  an  ox  he  should  become  weak  in  the  knees  and  unable  to  march. 
Further,  the  warrior  should  be  careful  to  avoid  pariaking  of  a  cock 
that  has  died  fighting  or  anything  that  has  been  speared  to  death  ; 
and  no  male  animal  may  on  any  account  be  killed  in  his  house  while 
he  is  away  at  the  wars.  For  it  seems  obvious  that  if  he  were  to  eat  , 
a  cock  that  had  died  fighting,  he  would  himself  be  slain  on  the  field  of 
battle  ;  if  he  were  to  partake  of  an  animal  that  had  been  speared,  he 
would  be  speared  himself  ;  if  a  male  animal  were  killed  in  his  house  a 
during  his  absence,  he  would  himself  be  killed  in  like  manner  and  i 
perhaps  at  the  same  instant.  Further,  the  Malagasy  soldier  must 
eschew  kidneys,  because  in  the  Malagasy  language  the  word  for  kidney 
is  the  same  as  that  for  "  shot  ”  ;  so  shot  he  would  certainly  be  if  he 
ate  a  kidney. 

The  reader  may  have  observed  that  in  some  of  the  foregoing 
examples  of  taboos  the  magical  influence  is  supposed  to  operate  at 
considerable  distances;  thus  among  the  Rlacldoot  Indians  the  wives j 
and  children  of  an  eagle  hunter  are  forbidden  to  use  an  awl  during  his 
absence,  lest  the  eagles  should  scratch  the  distant  husband  and  father  ; 
and  again  no  male  animal  may  be  killed  in  the  house  of  a  Malagasy 
soldier  while  he  is  away  at  the  wars,  lest  the  killing  of  the  animal  should 
entail  the  killing  of  the  man.  This  belief  in  the  sympathetic  influence 
exerted  on  each  other  b}^  persons  or  things  at  a  distance  is  of  the  i 
essence  of  magic.  Whatever  doubts  science  may  entertain  as  to  the 
possibility  of  action  at  a  distance,  magic  has  none  ;  faith  in  telepathy 
is  one  of  its  first  principles.  A  modern  advocate  of  the  influence  of 
mind  upon  mind  at  a  distance  would  have  no  difficulty  in  convincing 
a  savage  ;  the  savage  believed  in  if  long  ago,  and  what  is  more,  he 
acted  on  his  belief  with  a  logical  consistency  such  as  his  civilised  brother 
in  the  faith  has  not  yet,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  exhibited  in  his  conduct. 
For  the  savage  is  convinced  not  only  that  magical  ceremonies  affect 
persons  and  things  afar  off,  but  that  the  simplest  acts  of  daily  life  may 
do  so  too.  Hence  on  important  occasions  the  behaviour  of  friends 
and  relations  at  a  distance  is  often  regulated  by  a  more  or  less  elaborate 
code  of  rules,  the  neglect  of  which  by  the  one  set  of  persons  would,  it 
is  supposed,  entail  misfortune  or  even  death  on  the  absent  ones.  In 


hi  HOMOEOPATHIC  OR  IMITATIVE  MAGIC  23 

particular  when  a  party  of  men  are  out  hunting  or  fighting,  their 
kinsfolk  at  home  are  often  expected  to  do  certain  things  or  to  abstain 
from  doing  certain  others,  for  the  sake  of  ensuring  the  safety  and 
success  of  the  distant  hunters  or  warriors.  I  will  now  give  some 
instances  of  this  magical  telepathy  both  in  its  positive  and  in  its 
negative  aspect. 

In  Laos  when  an  elephant  hunter  is  starting  for  the  chase,  he 
warns  his  wife  not  to  cut  her  hair  or  oil  her  body  in  his  absence  ;  for 
if  she  cut  her  hair  the  elephant  would  burst  the  toils,  if  she  oiled  herself 
it  would  slip  through  them.  When  a  Dyak  village  has  turned  out  to 
hunt  wild  pigs  in  the  jungle,  the  people  who  stay  at  home  may  not 
touch  oil  or  water  with  their  hands  during  the  absence  of  their  friends  ; 
for  if  they  did  so,  the  hunters  would  all  be  “  butter-fingered  ”  and  the 
prey  would  slip  through  their  hands. 

Elephant-hunters  in  East  Africa  believe  that,  if  their  wives  prove 
unfaithful  in  their  absence,  this  gives  the  elephant  power  over  his 
pursuer,  who  will  accordingly  be  killed  or  severely  wounded.  Hence 
if  a  hunter  hears  of  his  wife’s  misconduct,  he  abandons  the  chase  and 
returns  home.  If  a  Wagogo  hunter  is  unsuccessful,  or  is  attacked  by 
a  lion,  he  attributes  it  to  his  wife’s  misbehaviour  at  home,  and  returns 
to  her  in  great  wrath.  While  he  is  away  hunting,  she  may  not  let 
any  one  pass  behind  her  or  stand  in  front  of  her  as  she  sits  ;  and  she 
must  lie  on  her  face  in  bed.  The  Moxos  Indians  of  Bolivia  thought 
that  if  a  hunter’s  wife  was  unfaithful  to  him  in  his  absence  he  would 
be  bitten  by  a  serpent  or  a  jaguar.  Accordingly,  if  such  an  accident 
happened  to  him,  it  was  sure  to  entail  the  punishment,  and  often 
the  death,  of  the  woman,  whether  she  was  innocent  or  guilty.  An 
Aleutian  hunter  of  sea-otters  thinks  that  he  cannot  kill  a  single 
animal  if  during  his  absence  from  home  his  wife  should  be  unfaithful 
or  his  sister  unchaste. 

The  Huichol  Indians  of  Mexico  treat  as  a  demi-god  a  species  of  cactus 
which  throws  the  eater  into  a  state  of  ecstasy.  The  plant  does  not  grow 
in  their  country,  and  has  to  be  fetched  every  year  by  men  who  make 
a  journey  of  forty-three  days  for  the  purpose.  Meanwhile  the  wives 
at  home  contribute  to  the  safety  of  their  absent  husbands  by  never 
walking  fast,  much  less  running,  while  the  men  are  on  the  road.  They 
also  do  their  best  to  ensure  the  benefits  which,  in  the  shape  of  rain, 
good  crops,  and  so  forth,  are  expected  to  flow  from  the  sacred  mission. 
With  this  intention  they  subject  themselves  to  severe  restrictions  like 
those  imposed  upon  their  husbands.  During  the  whole  of  the  time 
which  elapses  till  the  festival  of  the  cactus  is  held,  neither  party  washes 
except  on  certain  occasions,  and  then  only  with  water  brought  from 
the  distant  country  where  the  holy  plant  grows.  They  also  fast  much, 
eat  no  salt,  and  are  bound  to  strict  continence.  Any  one  who  breaks 
this  law  is  punished  with  illness,  and,  moreover,  jeopardises  the  result 
which  all  are  striving  for.  Health,  luck,  and  life  are  to  be  gained  by 
gathering  the  cactus,  the  gourd  of  the  God  of  Fire  ;  but  inasmuch  as 
the  pure  fire  cannot  benefit  the  impure,  men  and  women  must  not  only 


SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC 


CH. 


24 

remain  chaste  for  the  time  being,  but  must  also  purge  themselves 
from  the  taint  of  past  sin.  Hence  four  days  after  the  men  have  started 
the  women  gather  and  confess  to  Grandfather  Fire  with  what  men 
they  have  been  in  love  from  childhood  till  now.  They  may  not  omit 
a  single  one,  for  if  they  did  so  the  men  would  not  find  a  single  cactus. 
So  to  refresh  their  memories  each  one  prepares  a  string  with  as  many 
knots  as  she  has  had  lovers.  This  she  brings  to  the  temple,  and, 
standing  before  the  fire,  she  mentions  aloud  all  the  men  she  has  scored 
on  her  string,  name  after  name.  Having  ended  her  confession,  she 
throws  the  string  into  the  fire,  and  when  the  god  has  consumed  it  in 
his  pure  flame,  her  sins  are  forgiven  her  and  she  departs  in  peace. 
From  now  on  the  women  are  averse  even  to  letting  men  pass  near 
them.  The  cactus-seekers  themselves  make  in  like  manner  a  clean 
breast  of  all  their  frailties.  For  every  peccadillo  they  tie  a  knot  on  a 
string,  and  after  they  have  “  talked  to  all  the  five  winds  ”  they  deliver 
the  rosary  of  their  sins  to  the  leader,  who  burns  it  in  the  fire. 

Many  of  the  indigenous  tribes  of  Sarawak  are  firmly  persuaded 
that  were  the  wives  to  commit  adultery  while  their  husbands  are 
searching  for  camphor  in  the  jungle,  the  camphor  obtained  by  the 
men  would  evaporate.  Husbands  can  discover,  by  certain  knots  in 
the  tree,  when  their  wives  are  unfaithful ;  and  it  is  said  that  in  former 
days  many  women  were  killed  by  jealous  husbands  on  no  better 
evidence  than  that  of  these  knots.  Further,  the  wives  dare  not 
touch  a  comb  while  their  husbands  are  away  collecting  the  camphor  ; 
for  if  they  did  so,  the  interstices  between  the  fibres  of  the  tree,  instead 
of  being  filled  with  the  precious  crystals,  would  be  empty  like  the 
spaces  between  the  teeth  of  a  comb.  In  the  Kei  Islands,  to  the  south¬ 
west  of  New  Guinea,  as  soon  as  a  vessel  that  is  about  to  sail  for  a 
distant  port  has  been  launched,  the  part  of  the  beach  on  which  it 
lay  is  covered  as  speedily  as  possible  with  palm  branches,  and  becomes 
sacred.  No  one  may  thenceforth  cross  that  spot  till  the  ship  comes 
home.  To  cross  it  sooner  would  cause  the  vessel  to  perish.  More¬ 
over,  all  the  time  that  the  voyage  lasts  three  or  four  young  girls, 
specially  chosen  for  the  duty,  are  supposed  to  remain  in  sympathetic 
connexion  with  the  mariners  and  to  contribute  by  their  behaviour 
to  the  safety  and  success  of  the  voyage.  On  no  account,  except  for 
the  most  necessary  purpose,  may  they  quit  the  room  that  has  been 
assigned  to  them.  More  than  that,  so  long  as  the  vessel  is  believed 
to  be  at  sea  they  must  remain  absolutely  motionless,  crouched  on 
their  mats  with  their  hands  clasped  between  their  knees.  They  may 
not  turn  their  heads  to  the  left  or  to  the  right  or  make  any  othei 
movement  whatsoever.  If  they  did,  it  would  cause  the  boat  to  pitch 
and  toss  ;  and  they  may  not  eat  any  sticky  stuff,  such  as  rice  boiled 
in  coco-nut  milk,  for  the  stickiness  of  the  food  would  clog  the  passage 
of  the  boat  through  the  water.  When  the  sailors  are  supposed  to 
have  reached  their  destination,  the  strictness  of  these  rules  is  some¬ 
what  relaxed  ;  but  during  the  whole  time  that  the  voyage  lasts  the 
girls  are  forbidden  to  eat  fish  which  have  sharp  bones  or  stings,  such 


hi  HOMOEOPATHIC  OR  IMITATIVE  MAGIC  25 

as  the  sting-ray,  lest  their  friends  at  sea  should  be  involved  in  sharp, 
stinging  trouble. 

Where  beliefs  like  these  prevail  as  to  the  sympathetic  connexion 
between  friends  at  a  distance,  we  need  not  wonder  that  above  every¬ 
thing  else  war,  with  its  stern  yet  stirring  appeal  to  some  of  the  deepest 
and  tenderest  of  human  emotions,  should  quicken  in  the  anxious 
relations  left  behind  a  desite  to  turn  the  sympathetic  bond  to  the 
utmost  account  for  the  benefit  of  the  dear  ones  who  may  at  any 
moment  be  fighting  and  dying  far  away.  Hence,  to  secure  an  end  so 
natural  and  laudable,  friends  at  home  are  apt  to  resort  to  devices 
which  will  strike  us  as  pathetic  or  ludicrous,  according  as  we  consider  , 
their  object  or  the  means  adopted  to  effect  it.  Thus  in  some  districts 
of  Borneo,  when  a  Dyak  is  out  head-hunting,  his  wife  or,  if  he  is  un¬ 
married,  his  sister  must  wear  a  sword  day  and  night  in  order  that 
he  may  always  be  thinking  of  his  weapons  ;  and  she  may  not  sleep 
during  the  day  nor  go  to  bed  before  two  in  the  morning,  lest  her 
husband  or  brother  should  thereby  be  surprised  in  his  sleep  by  an 
enemy.  Among  the  Sea  Dyaks  of  Banting  in  Sarawak  the  women 
strictly  observe  an  elaborate  code  of  rules  while  the  men  are  away  fight¬ 
ing.  Some  of  the  rules  are  negative  and  some  are  positive,  but  all  alike 
are  based  on  the  principles  of  magical  homoeopathy  and  telepathy. 
Amongst  them  are  the  following.  The  women  must  wake  very  early  in 
the  morning  and  open  the  windows  as  soon  as  it  is  light ;  otherwise  their 
absent  husbands  will  oversleep  themselves.  The  women  may  not  oil 
their  hair,  or  the  men  will  slip.  The  women  may  neither  sleep  nor 
doze  by  day,  or  the  men  will  be  drowsy  on  the  march.  The  women 
must  cook  and  scatter  popcorn  on  the  verandah  every  morning  ;  so 
will  the  men  be  agile  in  their  movements.  The  rooms  must  be  kept 
very  tidy,  all  boxes  being  placed  near  the  walls  ;  for  if  any  one  were 
to  stumble  over  them,  the  absent  husbands  would  fall  and  be  at  the 
mercy  of  the  foe.  At  every  meal  a  little  rice  must  be  left  in  the  pot 
and  put  aside  ;  so  will  the  men  far  away  always  have  something  to 
eat  and  need  never  go  hungry.  On  no  account  may  the  women  sit 
at  the  loom  till  their  legs  grow  cramped,  otherwise  their  husbands 
will  likewise  be  stiff  in  their  joints  and  unable  to  rise  up  quickly  or 
to  run  away  from  the  foe.  So  in  order  to  keep  their  husbands’  joints 
supple  the  women  often  vary  their  labours  at  the  loom  by  walking 
up  and  down  the  verandah.  Further,  they  may  not  cover  up  their 
faces,  or  the  men  would  not  be  able  to  find  their  way  through  the 
tall  grass  or  jungle.  Again,  the  women  may  not  sew  with  a  needle, 
or  the  men  will  tread  on  the  sharp  spikes  set  by  the  enemy  in  the 
path.  Should  a  wife  prove  unfaithful  while  her  husband  is  away, 
he  will  lose  his  life  in  the  enemy’s  country.  Some  years  ago  all  these 
rules  and  more  were  observed  by  the  women  of  Banting,  while  their 
husbands  were  fighting  for  the  English  against  rebels.  But  alas  ! 
these  tender  precautions  availed  them  little  ;  for  many  a  man,  whose 
faithful  wife  was  keeping  watch  and  ward  for  him  at  home,  found  a 
(soldier’s  grave. 


26  SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC  ch.  I 

In  the  island  of  Timor,  while  war  is  being  waged,  the  high-priest  1 
never  quits  the  temple  ;  his  food  is  brought  to  him  or  cooked  inside  ; 
day  and  night  he  must  keep  the  fire  burning,  for  if  he  were  to  let  itl 
die  out,  disaster  would  befall  the  warriors  and  would  continue  so  long 
as  the  hearth  was  cold.  Moreover,  he  must  drink  only  hot  water  j 
during  the  time  the  army  is  absent ;  for  every  draught  of  cold  water.  * 
would  damp  the  spirits  of  the  people,  so  that  they  could  not  vanquish 
the  enemy.  In  the  Kei  Islands,  when  the  warriors  have  departed,  the  | 
women  return  indoors  and  bring  out  certain  baskets  containing  fruits  j 
and  stones.  These  fruits  and  stones  they  anoint  and  place  on  a  board, 
murmuring  as  they  do  so,  “0  lord  sun,  moon,  let  the  bullets  rebound 
from  our  husbands,  brothers,  betrothed,  and  other  relations,  just  as 
raindrops  rebound  from  these  objects  which  are  smeaied  with  oil. 

As  soon  as  the  first  shot  is  heard,  the  baskets  are  put  aside,  and  the 
women,  seizing  their  fans,  rush  out  of  the  houses.  Then,  waving  I 
their  fans  in  the  direction  of  the  enemy,  they  run  through  the  village, 
while  they  sing,  “  O  golden  fans  !  let  our  bullets  hit,  and  those  of. 
the  enemy  miss.”  In  this  custom  the  ceremony  of  anointing  stones, 
in  order  that  the  bullets  may  recoil  from  the  men  like  raindiops  from  I 
the  stones,  is  a  piece  of  pure  homoeopathic  or  imitative  magic  ;  but 
the  prayer  to  the  sun,  that  he  will  be  pleased  to  give  effect  to  the 
charm,  is  a  religious  and  perhaps  later  addition.  The  waving  of  the 
fans  seems  to  be  a  charm  to  direct  the  bullets  towards  or  away  from 
their  mark,  according  as  they  are  discharged  fiom  the  guns  of  friends 

0r  f°eS*  . .  i*i  n 

An  old  historian  of  Madagascar  informs  us  that  while  the  men  i 
are  at  the  wars,  and  until  their  return,  the  women  and  girls  cease 
not  day  and  night  to  dance,  and  neither  lie  down  nor  take  food  in 
their  own  houses.  And  although  they  are  very  voluptuously  inclined, 
they  would  not  for  anything  in  the  world  have  an  intrigue  with  another 
man  while  their  husband  is  at  the  war,  believing  firmly  that  if  that 
happened,  their  husband  would  be  either  killed  or  wounded.  They, 
believe  that  by  dancing  they  impart  strength,  courage,  and  good! 
fortune  to  their  husbands  ;  accordingly  during  such  times  they  give 
themselves  no  rest,  and  this  custom  they  observe  very  religiously.” 

Among  the  Tshi-speaking  peoples  of  the  Gold  Coast  the  wives  oh 
men  who  are  away  with  the  army  paint  themselves  white,  and  adorn 
their  persons  with  beads  and  charms.  On  the  day  when  a  battle; 
is  expected  to  take  place,  they  run  about  armed  with  guns,  or  sticks 
carved  to  look  like  guns,  and  taking  green  paw-paws  (fruits  shaped 
somewhat  like  a  melon),  they  hack  them  with  knives,  as  if  they  were 
chopping  off  the  heads  of  the  foe.  The  pantomime  is  no  doubt  merely 
an  imitative  charm,  to  enable  the  men  to  do  to  the  enemy  as  the 
women  do  to  the  paw-paws.  In  the  West  African  town  of  Framin 
while  the  Ashantee  war  was  raging  some  years  ago,  Mr.  Fitzgeralc 
Marriott  saw  a  dance  performed  by  women  whose  husbands  had  gone 
as  carriers  to  the  war.  They  were  painted  white  and  wore  nothing 
but  a  short  petticoat.  At  their  head  was  a  shrivelled  old  sorceress  ir 


Ill 


HOMOEOPATHIC  OR  IMITATIVE  MAGIC 


27 


a  very  short  white  petticoat,  her  black  hair  arranged  in  a  sort  of  long 
projecting  horn,  and  her  black  face,  breasts,  arms,  and  legs  profusely 
adorned  with  white  circles  and  crescents.  All  carried  long  white 
brushes  made  of  buffalo  or  horse  tails,  and  as  they  danced  they  sang, 
“  Our  husbands  have  gone  to  Ashanteeland  ;  may  they  sweep  their 
enemies  off  the  face  of  the  earth  !  ” 

Among  the  Thompson  Indians  of  British  Columbia,  when  the 
men  were  on  the  war-path,  the  women  performed  dances  at  frequent 
intervals.  These  dances  were  believed  to  ensure  the  success  of  the 
expedition.  The  dancers  flourished  their  knives,  threw  long  sharp- 
pointed  sticks  forward,  or  drew  sticks  with  hooked  ends  repeatedly 
backward  and  forward.  Throwing  the  sticks  forward  was  symbolic 
of  piercing  or  warding  off  the  enemy,  and  drawing  them  back  was 
symbolic  of  drawing  their  own  men  from  danger.  The  hook  at  the 
end  of  the  stick  was  particularly  well  adapted  to  serve  the  purpose 
of  a  life-saving  apparatus.  The  women  always  pointed  their  weapons 
towards  the  enemy’s  country.  They  painted  their  faces  red  and 
sang  as  they  danced,  and  they  prayed  to  the  weapons  to  preserve 
their  husbands  and  help  them  to  kill  many  foes.  Some  had  eagle- 
down  stuck  on  the  points  of  their  sticks.  When  the  dance  was  over, 
these  weapons  were  hidden.  If  a  woman  whose  husband  was  at  the 
war  thought  she  saw  hair  or  a  piece  of  a  scalp  on  the  weapon  when 
she  took  it  out,  she  knew  that  her  husband  had  killed  an  enemy. 
But  if  she  saw  a  stain  of  blood  on  it,  she  knew  he  was  wounded  or  dead. 
When  the  men  of  the  Yuki  tribe  in  California  were  away  fighting,  the 
women  at  home  did  not  sleep  ;  they  danced  continually  in  a  circle, 
chanting  and  waving  leafy  wands.  For  they  said  that  if  they  danced 
all  the  time,  their  husbands  would  not  grow  tired.  Among  the  Haida 
Indians  of  the  Queen  Charlotte  Islands,  when  the  men  had  gone 
to  war,  the  women  at  home  would  get  up  very  early  in  the  morning 
and  pretend  to  make  war  by  falling  upon  their  children  and  feigning 
to  take  them  for  slaves.  This  was  supposed  to  help  their  husbands 
to  go  and  do  likewise.  If  a  wife  were  unfaithful  to  her  husband 
while  he  wras  away  on  the  war-path,  he  would  probably  be  killed. 
For  ten  nights  all  the  women  at  home  lay  with  their  heads  towards 
the  point  of  the  compass  to  which  the  war-canoes  had  paddled 
away.  Then  they  changed  about,  for  the  warriors  were  supposed 
to  be  coming  home  across  the  sea.  At  Masset  the  Haida  women 
,  danced  and  sang  war-songs  all  the  time  their  husbands  were  away 
at  the  wars,  and  they  had  to  keep  everything  about  them  in  a 
:  certain  order.  It  was  thought  that  a  wife  might  kill  her  husband 
by  not  observing  these  customs.  When  a  band  of  Carib  Indians  of 
the  Orinoco  had  gone  on  the  war-path,  their  friends  left  in  the  village 
j  used  to  calculate  as  nearly  as  they  could  the  exact  moment  when  the 
absent  warriors  would  be  advancing  to  attack  the  enemy.  Then  they 
took  two  lads,  laid  them  down  on  a  bench,  and  inflicted  a  most  severe 
?  scourging  on  their  bare  backs.  This  the  youths  submitted  to  without 
a  murmur,  supported  in  their  sufferings  by  the  firm  conviction,  in 


28 


SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC 


CH. 


which  they  had  been  bred  from  childhood,  that  on  the  constancy 
and  fortitude  with  which  they  bore  the  cruel  ordeal  depended  the 
valour  and  success  of  their  comrades  in  the  battle. 

Among  the  many  beneficent  uses  to  which  a  mistaken  ingenuity  has 
applied  the  principle  of  homoeopathic  or  imitative  magic,  is  that  of 
causing  trees  and  plants  to  bear  fruit  in  due  season.  In  Thuringen  the 
man  who  sows  flax  carries  the  seed  in  a  long  bag  which  reaches  from  his 
shoulders  to  his  knees,  and  he  walks  with  long  strides,  so  that  the  bag 
sways  to  and  fro  on  his  back.  It  is  believed  that  this  will  cause  the 
flax  to  wave  in  the  wind.  In  the  interior  of  Sumatra  rice  is  sown 
by  women  who,  in  sowing,  let  their  hair  hang  loose  down  their  back, 
in  order  that  the  rice  may  grow  luxuriantly  and  have  long  stalks. 
Similarly,  in  ancient  Mexico  a  festival  was  held  in  honour  of  the  goddess 
of  maize,  or  “  the  long-haired  mother,”  as  she  was  called.  It  began  at 
the  time  “when  the  plant  had  attained  its  full  growth,  and  fibres 
shooting  forth  from  the  top  of  the  green  ear  indicated  that  the  grain 
was  fully  formed.  During  this  festival  the  women  wore  their  long  hair 
unbound,  shaking  and  tossing  it  in  the  dances  which  were  the  chief 
feature  in  the  ceremonial,  in  order  that  the  tassel  of  the  maize  might 
grow  in  like  profusion,  that  the  grain  might  be  correspondingly  large 
and  flat,  and  that  the  people  might  have  abundance.”  In  many  parts 
of  Europe  dancing  or  leaping  high  in  the  air  are  approved  homoeo¬ 
pathic  modes  of  making  the  crops  grow  high..  Thus  in  Franche-Comte 
they  say  that  you  should  dance  at  the  Carnival  in  order  to  make  the 
hemp  grow  tall. 

The  notion  that  a  person  can  influence  a  plant  homoeopatmcaily 
by  his  act  or  condition  comes  out  clearly  in  a  remark  made  by  a  Malay 
woman.  Being  asked  why  she  stripped  the  upper  part  of  her  body 
naked  in  reaping  the  rice,  she  explained  that  she  did  it  to  make  the 
rice-husks  thinner,  as  she  was  tired  of  pounding  thick-husked  rice. 
Clearly,  she  thought  that  the  less  clothing  she  woie  the  less  husk  there! 
would  be  on  the  rice.  The  magic  virtue  of  a  pregnant  woman  t c# 
communicate  fertility  is  known  to  Bavarian  and  Austrian  peasants, 
who  think  that  if  you  give  the  first  fruit  of  a  tree  to  a  woman  with  child 
to  eat,  the  tree  will  bring  forth  abundantly  next  year.  On  the  otheii 
hand,  'the  Baganda  believe  that  a  barren  wife  infects  her  husband’ ej 
garden  with  her  own  sterility  and  prevents  the  trees  from  bearing 
fruit  )  hence  a  childless  woman  is  generally  divorced.  The  Greeks 
and  Romans  sacrificed  pregnant  victims  to  the  goddesses  of  the  corb 
and  of  the  earth,  doubtless  in  order  that  the  earth  might  teem  and  the 
corn  swell  in  the  ear.  When  a  Catholic  pnest  remonstrated  with  the 
Indians  of  the  Orinoco  on  allowing  their  women  to  sow  the  fields  in  the 
blazing  sun,  with  infants  at  their  breasts,  the  men  answered,  “  Father  J 
you  don’t  understand  these  things,  and  that  is  why  they  vex  you.  You 
know  that  women  are  accustomed  to  bear  children,  and  that  we  men 
are  not.  When  the  women  sow,  the  stalk  of  the  maize  bears  two  or 
three  ears,  the  root  of  the  yucca  yields  two  or  thiee  basketfuls,  and 
everything  multiplies  in  proportion.  Now  why  is  that  ?  Simply 


Ill 


HOMOEOPATHIC  OR  IMITATIVE  MAGIC  l| 

because  the  women  know  how  to  bring  forth,  and  know  how  to  make 
fthe  seed  which  they  sow  bring  forth  also.  Let  them  sow,  then  ;  we 
men  don’t  know  as  much  about  it  as  they  do.” 

Thus  on  the  theory  of  homoeopathic  magic  a  person  can  influence 
vegetation  either  for  good  or  for  evil  according  to  the  good  or  the  bad 
character  of  his  acts  or  states  :  for  example,  a  fruitful  woman  makes 
plants  fruitful,  a  barren  woman  makes  them  barren.  Hence  this  belief 
m  the  noxious  and  infectious  nature  of  certain  personal  qualities  or 
accidents  has  given  rise  to  a  number  of  prohibitions  or  rules  of  avoidance  * 
people  abstain  from  doing  certain  things  lest  they  should  homoeo¬ 
pathic  ally  infect  the  fruits  of  the  earth  with  their  own  undesirable  state 
Dr  condition.  All  such  customs  of  abstention  or  rules  of  avoidance  are 
examples  of  negative  magic  or  taboo.  Thus,  for  example,  arguing 
rom  what  may  be  called  the  infectiousness  of  personal  acts  or  states, 
[he  Galelareese  say  that  you  ought  not  to  shoot  with  a  bow  and  arrows 
inder  a  fiuit-tree,  or  the  tree  will  cast  its  fruit  even  as  the  arrows  fall 
o  the  ground  ;  and  that  when  you  are  eating  water-melon  you  ought 
rot  to  mix  the  pips  which  you  spit  out  of  your  mouth  with  the  pips 
vhich  you  have  put  aside  to  serve  as  seed  *  for  if  you  do,  though  the 
Dips  you  spat  out  may  certainly  spring  up  and  blossom,  yet  the  blossoms 
vill  keep  falling  off  just  as  the  pips  fell  from  your  mouth,  and  thus  these 
Dips  will  never  bear  fruit.  Precisely  the  same  train  of  thought  leads 
he  Bavarian  peasant  to  believe  that  if  he  allows  the  graft  of  a  fruit-tree 
o  fall  on  the  ground,  the  tree  that  springs  from  that  graft  will  let  its 
Pit  fall  untimely.  When  the  Chams  of  Cochinchina  are  sowing  their 
fry  ricefields  and  desire  that  no  shower  should  fall,  they  eat  their  rice 
'ry  in  order  to  prevent  rain  from  spoiling  the  crop. 

In  the  foiegoing  cases  a  person  is  supposed  to  influence  vegetation 
omoeopathically .  He  infects  trees  or  plants  with  qualities  or  accidents 
ood  or  bad,  resembling  and  derived  from  his  own.  But  on  the  principle 
f  homoeopathic  magic  the  influence  is  mutual  :  the  plant  can  infect 
he  man  just  as  much  as  the  man  can  infect  the  plant.  In  magic,  as  I 
elieve  in  physics,  action  and  reaction  are  equal  and  opposite.  The 
herokee  Indians  are  adepts  in  practical  botany  of  the  homoeopathic 
prt*  Tfms  wiry  roots  of  the  catgut  plant  are  so  tough  that  they  can 
Imost  stop  a  ploughshaie  in  the  furrow.  Hence  Cherokee  women  wash 
aeir  heads  with  a  decoction  of  the  roots  to  make  the  hair  strong,  and 
herokee  ball-players  wash  themselves  with  it  to  toughen  their  muscles, 
t  1S  a  Galelareese  belief  that  if  you  eat  a  fruit  which  has  fallen  to  the 
round,  you  will  yourself  contract  a  disposition  to  stumble  and  fall  ; 
tid  that  if  you  partake  of  something  which  has  been  forgotten  (such  as 
; sweet  potato  left  in  the  pot  or  a  banana  in  the  fire),  you  will  become 
xrgetful.  The  Galelareese  are  also  of  opinion  that  if  a  woman  were  to 
Dnsume  two  bananas  growing  from  a  single  head  she  would  give  birth 
)  twins.  The  Guarani  Indians  of  South  America  thought  that  a 
;oman  would  become  a  mother  of  twins  if  she  ate  a  double  grain  of 
lillet.  In  Vedic  times  a  curious  application  of  this  principle  supplied 
charm  by  which  a  banished  prince  might  be  restored  to  his  kingdom. 


W  SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC  ch. 

He  had  to  eat  food  cooked  on  a  fire  which  was  fed  with  wood  which 
had  grown  out  of  the  stump  of  a  tree  which  had  been  cut  down.  ThM 
recuperative  power  manifested  by  such  a  tree  would  in  due  course  be 
communicated  through  the  fire  to  the  food,  and  so  to  the  prince,  whol 
ate  the  food  which  was  cooked  on  the  fire  which  was  fed  with  the  wood  E 
which  grew  out  of  the  tree.  The  Sundanese  think  that  if  a  house  is  > 
built  of  the  wood  of  thorny  trees,  the  life  of  the  people  who  dwell  uj 
that  house  will  likewise  be  thorny  and  full  of  trouble. 

There  is  a  fruitful  branch  of  homoeopathic  magic  which  works  by 
means  of  the  dead  ;  for  just  as  the  dead  can  neither  see  nor  hear  nor 
speak  so  you  may  on  homoeopathic  principles  render  people  blind, 
deaf  ’and  dumb  by  the  use  of  dead  men's  bones  or  anything  else  that 
is  tainted  by  the  infection  of  death.  Thus  among  the  Galelareese,  when 
a  young  man  goes  a-wooing  at  night,  he  takes  a  little  earth  from  a  gravel  I 
and  strews  it  on  the  roof  of  his  sweetheart’s  house  just  above  the  place 
where  her  parents  sleep.  This,  he  fancies,  will  prevent  them  from 
waking  while  he  converses  with  his  beloved,  since  the  earth  fiom  thj 
grave  will  make  them  sleep  as  sound  as  the  dead.  Burglars  in  all  ages ; 
and  many  lands  have  been  patrons  of  this  species  of  magic,  which  is 
very  useful  to  them  in  the  exercise  of  their  profession.  Thus  a  South  i 
Slavonian  housebreaker  sometimes  begins  operations  by  throwing  a 
dead  man’s  bone  over  the  house,  saying,  with  pungent  sarcasm,  As 
this  bone  may  waken,  so  may  these  people  waken  ; .  after  that  not  || 
soul  in  the  house  can  keep  his  or  her  eyes  open.  Similarly,  m  Java 
the  burglar  takes  earth  from  a  grave  and  sprinkles  it  round  the  house 
which  he  intends  to  rob  ;  this  throws  the  inmates  into  a  deep  sleep. 
With  the  same  intention  a  Hindoo  will  strew  ashes  from  a  pyre  at  th|r 
door  of  the  house  ;  Indians  of  Peru  scatter  the  dust  of  dead  menjp 
bones  ;  and  Ruthenian  burglars  remove  the  marrow  from  a  human! 
shin-bone,  pour  tallow  into  it,  and  having  kindled  the  tallow,  maicl|] 
thrice  round  the  house  with  this  candle  burning,  which  causes  tne 
inmates  to  sleep  a  death-like  sleep.  Or  the  Ruthenian  will  make  a  flute 
out  of  a  human  leg-bone  and  play  upon  it  ;  whereupon  all  persons, 
within  hearing  are  overcome  with  drowsiness.  The  Indians  of  Mexico 
employed  for  this  maleficent  purpose  the  left  fore-arm  of  a  woman  who 
had  died  in  giving  birth  to  her  first  child  ;  but  the  arm  had  to  be  stolen. 
With  it  they  beat  the  ground  before  they  entered  the  house  which  the| 
designed  to  plunder  ;  this  caused  every  one  in  the  house  to  lose  a| 
power  of  speech  and  motion  ;  they  were  as  dead,  hearing  and  seen* 
everything,  but  perfectly  powerless  ;  some  of  them,  however,  realj 
slept  and  even  snored.  In  Europe  similar  properties  were  ascribed  td 
the  Hand  of  Glory,  which  was  the  dried  and  pickled  hand  of  a  man  who 
had  been  hanged.  If  a  candle  made  of  the  fat  of  a  malefactor  who  hat' 
also  died  on  the  gallows  was  lighted  and  placed  in  the  Hand  of  Glory  ai 
in  a  candlestick,  it  rendered  motionless  all  persons  to  whom  it  was 
presented  ;  they  could  not  stir  a  finger  any  more  than  if  they  wer 
dead  Sometimes  the  dead  man’s  hand  is  itself  the  candle,  or  rathe 
bunch  of  candles,  all  its  withered  fingers  being  set  on  fire  ;  but  shod) 


Ill 


HOMOEOPATHIC  OR  IMITATIVE  MAGIC  31 

any  member  of  the  household  be  awake,  one  of  the  fingers  will  not 
kindle.  Such  nefarious  lights  can  only  be  extinguished  with  milk. 
I  Often  it  is  piesciibed  that  the  thief  s  candle  should  be  made  of  the  finger 
|  a  new-born  or ,  still  better,  unborn  child  ;  sometimes  it  is  thought 
[needful  that  the  thief  should  have  one  such  candle  for  every  person  in 
|  the  house,  for  if  he  has  one  candle  too  little  somebody  in  the  house  will 
|  wake  and  catch  him.  Once  these  tapers  begin  to  burn,  there  is  nothing 
[’but  milk  that  will  put  them  out.  In  the  seventeenth  century  robbers 
i  used  to  murder  pregnant  women  in  order  thus  to  extract  candles  from 
their  wombs.  An  ancient  Greek  robber  or  burglar  thought  he  could 
silence  and  put  to  flight  the  fiercest  watchdogs  by  carrying  with  him 
ja  brand  plucked  from  a  funeral  pyre.  Again,  Servian  and  Bulgarian 
i women  who  chafe  at  the  restraints  of  domestic  life  will  take  the 
copper  coins  from  the  eyes  of  a  corpse,  wash  them  in  wine  or  water, 
jand  give  the  liquid  to  their  husbands  to  drink.  After  swallowing  it, 

1  the  husband  will  be  as  blind  to  his  wife’s  peccadilloes  as  the  dead  man 
was  on  whose  eyes  the  coins  were  laid. 

Fuither, animals  are  often  conceived  to  possess  qualities  or  properties 
(which  might  be  useful  to  man,  and  homoeopathic  or  imitative  magic 
j^eeks  to  communicate  these  properties  to  human  beings  in  various 
ways.  Thus  some  Bechuanas  wear  a  ferret  as  a  charm,  because,  being 
Very  tenacious  of  life,  it  will  make  them  difficult  to  kill.  Others  wear 
a  certain  insect,  mutilated,  but  living,  for  a  similar  purpose.  Yet  other 
Bechuana  warriors  wear  the  hair  of  a  hornless  ox  among  their  own 
pair,  and  the  skin  of  a  frog  on  their  mantle,  because  a  frog  is  slippery, 
and  the  ox,  having  no  horns,  is  hard  to  catch  ;  so  the  man  who  is 
orovided  with  these  charms  believes  that  he  will  be  as  hard  to  hold 
as  the  ox  and  the  frog.  Again,  it  seems  plain  that  a  South  African 
Warrior  who  twists  tufts  of  rats’  hair  among  his  own  curly  black  locks 
Will  have  just  as  many  chances  of  avoiding  the  enemy’s  spear  as  the 
Jiimble  rat  has  of  avoiding  things  thrown  at  it *  hence  in  these  regions 
fats  hair  is  in  great  demand  when  war  is  expected.  One  of  the  ancient 
books  of  India  prescribes  that  when  a  sacrifice  is  offered  for  victory, 
(he  earth  out  of  which  the  altar  is  to  be  made  should  be  taken  from  a 
blace  where  a  boar  has  been  wallowing,  since  the  strength  of  the  boar 
Will  be  in  that  earth.  When  you  are  playing  the  one-stringed  lute, 
[nd  your  fingers  are  stiff,  the  thing  to  do  is  to  catch  some  long-legged 
lield  spiders  and  roast  them,  and  then  rub  your  fingers  with  the  ashes  ; 
hat  will  make  your  fingers  as  lithe  and  nimble  as  the  spiders’  legs— 
it  least  so  think  the  Galelareese.  To  bring  back  a  runaway  slave  an 
\rab  will  trace  a  magic  circle  on  the  ground,  stick  a  nail  in  the  middle 
->f  it,  and  attach  a  beetle  by  a  thread  to  the  nail,  taking  care  that  the 
[ex  of  the  beetle  is  that  of  the  fugitive.  As  the  beetle  crawls  round 
ffid  round,  it  will  coil  the  thread  about  the  nail,  thus  shortening  its 
(ether  and  drawing  nearer  to  the  centre  at  every  circuit.  So  by  virtue 

f  homoeopathic  magic  the  runaway  slave  will  be  drawn  back  to  his 
•raster. 

Among  the  western  tribes  of  British  New  Guinea,  a  man  who  has 


32 


SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC 


CH. 


killed  a  snake  will  burn  it  and  smear  his  legs  with  the  ashes  when  he 
goes  into  the  forest  ;  for  no  snake  will  bite  him  for  some  days  after-  I 
wards.  If  a  South  Slavonian  has  a  mind  to  pilfer  and  steal  at  market, 
he  has  nothing  to  do  but  to  burn  a  blind  cat,  and  then  throw  a  pinch  8 
of  its  ashes  over  the  person  with  whom  he  is  higgling  ,  ‘  ; 

can  take  what  he  likes  from  the  booth,  and  the  owner  will  not  be  a  bit 
the  wiser,  having  become  as  blind  as  the  deceased  cat  with  whose 
ashes  he  has  been  sprinkled.  The  thief  may  even  ask  1 boldly .  Did 
I  pav  for  it  ?  ”  and  the  deluded  huckster  will  reply,  Why,  certainly. 
Equally  simple  and  effectual  is  the  expedient  adopted  by  natives  of 
Central  Australia  who  desire  to  cultivate  their  beards.  They  pn  I 
the  chin  all  over  with  a  pointed  bone,  and  then  stroke  it  carefully  with  1 
a  magic  stick  or  stone,  which  represents  a  kind  of  rat  that  has  very  1 
long  whiskers.  The  virtue  of  these  whiskers  naturally  passes  into  the 
representative  stick  or  stone,  and  thence  by  an  easy  transition  to  the 
chin,  which,  consequently,  is  soon  adorned  with  a  rich  growth  o 
beard  The  ancient  Greeks  thought  that  to  eat  the  flesh  of  the  wakeful 
nightingale  would  prevent  a  man  from  sleeping  ;  that  to  smear  the 
eyes  of  a  blear-sighted  person  with  the  gall  of  an  eagle  would  give  him 
the  eagle's  vision  ;  and  that  a  raven’s  eggs  would  restore  the  blackness 
of  the  raven  to  silvery  hair.  Only  the  person  who  adopted  this  last 
mode  of  concealing  the  ravages  of  time  had  to  be  most  careful  to  ceep 
his  mouth  full  of  oil  all  the  time  he  applied  the  eggs  to  his  venei  able 
locks  else  his  teeth  as  well  as  his  hair  would  be  dyed  raven  black  and 
no  amount  of  scrubbing  and  scouring  would  avail  to  whiten  them 
again.  The  hair-restorer  was  in  fact  a  shade  too  powerful,  and  in 
applying  it  you  might  get  more  than  you  bargained  for. 

The  Huichol  Indians  admire  the  beautiful  markings  on  the  backs 
of  serpents.  Hence  when  a  Huichol  woman  is  about  to  weave  or  i 
embroider,  her  husband  catches  a  large  serpent  and  holds  it  m  a  cleft  I 
stick  while  the  woman  strokes  the  reptile  with  one  hand  down  the 
whole  length  of  its  back  ;  then  she  passes  the  same  hand  over  her  i 
forehead  and  eyes,  that  she  may  be  able  to  work  as  beautiful  patterns 

in  the  web  as  the  markings  on  the  back  of  the  serpent. 

On  the  principle  of  homoeopathic  magic,  inanimate  things,  as  well 
as  plants  and  animals,  may  diffuse  blessing  or  bane  around  them, 
according  to  their  own  intrinsic  nature  and  the  skill  of  the  wizard  if 
tap  or  dam,  as  the  case  may  be,  the  stream  of  weal  or  woe.  In  Samar- 
cand  women  give  a  baby  sugar-candy  to  suck  and  put  glue  in  the  palm 
of  its  hand,  in  order  that,  when  the  child  grows  up,  his  words  may  oe 
sweet  and  precious  things  may  stick  to  his  hands  as  if  they  were  glued 
The  Greeks  thought  that  a  garment  made  from  the  fleece  of  a  sheep 
that  had  been  torn  by  a  wolf  would  hurt  the  wearer,  setting  up  an  it  .id 
or  irritation  in  his  skin.  They  were  also  of  opinion  that  if  a  stone 
which  had  been  bitten  by  a  dog  were  dropped  in  wine,  it  would  make 
all  who  drank  of  that  wine  to  fall  out  among  themselves.  Among 
the  Arabs  of  Moab  a  childless  woman  often  borrows  the  robe  of  : 
woman  who  has  had  many  children,  hoping  with  the  robe  to  acqum 


Ill 


HOMOEOPATHIC  OR  IMITATIVE  MAGIC  33 

I  the  fruitfulness  of  its  owner.  The  Caffres  of  Sofala,  in  East  Africa, 
had  a  great  dread  of  being  struck  with  anything  hollow,  such  as  a  reed 
or  a  straw,  and  greatly  preferred  being  thrashed  with  a  good  thick 
cudgel  or  an  iron  bar,  even  though  it  hurt  very  much.  For  they 
thought  that  if  a  man  were  beaten  with  anything  hollow,  his  inside 
would  waste  away  till  he  died.  In  Eastern  seas  there  is  a  large  shell 
which  the  Buginese  of  Celebes  call  the  “  old  man  ”  (, kadjdwo ).  On 
Fridays  they  turn  these  “  old  men  ”  upside  down  and  place  them  on 
the  thresholds  of  their  houses,  believing  that  whoever  then  steps  over 
the  threshold  of  the  house  will  live  to  be  old.  At  initiation  a  Brahman 
boy  is  made  to  tiead  with  his  right  foot  on  a  stone,  while  the  words  are 
repeated,  “  Tread  on  this  stone  ;  like  a  stone  be  firm  ”  ;  and  the  same 
ceremony  is  performed,  with  the  same  words,  by  a  Brahman  bride  at 
her  marriage.  In  Madagascar  a  mode  of  counteracting  the  levity  of 
fortune  is  to  bury  a  stone  at  the  foot  of  the  heavy  house-post.  The 
common  custom  of  swearing  upon  a  stone  may  be  based  partly  on  a 
belief  that  the  strength  and  stability  of  the  stone  lend  confirmation 
to  an  oath.  Thus  the  old  Danish  historian  Saxo  Grammaticus  tells 
us  that  the  ancients,  when  they  were  to  choose  a  king,  were  wont  to 
stand  on  stones  planted  in  the  ground,  and  to  proclaim  their  votes,  in 

order  to  foreshadow  from  the  steadfastness  of  the  stones  that  the  deed 
would  be  lasting.” 

But  while  a  general  magical  efficacy  may  be  supposed  to  reside  in 
all  stones  by  reason  of  their  common  properties  of  weight  and  solidity, 
special  magical  virtues  are  attributed  to  particular  stones,  or  kinds  of 
stone,  in  accordance  with  their  individual  or  specific  qualities  of  shape 
and  colour.  For  example,  the  Indians  of  Peru  employed  certain 
stones  for  the  increase  of  maize,  others  for  the  increase  of  potatoes, 

.  and  others  again  for  the  increase  of  cattle.  The  stones  used  to  make 
maize  grow  were  fashioned  in  the  likeness  of  cobs  of  maize,  and  the 
stones  destined  to  multiply  cattle  had  the  shape  of  sheep. 

In  some  parts  of  Melanesia  a  like  belief  prevails  that  certain  sacred 
stones  are  endowed  with  miraculous  powers  which  correspond  in  their 
nature  to  the  shape  of  the  stone.  Thus  a  piece  of  water-worn  coral 
on  the  beach  often  bears  a  surprising  likeness  to  a  bread-fruit.  Hence 
in  the  Banks  Islands  a  man  who  finds  such  a  coral  will  lay  it  at  the 
I  root  of  one  01  his  bread-fruit  trees  in  the  expectation  that  it  will  make 
The  tree  bear  well.  If  the  result  answers  his  expectation,  he  will  then, 
for  a  proper  remuneration,  take  stones  of  less  marked  character  from 
..other  men  and  let  them  lie  near  his,  in  order  to  imbue  them  with  the 
magic  virtue  which  resides  in  it.  Similarly,  a  stone  with  little  discs 
;upon  it  is  good  to  bring  in  money  ;  and  if  a  man  found  a  large  stone 
.with  a  number  of  small  ones  under  it,  like  a  sow  among  her  litter,  he 
,was  sure  that  to  offer  money  upon  it  would  bring  him  pigs.  In  these 
tand  similar  cases  the  Melanesians  ascribe  the  marvellous  power,  not 
do  the  stone  itself,  but  to  its  indwelling  spirit ;  and  sometimes,  as  we 
.have  just  seen,  a  man  endeavours  to  propitiate  the  spirit  by  laying 
down  offerings  on  the  stone.  But  the  conception  of  spirits  that  must 


34 


SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC 


ch. 


flTt'here, 

with  purely  b“a|eC  origtnd  stolon"  which  ^ toe  rdigiousTonceptio/has 
assumed  to  g  f  d  For  there  are  strong  grounds  for 

SAX  KetS  of  thought,  magic  has  preceded  religion. 

magical  qualities  of  precious 

stoS  ;  “deed  it  has|been  —toed, 

such  stones  were  «s«l  ^“ks  gave' X  name  of  Lee-agate  to  a  stone 

EbsctBRS*  “»rr  t  v  “d 

m  Albania  nurs  ^  Greeks  believed  m  a  stone  which 

abundant  flow  o  snake-stone  ;  to  test  its 

cured  snake  b  ,  ponder  and  sprinkle  the 

efficacy  you  had  only  to  gnnd  Jestonej  recdved  its 

powder  on  drunken  ”  because  it  was  supposed  to  keep 

name,  which  means  not  drunken .  g  live  at  unity 

the  toisLd  fo  caLymagneLs  about  with  them,  which,  by  drawing 

„„  2S  his  .in  .h.  S.»s 

“X  .“  Sue  ta  the  sky.  When  the  pole-s...  ,='«  he  sU »ld 

tnfnt  it  out  to  her  and,  addressing  the  star,  say,  Fum  art  thou  i 
pent  11  out  to  nei ,  be  thou  with  me>  0  thriving  one  ! 

tlree  ,  oDiai  s  „  i  °.  ,  ti  { the  ceremony  is  plainly  to  guard 
hnnd^  .ntumnk  The  mtennon  >  „f  earthly  bliss  by 

r"S.S’«  iS“e«°  .f  the  constant  star.  I.  is  the  wish  expressed 

in  Keats’s  last  sonnet  * 


“Bright  star!  would  I  were  steadfast  as  thou  art 
Not  in  lone  splendour  hung  aloft  the  night. 


' 


Dwellers  by  the  sea  cannot  fail  to  be  impressed  by  the  sight  ot  its 
ceaseless  ebb  and  flow,  and  are  apt,  on  the  principles  of  that  rude 
i  "incmYh v  of  svmnathv  and  resemblance  which  here  engages  \ 
attentionjto  Jce  a  subtle  relation.  a  secret  fhfa“  3 

S? fbfy  «  "o,°L“y  t  symboh'bat  .  £m  *  exuberance,  .1 
prosperity  and  of  life,  while  in  the  ebbing  tide  they  discern  a  real  agent 
as  well  as  a  melancholy  emblem  of  failure,  of  weakness,  and  of  death. 


nr  HOMOEOPATHIC  OR  IMITATIVE  MAGIC  35 

XI10  Breton  peasant  fancies  that  clover  sown  when  the  tide  is  coming 
in  will  grow  well,  but  that  if  the  plant  be  sown  at  low  water  or  when 
the  tide  is  going  out,  it  will  never  reach  maturity,  and  that  the  cows 
which  feed  on  it  will  burst.  His  wife  believes  that  the  best  butter  is 
made  when  the  tide  has  just  turned  and  is  beginning  to  flow,  that  milk 
which  foams  in  the  churn  will  go  on  foaming  till  the  hour  of  high  water 
is  past,  and  that  water  drawn  from  the  well  or  milk  extracted  from  the 
cow  while  the  tide  is  rising  will  boil  up  in  the  pot  or  saucepan  and 
overflow  into  the  fire.  According  to  some  of  the  ancients,  the  skins 
of  seals,  even  after  they  had  been  parted  from  their  bodies,  remained 
in  secret  sympathy  with  the  sea,  and  were  observed  to  ruffle  when  the 
tide  was  on  the  ebb.  Another  ancient  belief,  attributed  to  Aristotle, 
was  that  no  creature  can  die  except  at  ebb  tide.  The  belief,  if  we  can 
trust  Pliny,  was  confirmed  by  experience,  so  far  as  regards  human 
beings,  on  the  coast  of  France.  Philostratus  also  assures  us  that  at 
Cadiz  dying  people  never  yielded  up  the  ghost  while  the  water  was 
high.  A  like  fancy  still  lingers  in  some  parts  of  Europe.  On  the 
Cantabrian  coast  they  think  that  persons  who  die  of  chronic  or  acute 
disease  expire  at  the  moment  when  the  tide  begins  to  recede.  In 
Portugal,  all  along  the  coast  of  Wales,  and  on  some  parts  of  the  coast 
of  Brittany,  a  belief  is  said  to  prevail  that  people  are  born  when  the 
tide  comes  in,  and  die  when  it  goes  out.  Dickens  attests  the  existence 
of  the^same  superstition  in  England.  “  People  can’t  die,  along  the 
coast,”  said  Mr.  Peggotty,  “  except  when  the  tide’s  pretty  nigh  out. 
They  can’t  be  born,  unless  it’s  pretty  nigh  in— not  properly  born  till 
flood.”  The  belief  that  most  deaths  happen  at  ebb  tide  is  said  to  be 
.  held  along  the  east  coast  of  England  from  Northumberland  to  Kent. 
Shakespeare  must  have  been  familiar  with  it,  for  he  makes  Falstaff 
die  "  even  just  between  twelve  and  one,  e’en  at  the  turning  o’  the  tide.” 
We  meet  the  belief  again  on  the  Pacific  coast  of  North  America  among 
the  Haidas.  Whenever  a  good  Haida  is  about  to  die  he  sees  a  canoe 
manned  by  some  of  his  dead  friends,  who  come  with  the  tide  to  bid 
him  welcome  to  the  spirit  land.  “  Come  with  us  now,”  they  say, 

“  f°r  the  tide  is  about  to  ebb  and  we  must  depart.”  At  Port  Stephens, 
in  New  South  Wales,  the  natives  always  buried  their  dead  at  flood 
tide,  never  at  ebb,  lest  the  retiring  water  should  bear  the  soul  of  the 
departed  to  some  distant  country. 

To  ensure  a  long  life  the  Chinese  have  recourse  to  certain  compli¬ 
cated  charms,  which  concentrate  in  themselves  the  magical  essence 
emanating,  on  homoeopathic  principles,  from  times  and  seasons,  from 
persons  and  from  things.  The  vehicles  employed  to  transmit  these 
happy  influences  are  no  other  than  grave-clothes.  These  are  provided 
by  many  Chinese  in  their  lifetime,  and  most  people  have  them  cut  out 
;  an(t  sewn  by  an  unmarried  girl  or  a  very  young  woman,  wisely  calculat- 
!  that,  since  such  a  person  is  likely  to  live  a  great  many  years  to  come, 

I  a  Part  of  her  capacity  to  live  long  must  surely  pass  into  the  clothes, 
f  anc|  thus  stave  off  for  many  years  the  time  when  they  shall  be  put  to 
1  their  proper  use.  Further,  the  garments  are  made  by  preference  in  a 


SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC 


CH. 


36 

year  which  has  an  intercalary  month  ;  for  to  the  Chinese  mind  it  seems 
plain  that  grave-clothes  made  in  a  year  which  is  unusually  long  will 
possess  the^ capacity  of  prolonging  life  in  an  unusualty  high  de^ee 
Amongst  the  clothes  there  is  one  robe  in  particular  on  which  spec  a 
pains  have  been  lavished  to  imbue  it  with  this  priceless  quality. 

It  is  a  long  silken  gown  of  the  deepest  blue  colour,  with  the  word 
«  longevity  ”  embroidered  all  over  it  in  thread  of  gold.  To  presen 
an  aged  parent  with  one  of  these  costly  and  splendid  mantles,  known 
as  “  longevity  garments,”  is  esteemed  by  the  Chinese  an  act  of  a 
piety  and  a  delicate  mark  of  attention.  As  the  garment  pm  ports  t 
prolong  the  life  of  its  owner,  he  often  wears  it,  especially  on  festive 
occasions,  in  order  to  allow  the  influence  of  longevity,  created  by  the 
many  golden  letters  with  which  it  is  bespangled,  to  work  their  fu 
effect  upon  his  person.  On  his  birthday,  above  all,  he  lar  y  eve 
fails  to  don  it  for  in  China  common  sense  bids  a  man  lay  m  a  large 
Sock  of  Vital  energy  on  his  birthday,  to  be  expended  in  the  form  of 
health  and  vigour  during  the  rest  of  the  year.  Attired  in  the  gorgeous 
pall  and  absorbing  its  blessed  influence  at  every  pore,  the  happy 
owner  receives  complacently  the  congratulations  of  friends  and  relations, 
who  warmly  express  their  admiration  of  these  magnificent  ceiements, 
and  of  the  filial  piety  which  prompted  the  children  to  bestow  so  beauti¬ 
ful  and  useful  a  present  on  the  author  of  their  being. 

Another  application  of  the  maxim  that  like  produces  like  is  seen  n 
the  Chinese  belief  that  the  fortunes  of  a  town  are  deeply  affected  by 
its  shape,  and  that  they  must  vary  according  to  the  character  of  the 
thing  which  that  shape  most  nearly  resembles.  Thus  it  is  related  la 
long8  ago  the  town  of  Tsuen-cheu-fu,  the  outlines  of  which  are  like 
those  of  a  carp,  frequently  fell  a  prey  to  the  depredations  o,  the  neigh¬ 
bouring  city  of  Yung-chun,  which  is  shaped  like  a  fishing-net,  until 
the  inhabitants  of  the  former  town  conceived  the  plan  of  erecting 
two  tall  pagodas  in  their  midst.  These  pagodas,  which  still  towe 
above  the  city  of  Tsuen-cheu-fu,  have  ever  since  exercised  the  happiest 
influence  over  its  destiny  by  intercepting  the  imaginary  net  before  it 
could  descend  and  entangle  in  its  meshes  the  imaginary  caip.  Some 
forty  years  ago  the  wise  men  of  Shanghai  were  much  exercised  to 
discover  the  cause  of  a  local  rebellion.  On  careful  enquiry  they 
ascertained  that  the  rebellion  was  due  to  the  shape  of  a  large  new 
temple  which  had  most  unfortunately  been  built  in  the  shape  of  a 
tortoise,  an  animal  of  the  very  worst  character.  The  difficulty  was 
serious,  the  danger  was  pressing  ;  for  to  pull  down  the  temple  would 
have  been  impious,  and  to  let  it  stand  as  it  was  would  be  to  court  a 
succession  of  similar  or  worse  disasters.  However,  the  genius  of  t  e, 
local  professors  of  geomancy,  rising  to  the  occasion,  triumphant  y 
surmounted  the  difficulty  and  obviated  the  danger.  By  filling  up  two 
wells,  which  represented  the  eyes  of  the  tortoise,  they  at  once  blinded 
that  disreputable  animal  and  rendered  him  incapable  of  doing  further 

mischief 

Sometimes  homoeopathic  or  imitative  magic  is  called  in  to  annul 


111  CONTAGIOUS  MAGIC  37 

an  evil  omen  by  accomplishing  it  in  mimicry.  The  effect  is  to  circum¬ 
vent  destiny  by  substituting  a  mock  calamity  for  a  real  one.  In 
Madagascar  this  mode  of  cheating  the  fates  is  reduced  to  a  regular 
system.  Here  every  mans  fortune  is  determined  by  the  day  or  hour 
of  his  birth,  and  if  that  happens  to  be  an  unlucky  one  his  fate  is  sealed, 
unless  the  mischief  can  be  extracted,  as  the  phrase  goes,  by  means  of 
a  substitute.  The  ways  of  extracting  the  mischief  are  various.  For 
example,  if  a  man  is  born  on  the  first  day  of  the  second  month 
(February),  his  house  will  be  burnt  down  when  he  comes  of  age.  To 
take  time  by  the  forelock  and  avoid  this  catastrophe,  the  friends  of 
the  infant  will  set  up  a  shed  in  a  field  or  in  the  cattle-fold  and  burn  it. 
If  the  ceremony  is  to  be  really  effective,  the  child  and  his  mother 
should  be  placed  in  the  shed  and  only  plucked,  like  brands,  from  the 
burning  hut  before  it  is  too  late.  Again,  dripping  November  is  the 
I  month  of  tears,  and  he  who  is  born  in  it  is  born  to  sorrow.  But  in 
older  to  disperse  the  clouds  that  thus  gather  over  his  future,  he  has 
nothing  to  do  but  to  take  the  lid  off  a  boiling  pot  and  wave  it  about. 
The  drops  that  fall  from  it  will  accomplish  his  destiny  and  so  prevent 
the  tears  from  trickling  from  his  eyes.  Again,  if  fate  has  decreed  that 
a  young  girl,  still  unwed,  should  see  her  children,  still  unborn,  descend 
before  her  with  sorrow  to  the  grave,  she  can  avert  the  calamity  as 
follows.  She  kills  a  grasshopper,  wraps  it  in  a  rag  to  represent  a 
shroud,  and  mourns  over  it  like  Rachel  weeping  for  her  children  and 
refusing  to  be  comforted.  Moreover,  she  takes  a  dozen  or  more  other 
grasshoppers,  and  having  removed  some  of  their  superfluous  legs  and 
wings  she  lays  them  about  their  dead  and  shrouded  fellow.  The 
buzz  of  the  tortured  insects  and  the  agitated  motions  of  their  mutilated 
limbs  represent  the  shrieks  and  contortions  of  the  mourners  at  a  funeral. 
After  burying  the  deceased  grasshopper  she  leaves  the  rest  to  continue 
their  mourning  till  death  releases  them  from  their  pain  ;  and  having 
bound  up  her  dishevelled  hair  she  retires  from  the  grave  with  the  step 
and  carriage  of  a  person  plunged  in  grief.  Thenceforth  she  looks 
cheerfully  forward  to  seeing  her  children  survive  her  ;  for  it  cannot 
be  that  she  should  mourn  and  bury  them  twice  over.  Once  more,  if 
fortune  has  frowned  on  a  man  at  his  birth  and  penury  has  marked  him 
for  her  own,  he  can  easily  erase  the  mark  in  question  by  purchasing 
a  couple  of  cheap  pearls,  price  three  halfpence,  and  burying  them.  For 
who  but  the  rich  of  this  world  can  thus  afford  to  fling  pearls  away  ? 

§  3-  Contagious  Magic. — Ihus  far  we  have  been  considering  chiefly 
that  branch  of  sympathetic  magic  which  may  be  called  homoeopathic 
or  imitative.  Its  leading  principle,  as  we  have  seen,  is  that  like  pro¬ 
duces  like,  or,  in  other  words,  that  an  effect  resembles  its  cause.  The 
other  great  branch  of  sympathetic  magic,  which  I  have  called  Con¬ 
tagious  Magic,  proceeds  upon  the  notion  that  things  which  have  once 
been  conjoined  must  remain  ever  afterwards,  even  when  quite  dis¬ 
severed  from  each  other,  in  such  a  sympathetic  relation  that  whatever 
is  done  to  the  one  must  similarly  affect  the  other.  Thus  the  logical 
basis  of  Contagious  Magic,  like  that  of  Homoeopathic  Magic,  is  a 


38 


SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC 


CH. 


mistaken  association  of  ^  t^Homoeopa'thirMagic,  is  a 

— sl.  »<  T  *  a  tszfgs&z 

15  TX IT Tte most  familiar  example  of  Contagious  Magic  is 
the6  magical  sympathy  which  is  supposed  to 

S;thiXnc“  ofk  i??5a\d6ytoV  hair  and  nails  will  be  noticed  later 
011  Austrahan  a^m^n^ce  to  knock 

mmmm 

wmmmsEm 

was  well  ;  but  if  it  were  exposed  and  the  ants  ran  over  it  the  natives 
Among^the'Murring'and  Z^tribes'of  New  SouthWales  the  extracted 

account  be  placed  in  a  bag  containing  magical  substance: s  f  ^ 

would,  they  believed,  put  the  owner  of  the  tooth  m  great  da  g  ^ 
kite  Dr  Howitt  once  acted  as  custodian  of  the  teeth  which  haa  Dee 
extracted  from  some  novices  at  a  ceremony  of  initiation,  and  the ^  old 

men  earnestly  besought  him  not  to  carry  to  m ^^^4 
knew  that  he  had  some  quartz  crystals.  They  declared  that 
so  the  magic  of  the  crystals  would  pass  into  the  teeth,  and  so  mju 
the  bovs  k Nearly  a  year  after  Dr.  Howitt’s  return  from  the  ceierno  y 
he  was  visited  byoneof  the  principal  men  of  the  Mumng  tribe,  who  had 
Iravdled  some  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  his  home  to  etch 
back  he  teeth  This  man  explained  that  he  had  been  sent  for  them 
because  one  of  the  boys  had  fallen  into  ill  health  and  it  ;  was i  bdievrf 
that  the  teeth  had  received  some  injury  which  had  affected  1  . 

was  assured  that  the  teeth  had  been  kept  in  a  box  apart  Irom  any 
rubstances  like  quartz  crystals,  which  could  influence  them  ;  and  he 
returned  home  bearing  the  teeth  with  him  carefully  wrapt  up  an 

concealed  os  arg  careful  to  conceal  their  extracted  teeth  lest 

the^should  fall  into  the  hands  of  certain  mythical  beings  who  haunt 
graves,  and  who  could  harm  the  owner  of  the  tooth  by  working  magic 


Ill 


CONTAGIOUS  MAGIC 


39 


on  it.  In  Sussex  some  fifty  years  ago  a  maid-servant  remonstrated 
strongly  against  the  throwing  away  of  children's  cast  teeth,  affirming 
that  should  they  be  found  and  gnawed  by  any  animal,  the  child’s 
new  tooth  would  be,  for  all  the  world,  like  the  teeth  of  the  animal 
that  had  bitten  the  old  one.  In  proof  of  this  she  named  old  Master 
Simmons,  who  had  a  very  large  pig’s  tooth  in  his  upper  jaw,  a  personal 
defect  that  he  always  averred  was  caused  by  his  mother,  who  threw 
away  one  of  his  cast  teeth  by  accident  into  the  hog’s  trough.  A 
similar  belief  has  led  to  practices  intended,  on  the  principles  of  homoeo¬ 
pathic  magic,  to  replace  old  teeth  by  new  and  better  ones.  Thus  in 
many  parts  of  the  world  it  is  customary  to  put  extracted  teeth  in  some 
place  where  they  will  be  found  by  a  mouse  or  a  rat,  in  the  hope  that, 
through  the  sympathy  which  continues  to  subsist  between  them  and 
their  former  owner,  his  other  teeth  may  acquire  the  same  firmness  and 
excellence  as  the  teeth  of  these  rodents.  For  example,  in  Germany  it 
is  said  to  be  an  almost  universal  maxim  among  the  people  that  when 
you  have  had  a  tooth  taken  out  you  should  insert  it  in  a  mouse’s  hole. 
To  do  so  with  a  child’s  milk-tooth  which  has  fallen  out  will  prevent 
the  child  from  having  toothache.  Or  you  should  go  behind  the  stove 
and  throw  your  tooth  backwards  over  your  head,  saying,  “  Mouse, 
give  me  your  iron  tooth  ;  I  will  give  you  my  bone  tooth.”  After  that 
your  other  teeth  will  remain  good.  Far  away  from  Europe,  at  Rara- 
tonga,  in  the  Pacific,  when  a  child’s  tooth  was  extracted,  the  following 
prayer  used  to  be  recited  : 

“  Big  rat !  little  rat ! 

Here  is  my  old  tooth. 

Pray  give  me  a  new  one.” 

Then  the  tooth  was  thrown  on  the  thatch  of  the  house,  because  rats 
make  their  nests  in  the  decayed  thatch.  The  reason  assigned  for 
invoking  the  rats  on  these  occasions  was  that  rats’  teeth  were  the 
strongest  known  to  the  natives. 

Other  parts  which  are  commonly  believed  to  remain  in  a  sym¬ 
pathetic  union  with  the  body,  after  the  physical  connexion  has  been 
severed,  are  the  navel-string  and  the  afterbirth,  including  the  placenta. 
So  intimate,  indeed,  is  the- union  conceived  to  be,  that  the  fortunes 
of  the  individual  for  good  or  evil  throughout  life  are  often  supposed 
to  be  bound  up  with  one  or  other  of  these  portions  of  his  person,  so 
i  that  if  his  navel-string  or  afterbirth  is  preserved  and  properly  treated, 
he  will  be  prosperous  ;  whereas  if  it  be  injured  or  lost,  he  will  suffer 
accordingly.  Thus  certain  tribes  of  Western  Australia  believe  that  a 
man  swims  well  or  ill,  according  as  his  mother  at  his  birth  threw  the 
:  navel-string  into  water  or  not.  Among  the  natives  on  the  Pennefather 
'  River  in  Queensland  it  is  believed  that  a  part  of  the  child’s  spirit  ( cho-i ) 
stays  in  the  afterbirth.  Hence  the  grandmother  takes  the  afterbirth 
\  away  and  buries  it  in  the  sand.  She  marks  the  spot  by  a  number  of 
•  twigs  which  she  sticks  in  the  ground  in  a  circle,  tying  their  tops  together 
,  so  that  the  structure  resembles  a  cone.  When  Anjea,  the  being  who 


40  SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC  ch. 

causes  conception  in  women  by  putting  mud  babies  into  their  wombs, 
comes  along  and  sees  the  place,  he  takes  out  the  spirit  and  carries  it 
away  to  one  of  his  haunts,  such  as  a  tree,  a  hole  in  a  rock,  or  a  lagoon, 
where  it  may  remain  for  years.  But  some  time  or  other  he  will  put  the 
spirit  again  into  a  baby,  and  it  will  be  born  once  more  into  the  world. 

In  Ponape,  one  of  the  Caroline  Islands,  the  navel-string  is  placed  in  a 
shell  and  then  disposed  of  in  such  a  way  as  shall  best  adapt  the  child 
for  the  career  which  the  parents  have  chosen  for  him  ;  for  example, 
if  they  wish  to  make  him  a  good  climber,  they  will  hang  the  navel- 
string  on  a  tree.  The  Kei  islanders  regard  the  navel-string  as  the 
brother  or  sister  of  the  child,  according  to  the  sex  of  the  infant.  They 
put  it  in  a  pot  with  ashes,  and  set  it  in  the  branches  of  a  tree,  that  it 
may  keep  a  watchful  eye  on  the  fortunes  of  its  comrade.  Among  the  . 
Bataks  of  Sumatra,  as  among  many  other  peoples  of  the  Indian  Archi¬ 
pelago,  the  placenta  passes  for  the  child’s  younger  brother  or  sister, 
the  sex  being  determined  by  the  sex  of  the  child,  and  it  is  buried  under  \ 
the  house.  According  to  the  Bataks  it  is  bound  up  with  the  child’s 
welfare,  and  seems,  in  fact,  to  be  the  seat  of  the  transferable  soul,  of 
which  we  shall  hear  something  later  on.  The  Karo  Bataks  even  alfirm  " 
that  of  a  man’s  two  souls  it  is  the  true  soul  that  lives  with  the  placenta 
under  the  house  ;  that  is  the  soul,  they  say,  which  begets  children. 

The  Baganda  believe  that  every  person  is  born  with  a  double,  and 
this  double  they  identify  with  the  afterbirth,  which  they  regard  as  a 
second  child.  The  mother  buries  the  afterbirth  at  the  root  of  a  plantain 
tree,  which  then  becomes  sacred  until  the  fruit  has  ripened,  when  it  is 
plucked  to  furnish  a  sacred  feast  for  the  family.  Among  the  Cherokees 
the  navel-string  of  a  girl  is  buried  under  a  corn-mortar,  in  order  that  the 
girl  may  grow  up  to  be  a  good  baker ;  but  the  navel-string  of  a  boy 
is  hung  up  on  a  tree  in  the  woods,  in  order  that  he  may  be  a  hunter. 
The  Incas  of  Peru  preserved  the  navel-string  with  the  greatest  care, 
and  gave  it  to  the  child  to  suck  whenever  it  fell  ill.  In  ancient  Mexico 
they  used  to  give  a  boy’s  navel-string  to  soldiers,  to  be  buried  by 
them  on  a  field  of  battle,  in  order  that  the  boy  might  thus  acquire 
a  passion  for  war.  But  the  navel-string  of  a  girl  was  buried  beside 
the  domestic  hearth,  because  this  was  believed  to  inspire  her  with  a 
love  of  home  and  a  taste  for  cooking  and  baking. 

Even  in  Europe  many  people  still  believe  that  a  person’s  destiny 
is  more  or  less  bound  up  with  that  of  his  navel-string  or  afterbirth. 
Thus  in  Rhenish  Bavaria  the  navel-string  is  kept  for  a  while  wrapt 
up  in  a  piece  of  old  linen,  and  then  cut  or  pricked  to  pieces  according 
as  the  child  is  a  boy  or  a  girl,  in  order  that  he  or  she  may  grow  up  to 
be  a  skilful  workman  or  a  good  sempstress.  In  Berlin  the  midwife 
commonly  delivers  the  dried  navel-string  to  the  father  with  a  strict 
injunction  to  preserve  it  carefully,  for  so  long  as  it  is  kept  the  child 
will  live  and  thrive  and  be  free  from  sickness.  In  Beauce  and  Perch J 
the  people  are  careful  to  throw  the  navel-string  neither  into  water 
nor  into  fire,  believing  that  if  that  were  done  the  child  would  be 
drowned  or  burned. 


yn  CONTAGIOUS  MAGIC  4i 

Thus  in  many  parts  of  the  world  the  navel-string,  or  more  commonly 
the  afterbirth,  is  regarded  as  a  living  being,  the  brother  or  sister  of 
the  infant,  or  as  the  material  object  in  which  the  guardian  spirit  of 
the  child  or  part  of  its  soul  resides.  Further,  the  sympathetic  con¬ 
nexion  supposed  to  exist  between  a  person  and  his  afterbirth  or  navel- 
string  comes  out  very  clearly  in  the  widespread  custom  of  treating 
the  afterbirth  or  navel-string  in  ways  which  are  supposed  to  influence 
for  life  the  character  and  career  of  the  person,  making  him,  if  it  is  a 
man,  a  nimble  climber,  a  strong  swimmer,  a  skilful  hunter,  or  a  brave 
soldier,  and  making  her,  if  it  is  a  woman,  a  cunning  sempstress,  a  good 
baker,,  and  so  forth.  Thus  the  beliefs  and  usages  concerned  with  the 
afterbiith  or  placenta,  and  to  a  less  extent  with  the  navel-string,  present 
a  remarkable  parallel  to  the  widespread  doctrine  of  the  transferable  or 
external  soul  and  the  customs  founded  on  it.  Hence  it  is  hardly  rash 
to  conjecture  that  the  resemblance  is  no  mere  chance  coincidence,  but 
that  in  the  afterbirth  or  placenta  we  have  a  physical  basis  (not  neces¬ 
sarily  the  only  one)  for  the  theory  and  practice  of  the  external  soul. 
The  consideration  of  that  subject  is  reserved  for  a  later  part  of  this  work. 

A  curious  application  of  the  doctrine  of  contagious  magic  is  the 
relation  commonly  believed  to  exist  between  a  wounded  man  and  the 
agent  of  the  wound,  so  that  whatever  is  subsequently  done  by  or  to 
the  agent  must  correspondingly  affect  the  patient  either  for  good  or 
evil-  Thus  Pliny  tells  us  that  if  you  have  wounded  a  man  and  are 
sorry  for  it,  you  have  only  to  spit  on  the  hand  that  gave  the  wound, 
and  the  pain  of  the  sufferer  will  be  instantly  alleviated.  In  Melanesia' 
if  a  man’s  friefids  get  possession  of  the  arrow  which  wounded  him,' 
they  keep  it  in  a  damp  place  or  in  cool  leaves,  for  then  the  inflammation 
will  be  trifling  and  will  soon  subside.  Meantime  the  enemy  who  shot 
the  anow  is  haid  at  work  to  aggravate  the  wound  by  all  the  means 
m  his  power.  For  this  purpose  he  and  his  friends  drink  hot  and 
burning  juices  and  chew  imitating  leaves,  for  this  will  clearly  inflame 
and  irritate  the  wound.  Further,  they  keep  the  bow  near  the  fire 
to  make  the  wound  which  it  has  inflicted  hot ;  and  for  the  same 
reason  they  put  the  arrow-head,  if  it  has  been  recovered,  into  the 
fire.  Moreover,  they  are  careful  to  keep  the  bow-string  taut  and 
to  twang  it  occasionally,  for  this  will  cause  the  wounded  man  to  suffer 
from  tension  of  the  nerves  and  spasms  of  tetanus.  “  It  is  constantly* 
received  and  avouched,”  says  Bacon,  “  that  the  anointing  of  the 
weapon  that  maketh  the  wound  will  heal  the  wound  itself.  In  this 
experiment,  upon  the  relation  of  men  of  credit  (though  myself,  as  yet, 
am  not  fully  inclined  to  believe  it),  you  shall  note  the  points  following  : 
first,  the  ointment  wherewith  this  is  done  is  made  of  divers  ingredients, 
whereof  the  strangest  and  hardest  to  come  by  are  the  moss  upon  the 
skull  of  a  dead  man  unburied,  and  the  fats  of  a  boar  and  a  bear  killed 
in  the  act  of  generation.  The  precious  ointment  compounded  out 
of  these  and  other  ingredients  was  applied,  as  the  philosopher  explains, 
not  to  the  wound  but  to  the  weapon,  and  that  even  though  the  injured 
man  was  at  a  great  distance  and  knew  nothing  about  it.  The  experi- 


42 


SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC 


CH. 


ment  he  tells  us,  had  been  tried  of  wiping  the  ointment  off  the  weapo  n  1 

-r  ]v[0rJ0Ver  ‘  it  is  affirmed  that  if  you  cannot  get  the  weapon, 

yrt  if  you  put  an’  instrument  of  iron  or  wood  resembling 

into  the  wound,  whereby  it ^^^58  Bacon 

deime'd  worthy  of  his  attention  are  bTho| 

essst  «; 

?’  T  it  out  ”  If  a  horse  wounds  its  foot  by  treading  on  a 

11  ,  Suffolk  spoon,  - 

« •“?  S  r“*; 

its  side  open  on  the  hinge  of  a  farm  gatepost.  On  arriving  at  me ia 
hp  found  that  nothing  had  been  done  to  the  wounded  horse,  but  that 
“  “u”W4  ,0  pry  the  king.  ».  of 

stc:  s 

StSSSSZ  S£i?»S»*  SlfcStt  U 

SisrSiS:'S'C;g 

ground  and  that  your  hurt  will  heal  as  the  knife  rusts.  Others  again, 
fn  Bavaria?  recommend  you  to  smear  the  axe  or  whatever  it  is  with 

“  “mh^f  mafonSj  which  thus  commends  itself  to  English  and 
Ge.mt  in  common  w„„  .he  s„ag„  of 

is;  carried  a  step  farther  by  the  aborigines  of  Central  Australia,  w  u 
conceive  that  under  certain  circumstances  the  near  relations  of  1 
wounded  man  must  grease  themselves,  restrict  their  diet,  and  regulat 
thriJ1  behaviour  in  other  ways  in  order  to  ensure  his  recovery  Thm 
when  a  lad  has  been  circumcised  and  the  wound  is  not  yet  healed,  hj 


Ill 


CONTAGIOUS  MAGIC 


I 


I 

j 


43 


mother  may  not  eat  opossum,  or  a  certain  kind  of  lizard,  or  carpet 
snake,  or  any  kind  of  fat,  for  otherwise  she  would  retard  the  healing  of 
the  boy’s  wound.  Every  day  she  greases  her  digging-sticks  and  never 
lets  them  out  of  her  sight  ;  at  night  she  sleeps  with  them  close  to  her 
head.  No  one  is  allowed  to  touch  them.  Every  day  also  she  rubs  her 
body  all  over  with  grease,  as  in  some  way  this  is  believed  to  help  her  son’s 
recovery.  Another  refinement  of  the  same  principle  is  due  to  the 
ingenuity  of  the  German  peasant.  It  is  said  that  when  one  of  his  pigs 
or  sheep  breaks  its  leg,  a  farmer  of  Rhenish  Bavaria  or  Hesse  will  bind 
up  the  leg  of  a  chair  with  bandages  and  splints  in  due  form.  For  some 
days  thereafter  no  one  may  sit  on  that  chair,  move  it,  or  knock  up 
against  it ;  for  to  do  so  would  pain  the  injured  pig  or  sheep  and  hinder 
the  cure.  In  this  last  case  it  is  clear  that  we  have  passed  wholly  out 
of  the  region  of  contagious  magic  and  into  the  region  of  homoeopathic 
or  imitative  magic  ;  the  chair-leg,  which  is  treated  instead  of  the  beast’s 
leg,  in  no  sense  belongs  to  the  animal,  and  the  application  of  bandages  to 
it  is  a  mere  simulation  of  the  treatment  which  a  more  rational  surgery 
would  bestow  on  the  real  patient. 

The  sympathetic  connexion  supposed  to  exist  between  a  man  and 
the  weapon  which  has  wounded  him  is  probably  founded  on  the  notion 
that  the  blood  on  the  weapon  continues  to  feel  with  the  blood  in  his 
body.  For  a  like  reason  the  Papuans  of  Tumleo,  an  island  off  New 
Guinea,  are  careful  to  throw  into  the  sea  the  bloody  bandages  with 
which  their  wounds  have  been  dressed,  for  they  fear  that  if  these  rags 
fell  into  the  hands  of  an  enemy  he  might  injure  them  magically  thereby. 
Once  when  a  man  with  a  wound  in  his  mouth,  which  bled  constantly, 
came  to  the  missionaries  to  be  treated,  his  faithful  wife  took  great  pains 
to  collect  all  the  blood  and  cast  it  into  the  sea.  Strained  and  unnatural 
as  this  idea  may  seem  to  us,  it  is  perhaps  less  so  than  the  belief  that 
magic  sympathy  is  maintained  between  a  person  and  his  clothes,  so 
that  whatever  is  done  to  the  clothes  will  be  felt  by  the  man  himself, 
even  though  he  may  be  far  away  at  the  time.  In  the  Wotjobaluk  tribe 
of  Victoria  a  wizard  would  sometimes  get  hold  of  a  man’s  opossum  rug 
and  roast  it  slowly  in  the  fire,  and  as  he  did  so  the  owner  of  the  rug 
would  fall  sick.  If  the  wizard  consented  to  undo  the  charm,  he  would 
give  the  rug  back  to  the  sick  man’s  friends,  bidding  them  put  it  in 
water,  “  so  as  to  wash  the  fire  out.”  When  that  happened,  the  sufferer 
would  feel  a  refreshing  coolness  and  probably  recover.  In  Tanna,  one 
of  the  New  Hebrides,  a  man  who  had  a  grudge  at  another  and  desired  his 
death  would  try  to  get  possession  of  a  cloth  which  had  touched  the 
sweat  of  his  enemy’s  body.  If  he  succeeded,  he  rubbed  the  cloth 
carefully  over  with  the  leaves  and  twigs  of  a  certain  tree,  rolled  and 
bound  cloth,  twigs,  and  leaves  into  a  long  sausage-shaped  bundle,  and 
burned  it  slowly  in  the  fire.  As  the  bundle  was  consumed,  the  victim 
fell  ill,  and  when  it  was  reduced  to  ashes,  he  died.  In  this  last  form 
of  enchantment,  however,  the  magical  sympathy  may  be  supposed  to 
exist  not  so  much  between  the  man  and  the  cloth  as  between  the  man 
and  the  sweat  which  issued  from  his  body.  But  in  other  cases  of  the 


44  SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC  CH- 

same  sort  it  seems  that  the  garment  by  itself  is  enough  to  give  the 
sorcerer  a  hold  upon  his  victim.  The  witch  in  Theocritus,  while  she  1 
melted  an  image  or  lump  of  wax  in  order  that  her  faithless  lover  mig  it 
melt  with  love  of  her,  did  not  forget  to  throw  into  the  fire  a  shred  of  Ins 
cloak  which  he  had  dropped  in  her  house.  In  Prussia  they  say  that  it  9 
you  cannot  catch  a  thief,  the  next  best  thing  you  can  do  is  to  get  hold 
of  a  garment  which  he  may  have  shed  in  his  flight  ;  for  if  you  beat  it  I 
soundly,  the  thief  will  fall  sick.  This  belief  is  firmly  rooted  m  the 
popular  mind.  Some  eighty  or  ninety  years  ago,  m  the  neighbourhood 
of  Berend,  a  man  was  detected  trying  to  steal  honey,  and  fled,  leaving 
his  coat  behind  him.  When  he  heard  that  the  enraged  owner  of  the 
honey  was  mauling  his  lost  coat,  he  was  so  alarmed  that  he  took  to  his 

bed  and  died.  .  .  , 

Again,  magic  may  be  wrought  on  a  man  sympathetically,  not  only 

through  his  clothes  and  severed  parts  of  himself,  but  also  through  the 
impressions  left  by  his  body  in  sand  or  earth..  In  particular,  it  is  a  i 
world-wide  superstition  that  by  injuring  footprints  you  injure  the  feet  I 
that  made  them.  Thus  the  natives  of  South-eastern  Australia  think  i 
that  they  can  lame  a  man  by  placing  sharp  pieces  of  quartz,  glass,  bone, 
or  charcoal  in  his  footprints.  Rheumatic  pains  are  often  attributed  by 
them  to  this  cause.  Seeing  a  Tatungolung  man  very  lame,  Mr.  Howitt 
asked  him  what  was  the  matter.  He  said,  “  Some  fellow  has  put  bottle 
in  my  foot.”  He  was  suffering  from  rheumatism,  but  believed  that  an 
enemy  had  found  his  foot-track  and  had  buried  in  it  a  piece  of  broken 
bottle,  the  magical  influence  of  which  had  entered  his  foot. 

Similar  practices  prevail  in  various  parts  of  Europe.^  Thus  ml 
Mecklenburg  it  is  thought  that  if  you  drive  a  nail  into  a  man’s  footprint 
he  will  fall  lame  ;  sometimes  it  is  required  that  the  nail  should  be  taken 
from  a  coffin.  A  like  mode  of  injuring  an  enemy  is  resorted  to  in  some 
parts  of  France.  It  is  said  that  there  was  an  old  woman  who  used  to 
frequent  Stow  in  Suffolk,  and  she  was  a  witch.  If,  while  she  walked, 
any  one  went  after  her  and  stuck  a  nail  or  a  knife  into  her  footprint  m 
the  dust,  the  dame  could  not  stir  a  step  till  it  was  withdrawn.  Among 
the  South  Slavs  a  girl  will  dig  up  the  earth  from  the  footprints  of  the 
man  she  loves  and  put  it  in  a  flower-pot.  Then  she  plants  m  the  pot 
a  marigold,  a  flower  that  is  thought  to  be  fadeless.  And  as  its  golden 
blossom  grows  and  blooms  and  never  fades,  so  shall  her  sweetheart  s 
love  grow  and  bloom,  and  never,  never  fade.  Thus  the  love-spell  acts 
on  the  man  through  the  earth  he  trod  on.  An  old  Danish  mode  of 
concluding  a  treaty  was  based  on  the  same  idea  of  the  sympathetic 
connexion  between  a  man  and  his  footprints  :  the  covenanting  parties 
sprinkled  each  other’s  footprints  with  their  own  blood,  thus  giving  a 
pledge  of  fidelity.  In  ancient  Greece  superstitions  of  the  same  sort 
seem  to  have  been  current,  for  it  was  thought  that  if  a  horse  stepped  on 
the  track  of  a  wolf  he  was  seized  with  numbness  ;  and  a  maxim  ascrioed 
to  Pythagoras  forbade  people  to  pierce  a  man’s  footprints  with  a  nail 

or  a  knife.  .  1 

The  same  superstition  is  turned  to  account  by  hunters  m  many 


rn 


THE  MAGICIAN’S  PROGRESS  45 

parts  of  the  world  for  the  purpose  of  running  down  the  game.  Tlius  a 
German  huntsman  will  stick  a  nail  taken  from  a  coffin  into  the  fresh 
spoor  of  the  quarry,  believing  that  this  will  hinder  the  animal  from 
escaping.  The  aborigines  of  Victoria  put  hot  embers  in  the  tracks  of 
the  animals  they  were  pursuing.  Hottentot  hunters  throw  into  the 
air  a  handful  of  sand  taken  from  the  footprints  of  the  game,  believing 
that  this  will  bring  the  animal  down.  Thompson  Indians  used  to  lay 
charms  on  the  tracks  of  wounded  deer  ;  after  that  they  deemed  it 
superfluous  to  pursue  the  animal  any  farther  that  day,  for  being  thus 
charmed  it  could  not  travel  far  and  would  soon  die.  Similarly,  Ojebway 
Indians  placed  medicine  on  the  track  of  the  first  deer  or  bear  they 
met  with,  supposing  that  this  would  soon  bring  the  animal  into  sight 
even  if  it  were  two  or  three  days'  journey  off ;  for  this  charm  had  power 
to  compress  a  journey  of  several  days  into  a  few  hours.  Ewe  hunters 
of  West  Afiica  stab  the  footprints  of  game  with  a  sharp-pointed  stick 
in  ordci  to  maim  the  quarry  and  allow  them  to  come  up  with  it. 

But  though  the  footprint  is  the  most  obvious  it  is  not  the  only 
impiession  made  by  the  body  through  which  magic  may  be  wrought 
on  a  man.  The  aborigines  of  South-eastern  Australia  believe  that  a 
man  may  be  injured  by  burying  sharp  fragments  of  quartz,  glass,  and 
so  f 01  th  in  the  mark  made  by  his  reclining  body ;  the  magical  virtue 
of  these  sharp  things  enters  his  body  and  causes  those  acute  pains 
which  the  ignorant  European  puts  down  to  rheumatism.  We  can 
now  understand  why  it  was  a  maxim  with  the  Pythagoreans  that 
m  rising  from  bed  you  should  smooth  away  the  impression  left  by  your 
body  on  the  bed-clothes.  The  rule  was  simply  an  old  precaution 
against  magic,  forming  part  of  a  whole  code  of  superstitious  maxims 
which  antiquity  fathered  on  Pythagoras,  though  doubtless  they  were 
familiar  to  the  barbarous  forefathers  of  the  Greeks  long  before  the  time 
of  that  philosopher. 

.  §  4-  The  Magician’s  Progress.— We  have  now  concluded  our  examin¬ 
ation  of  the  general  principles  of  sympathetic  magic.  The  examples 
by  which  I  have  illustrated  them  have  been  drawn  for  the  most  part 
from  what  may  be  called  private  magic,  that  is  from  magical  rites  and  in¬ 
cantations  practised  for  the  benefit  or  the  injury  of  individuals.  But  in 
savage  society  there  is  commonly  to  be  found  in  addition  what  we  may 
pall  public  magic,  that  is,  sorcery  practised  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole 
community.  Wherever  ceremonies  of  this  sort  are  observed  for  the 
common  good,  it  is  obvious  that  the  magician  ceases  to  be  merely  a 
private  practitioner  and  becomes  to  some  extent  a  public  functionary. 
The  development  of  such  a  class  of  functionaries  is  of  great  importance 
or  political  as  well  as  the  religious  evolution  of  society.  For  when 
die  welfare  of  the  tribe  is  supposed  to  depend  on  the  performance  of 
diese  magical  rites,  the  magician  rises  into  a  position  of  much  influence 
and  repute,  and  may  readily  acquire  the  rank  and  authority  of  a  chief 
r  The  profession  accordingly  draws  into  its  ranks  some  of  the 

ablest  and  most  ambitious  men  of  the  tribe,  because  it  holds  out  to 
••hem  a  pi  ospect  of  honour,  wealth,  and  power  such  as  hardly  any  other 


46 


SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC 


CH. 


career  could  offer.  The  acuter  minds  perceive  how  easy  it  is  to  dupe 
their  weaker  brother  and  to  play  on  his  superstition  for  their  own 
advantage.  Not  that  the  sorcerer  is  always  a  knave  and  impostor 
he  is  often  sincerely  convinced  that  he  really  possesses  those  wonderful 
powers  which  the  credulity  of  his  fellows  ascribes  to  him  But  the 
more  sagacious  he  is,  the  more  likely  he  is  to  see  through  the  fallacies  ■ 
which  impose  on  duller  wits.  Thus  the  ablest  members  of  the  pro¬ 
fession  must  tend  to  be  more  or  less  conscious  deceivers  ,  and  it  is 
ust  the”  men  who  in  virtue  of  their  superior  ability  will  generaffy 
come  to  the  top  and  win  for  themselves  positions  of  the  highest  dignity 
and  the  most  commanding  authority.  The  pitfalls  which  beset  t  le 
path  of  the  professional  sorcerer  are  many,  and  as  a  rule  only  the  man 
of  coolest  head  and  sharpest  wit  will  be  able  to  steer  his  way  thiough 
them  safely.  For  it  must  always  be  remembered  that  every  single 
profession  and  claim  put  forward  by  the  magician  as  such  is  fa  se  , 
not  one  of  them  can  be  maintained  without  deception  conscious  or 
unconscious.  Accordingly  the  sorcerer  who  sincerely  believes  in  his 
own  extravagant  pretensions  is  in  far  greater  peril  and  is  much  more 
likely  to  be  cut  short  in  his  career  than  the  deliberate  impostor, 
honest  wizard  always  expects  that  his  charms  and  incantations  will 
produce  their  supposed  effect ;  and  when  they  fail,  not  only  really  as 
they  always  do,  but  conspicuously  and  disastrously  as  they  often  do 
he  is  taken  aback :  he  is  not,  like  his  knavish  colleague,  ready  with 
a  plausible  excuse  to  account  for  the  failure  and  before  he  can  n 
one  he  may  be  knocked  on  the  head  by  his  disappointed  and  angry 

employers^ner^  .g  that  at  this  stage  of  social  evolution  the 

supreme  power  tends  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  men  of  the  keenest 
intelligence  and  the  most  unscrupulous  character.  If  we  could  balance 
the  harm  they  do  by  their  knavery  against  the  benehts  they  confer 
by  their  superior  sagacity,  it  might  well  be  found  that  the  good  greatly 
outweighed  the  evil.  For  more  mischief  has  probably  been  wrought 
in  the  world  by  honest  fools  in  high  places  than  by  intelligent  rascals 
Once  your  shrewd  rogue  has  attained  the  height  of  his  ambition  and 
has  no  longer  any  selfish  end  to  further,  he  may,  and  often  does,  turn 
his  talents,  his  experience,  his  resources,  to  the  service  of  the  public. 
Many  men  who  have  been  least  scrupulous  m  the  acquisition  of  power  , 
have  been  most  beneficent  in  the  use  of  it,  whether  the  power  they 
aimed  at  and  won  was  that  of  wealth,  political  authority,  01  what  no. 
In  the  field  of  politics  the  wily  intriguer,  the  ruthless  victor,  may  end  by 
being  a  wise  and  magnanimous  ruler,  blessed  in  his  lifetime  lamented  i 
at  his  death,  admired  and  applauded  by  posterity.  Such  men,  to 
take  two  of  the  most  conspicuous  instances,  were  Julius  Caesar  ana 
Augustus.  But  once  a  fool  always  a  fool,  and  the  greater  the  power 1 
in  his  hands  the  more  disastrous  is  likely  to  be  the  use  he  makes  of  it. 
The  heaviest  calamity  in  English  history,  the  breach  with  America, 
might  never  have  occurred  if  George  the  Third  had  not  been  an 

honest  dullard. 


I 


hi  THE  MAGICIAN’S  PROGRESS  47 

Thus,  so  far  as  the  public  profession  of  magic  affected  the  con¬ 
stitution  of  savage  society,  it  tended  to  place  the  control  of  affairs  in 
the  hands  of  the  ablest  man  :  it  shifted  the  balance  of  power  from  the 
many  to  the  one  :  it  substituted  a  monarchy  for  a  democracy,  or 
rather  for  an  oligarchy  of  old  men  ;  for  in  general  the  savage  com¬ 
munity  is  ruled,  not  by  the  whole  body  of  adult  males,  but  by  a  council 
of  elders.  The  change,  by  whatever  causes  produced,  and  whatever 
the  character  of  the  early  rulers,  was  on  the  whole  very  beneficial. 
For  the  rise  of  monarchy  appears  to  be  an  essential  condition  of  the 
emergence  of  mankind  from  savagery.  No  human  being  is  so  hide¬ 
bound  by  custom  and  tradition  as  your  democratic  savage  ;  in  no 
state  of  society  consequently  is  progress  so  slow  and  difficult.  The 
old  notion  that  the  savage  is  the  freest  of  mankind  is  the  reverse  of  the 
truth.  He  is  a  slave,  not  indeed  to  a  visible  master,  but  to  the  past, 
to  the  spirits  of  his  dead  forefathers,  who  haunt  his  steps  from  birth 
to  death,  and  rule  him  with  a  rod  of  iron.  What  they  did  is  the  pattern 
of  right,  the  unwritten  law  to  which  he  yields  a  blind  unquestioning 
obedience.  The  least  possible  scope  is  thus  afforded  to  superior  talent 
to  change  old  customs  for  the  better.  The  ablest  man  is  dragged 
down  by  the  weakest  and  dullest,  who  necessarily  sets  the  standard, 
since  he  cannot  rise,  while  the  other  can  fall.  The  surface  of  such 
a  society  presents  a  uniform  dead  level,  so  far  as  it  is  humanly  possible 
to  reduce  the  natural  inequalities,  the  immeasurable  real  differences 
of  inborn  capacity  and  temper,  to  a  false  superficial  appearance  of 
equality.  From  this  low  and  stagnant  condition  of  affairs,  which 
demagogues  and  dreamers  in  later  times  have  lauded  as  the  ideal  state, 
the  Golden  Age,  of  humanity,  everything  that  helps  to  raise  society 
by  opening  a  career  to  talent  and  proportioning  the  degrees  of  authority 
to  men’s  natural  abilities,  deserves  to  be  welcomed  by  all  who  have 
the  real  good  of  their  fellows  at  heart.  Once  these  elevating  influences 
have  begun  to  operate — and  they  cannot  be  for  ever  suppressed — the 
progress  of  civilisation  becomes  comparatively  rapid.  The  rise  of 
one  man  to  supreme  power  enables  him  to  carry  through  changes  in  a 
single  lifetime  which  previously  many  generations  might  not  have 
sufficed  to  effect ;  and  if,  as  will  often  happen,  he  is  a  man  of  intellect 
and  energy  above  the  common,  he  will  readily  avail  himself  of  the 
opportunity.  Even  the  whims  and  caprices  of  a  tyrant  may  be  of 
service  in  breaking  the  chain  of  custom  which  lies  so  heavy  on  the 
savage.  And  as  soon  as  the  tribe  ceases  to  be  swayed  by  the  timid 
and  divided  counsels  of  the  elders,  and  yields  to  the  direction  of  a 
single  strong  and  resolute  mind,  it  becomes  formidable  to  its  neigh¬ 
bours  and  enters  on  a  career  of  aggrandisement,  which  at  an  early 
stage  of  history  is  often  highly  favourable  to  social,  industrial,  and 
'  intellectual  progress.  For  extending  its  sway,  partly  by  force  of  arms, 
partly  by  the  voluntary  submission  of  weaker  tribes,  the  community 
1  soon  acquires  wealth  and  slaves,  both  of  which,  by  relieving  some 
classes  from  the  perpetual  struggle  for  a  bare  subsistence,  afford  them 
an  opportunity  of  devoting  themselves  to  that  disinterested  pursuit 


48 


SYMPATHETIC  MAGIC 


CII. 


of  knowledge  which  is  the  noblest  and  most  powerful  instrument  to 

ameliorate  the  lot  of  man.  , 

Intellectual  progress,  which  reveals  itself  in  the  growth  of  art  and 

science  and  the  spread  of  more  liberal  views,  cannot  be  dissociated  from 
industrial  or  economic  progress,  and  that  in  its  turn  receives  ait  immense 
impulse  from  conquest  and  empire.  It  is  no  mere  accident  that  the 
most  vehement  outbursts  of  activity  of  the  human  mind  have  followed 
close  on  the  heels  of  victory,  and  that  the  great  conquering  races  of  t  le 
world  have  commonly  done  most  to  advance  and  spread  civilisation, 
thus  healing  in  peace  the  wounds  they  inflicted  in  war.  The  Baby¬ 
lonians,  the  Greeks,  the  Romans,  the  Arabs  are  our  witnesses  m  t  e 

past :  we  may  yet 

remount  the  stream  of  history  to  its  sources,  is  it  an  accident  that 
all  the  first  great  strides  towards  civilisation  have  been  made  under 
despotic  and°  theocratic  governments,  like  those  of  Egypt  Babylon, 
and  Peru  where  the  supreme  ruler  claimed  and  received  the  servile 
allegiance  of  his  subjects  in  the  double  character  of  a  king  and  a  go  . 
It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  at  this  early  epoch  despotism  is  the 
best  friend  of  humanity  and,  paradoxical  as  it  may  sound  of  liberty. 
For  after  all  there  is  more  liberty  m  the  best  sense— liberty  to  think 
our  own  thoughts  and  to  fashion  our  own  destinies— under  the  most 
absolute  despotism,  the  most  grinding  tyranny  than  under  the  apparent 
freedom  of  savage  life,  where  the  individual  s  lot  is  cast  from  the  crad  e 

to  the  grave  in  the  iron  mould  of  hereditary  custom. 

So  far  therefore,  as  the  public  profession  of  magic  has  been  one  of 
the  roads’ by  which  the  ablest  men  have  passed  to  supreme  power,  it 
has  contributed  to  emancipate  mankind  from  the  thraldom  of  tradition 
and  to  elevate  them  into  a  larger,  freer  life,  with  a  broader  outlook  on 
the  world  This  is  no  small  service  rendered  to  humanity.  And  when 
we  remember  further  that  in  another  direction  magic  has  paved  the 
way  for  science,  we  are  forced  to  admit  that  if  the  black  art  has  done 
much  evil,  it  has  also  been  the  source  of  much  good  ;  that  if  it  is  t  le 
child  of  error,  it  has  yet  been  the  mother  of  freedom  and  tiuth. 


J 


CHAPTER  IV 


MAGIC  AND  RELIGION 


The  examples  collected  in  the  last  chapter  may  suffice  to  illustrate  the 
general  principles  of  sympathetic  magic  in  its  two  branches,  to  which 
we  have  given  the  names  of  Homoeopathic  and  Contagious  respecti\  ely. 
In  some  cases  of  magic  which  have  come  before  us  we  have  seen  that 
the  operation  of  spirits  is  assumed,  and  that  an  attempt  is  made  to  win  u 
their  favour  by  prayer  and  sacrifice.  But  these  cases  are  on  the  whole 
exceptional;  they' '  exhibit  magic  tinged  and  alloyed  with  religion,  j 
\\^r£V£q^ympatheticjnagic  occurs  in  its  pure  unadulterated  foim, 


iJiWIN 


_  49 

and 

sPiritual  or  prrsoTiTd 

^w,'  ^^-rr---5;- •I?^Penjf1  conception  is  identical  with  that  of 
^-dgmsg^i-Un^Mglhe  whfae  system  is  a  faith,  in^iirifhiT 
B^fSaer  ^duniformity  of  natura  ~ The  faiglciarT 

Eh  tSV  Same  fTS  WUI  always  Produce  ^  same 
enects,  tiiat  tie  performance  of  the  proper  ceremony  accommmVri 

By  the  appropriate  spell,  will  inevitably  be  attended  by  the  desired 

result,  uniesv^ndeed,  his  incantations  should  chance  tc/be  thwarted 

cafes  noise"  H  ChiTS  °f  an°ther  —  erer  HeTup^ 

cates  no  highe  power  :  he  sues  the  favour  of  no  fickle  and  wavward 

rf  ;  be  aba:es  hlmself  before  no  awful  deity.  Yet  his  power  meat 

as  he  believes  it  to  be,  is  by  no  means  arbitrary  and  unhmhed  He 

can  wield  it  oily  so  long  as  he  strictly  conforms  to  the  rules  of  his  art 

or  o  w  lat  ma/  be  called  the  laws  of  nature  as  conceived  by  him  To 

Ef  J?  *°  b~k  1»-  »  »■«  .mite,  partLl”:  i,  M 

“the  ,  3,,ryT,T°  f  f””  '  "nskil,ul  pmailiener  himself 

to  tne  utmost  peril.  If  he  claims  a  sovereignty  over  nature  it  is  a 

institutional  sovereignty  rigorously  limited  in  Us  scope  and  exercised 

P pact  confoimity  with  ancient  usage.  Thus  the  analogy  between  the 

tragical  and  die  scientific  conceptions  of  the  world  is  close.  In  both 

f  them  thesuccession  of  events  is  assumed  to  be  perfectly  regular  and 

fc  Xf  Tf by  immrtable  laWS- the  °Perationof  Ihich  cf 

a  Scci-M§™l*icd  Precisety  i  the  elements  of  caprice,  of  chance 
i  of  aagent  are  banished  from  the  course  of  nature.  Both  of  them 

he'eau^es  detbmg  7  b7ndle+SS  V!stf  of  Possibilities  to  him  who  knows 

he  vast  fcl  fl  T  can.touch  the  secret  springs  that  set  in  motion 

ttractionlf  i  me,chamsm  of  the  world.  Hence  the  strong 

tti  action  Much  magic  and  science  alike  have  exercised  on  the  human 

likmitZ  tF TfUl  in  mUlUS  that  b0th  have  «iven  t0  the  pursuit 

wilderness  of  disappointment  in  the  present  by  their 
'  *f.  b1  “uses  of  the  future  :  they  take  him  up  to  the  top  of  an 

fc  mf  i  rTf  and  $h0W  hlm’  beyond  the  dark  clouds  and 
if  rhi”  I  a  ,hlS  feet>  a  Vlsl0n  of  the  celestial  city,  far  off,  it  may  be 
'btflltf  flh  unearthly  splendour,  bathed  in  the  light  of  drearns. 
a j  '  -miL-Of  magic  iies-ftot'  in— general  assumption  nf  a 

Vi n  Twk  ,  -  -1.111’  Pi.u'jiajlar  laws  which  govern, that  sequence.  I f 
lied  I  re^  CaS6S  i°f  ^Pathetic  magic  Vhldi  have  been 

'fa ’  mnlt I  the  preceding  pages,  and  which  may  be  taken  as 

lat  thev  erf  ,  Tf’  We  sba11  find'  as  1  have  already  indicated, 
i  y ,  :  .lSe£ms taken  applications  of  one  or  other  of  two  great 

Saritv  a!  T.  1  th°Ught’  /lameIy-  the  Nation  of  idea!  by 
milanty  and  the  asociation  of  ideas  by  contiguity  in  space  or  time 

mistaken  associate,  of  similar  idea!  produces7  homkopathfa  or 

;  tative  magic  .  a  mistaken  association  of  contiguous  ideas  produces 

untagious  magH.  The  |>fariples  of  association  are  excellent  in 


50 


MAGI 


themselves,  and  indeed  absolu^es^hLlUl  ETthe  workmgM&ehm. 
mind.  Legitimately  applied  they  yield  science  ;  illegitimately  applied  I 
they  yield  magic,  the  bastard  sister  of  science.  It  is  the^fore  a  truism, 
almost  a  tautology,  to  say  that  all  magic  is  necessarily  fafee  and  ban  en  , 
for  were  it  ever  to  become  true  and  fruitful,  it  would  no  lmger  be  magic 

but  science.  FronUL^a^  111  a 

ccamh  fnr  gpucraTrul^whereby  to  turn the ^order^inatia ;aJjpbenomena ^ 
to Jengi^  hehs^ESd  togeUu* 
a  great  hoard  of  such  maxims,  some  of  them_gald£o  attd  ,omc_of  them 
mcridroFs~Thg~f5g^^^  applied 

cripnr.p.  which  we  call  the  arts  )  the^false  are  xnagig^. 

If  magic  is  Thus  next  of  kin  to  science,  we  have  still  to  enquire  how 
it  stands  related  to  religion.  But  the  view  we  take  ol.thnt  region 
will  necessarily  be  coloured  by  the  idea  which  we  have  ormed  of  the 
nature  of  religion  itself ;  hence  a  writer  may  reasonably  be  expected 
to  define  his  conception  of  religion  before  he  proceeds  .o  investigate 
its  relation  to  magic.  There  is  probably  no  subject  in  tta  world  about 
which  opinions  differ  so  much  as  the  nature  of  religion,  and  to  frame 
a  definition  of  it  which  would  satisfy  every  one  must  obviously  be 
impossible.  All  that  a  writer  can  do  is,  first,  to  say  clarly  what  le 
means  by  religion,  and  afterwards  to  employ  the  word  coisistently  m 
that  sense  throughout  his  work.  By  religion,  then,  I  unlerstan  a  i 
.  propitiation  or-gemciliation  of  powere.superiorJa  mjfl^hich. are 
believed  to  direct  and  control  the  course  of  nature^  aju^pf ..dmmi 
TfiurTlefin"ed7T?!iglqii  cpnsists_omtwb ’elements,  a  theqretc^apd  a 
practical- namelv.  a  belief  in  powlrs  lugli.  r  tlKiiumui  and  ai  attempt 
^Vpitiatfor^ethild  0f  the  tw0'  belief  clearly  «mes  first 
since  wemust  believe  in  the  existence  of  a  divine  being  bifore  we  ca 
attempt  to  please  him.  Batufllres  the. belief  leads  Jo_a_£fliesponding  t 
practice,  it  is  not  ajsligion-butmaerejy^theejogyj  fir  the  anguage  o 
St.  Janies,  '  f arthTif  it  hath  not  works,  is  dead,  being  alone  In  other 
words  no  man  is  religious  who  does  not  govern  his  condxct  in  somer 
measure  by  the  fear  or  love  of  God.  On  the  other  hand,  imre  practice y 
divested  of  all  religious  belief,  is  also  not  religion.  Tw»  men  ,  lay 
behave  in  exactly  the  same  way,  and  yet  one  of  them  may  oe  re  lgio  . 
and  the  other  not.  If  the  one  acts  from  the  love  or  fear  o  God,  lie  1. 
religious  ;  if  the  other  acts  from  the  love  or  fear  of  man,  re  is  mora 
or  immoral  according  as  his  behaviour  comports  or  conflicts  with  th< 
general  good.  Hence  .belief  and^actic^Ja^rf^^ 
faith  yuid_works  are  equally  essential  to_rghgion,^whlcli  canno  c. 
withaut-bQtLQi-fbcm^  But  it  is  not  necessary  that  religious  prac tic 
should  always  take  the  form  o'f  a  ritual ;  that  is,  it  need  not  consis 
in  the  offering  of  sacrifice,  the  recitation  of  prayers  ana  other  outwar 
ceremonies.  Its  aim  is  to  please  the  deity,  and  if  the  deity  is  one  wh 


cereinumeb.  aim  ro  ^  -  ^ 

delights  in  charity  and  mercy  and  purity  more  than  in  oblation.  J 
blood,  the  chanting  of  hymns,  and  the  fumes  of  incense,  his  worshippei 


DiOOU,  Ulc  GXlcUiLiiig  VOi.  - ~  _  1  1  X  1  Vl 

will  best  please  him,  not  by  prostrating  themselves  before  him,  6 
intoning  his  praises,  and  by  filling  Ins  temples  with  costly  gifts,  bi 


IV 


MAGIC  AND  RELIGION 


5i 


by  being  pure  and  merciful  and  charitable  towards  men,  for  in  so  doing 
they  will  imitate,  so  far  as  human  infirmity  allows,  the  perfections  of 
the  divine  nature.  It  was  this  ethical  side  of  religion  which  the 
Hebrew  prophets,  inspired  with  a  noble  ideal  of  God’s  goodness  and 
holiness,  were  never  weary  of  inculcating.  Thus  Micah  says  :  “He 
hath  shewed  thee,  O  man,  what  is  good  ;  and  what  doth  the  Lord 
require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly 
with  thy  God  ?  ”  And  at  a  later  time  much  of  the  force  by  which 
Christianity  conquered  the  world  was  drawn  from  the  same  high 
conception  of  God  s  moral  nature  and  the  duty  laid  on  men  of  con¬ 
forming  themselves  to  it.  "  Pure  religion  and  undefiled,”  says  St. 
James,  “  before  God  and  the  Father  is  this,  To  visit  the  fatherless  and 
widows  in  their  affliction,  and  to  keep  himself  unspotted  from  the 
world.” 


But  if  religion  involves,  first,  a  belief  in  superhuman  beings  who 
rule  the  world,  and,  second,  an  attempt  to  win  their  favour,  it  clearly 
assumes  that  the  course  of  nature  is  to  some  extent  elastic  or  variable, 
and  that  we  can  persuade  or  induce  the  mighty  beings  who  control  it 
to  deflect,  for  our  benefit,  the  current  of  events  from  the  channel  in 
which  they  would  otherwise  flow.  Now  this  implied  elasticity  or 
variability  of  nature  is  directly  opposed  to  the  principles  of  magic  as 
well  as  of  science,  both  of  which  assume  that  the  processes  of  nature 
are  rigid  and  invariable  in  their  operation,  and  that  they  can  as  little 
be  turned  from  their  course  by  persuasion  and  entreaty  as  by  threats 
1  and  intimidation.  The  distinction  between  the  two  conflicting  views 
:  of  the  universe  turns  on  their  answer  to  the  crucial  question,  Are  the 
forces  which  govern  the  world  conscious  and  personal,  or  unconscious 
and  impersonal  ?  Religion,  as  a  conciliation  of  the  superhuman  powers, 

:  assumes  the  former  member  of  the  alternative.  For  all  conciliation 
implies  that  the  being  conciliated  is  a  conscious  or  personal  agent, 
that  his  conduct  is  in  some  measure  uncertain,  and  that  he  can  be 
prevailed  upon  to  vary  it  in  the  desired  direction  by  a  judicious  appeal 
to  his  interests,  his  appetites,  or  his  emotions.  Conciliation  is  never 
employed  towards  things  which  are  regarded  as  inanimate,  nor  towards 
persons  whose  behaviour  in  the  particular  circumstances  is  known  to 
be  determined  with  absolute  certainty.  Thus  in  so  far  ns  religion  . 
assumes  the  world  to  be  directed  by  conscious  agents  who  may  hp . 

turned  from  thejr  ^purpose  by  persuasion,  it  stands  in  fundamental 

antagonism  to.  magic  as  well  as  to  science,  both  of  which  takp.  for 
thatthe  course  of  nature  is  dotormmod  pr>t  bv  the  passions  om 
capncejjf  personal,  beings,  but  by  the  operation  of  immutable  laws 
^ting  mechanically.  In  magic,  indeed,  the  assumption  is  only  implicit, 
out  in  science  it  is  explicit.  It  is  true  that  magic  often  deals  with ' 
spirits,  which  are  personal  agents  of  the  kind  assumed  by  religion  ;  but 
'  whenever  it  does  so  in  its  proper  form,  it  treats  them  exactly  in  the 
■  same  fashion  as  it  treats  inanimate  agents,  that  is,  it  constrains  or 
coerces  instead  of  conciliating  or  propitiating  them  as  religion  would 
;  do.  Thus  it  assumes  that  all  personal  beings,  whether  human  or  divine. 


1  * 

rl_C 


UN1VERS1TV  OF  ILLINOIS 


52 


MAGIC  AND  RELIGION 


CH. 


are  in  the  last  resort  subject  to  those  impersonal  forces  which  control 
au  thUs  but  which  nevertheless  can  be  turned  to  account  by  any  one 
who  knows  how  to  manipulate  them  by  the  appropriate  ceremonies 
1  npus  jn  ancient  Egypt,  for  example,  the  magicians  claimed  t  e 
now  o!  compemng  evef  tlm  highest  gods  to  do  their  bidding,  and 
actually  threatened8  them  with  destruction  m  case  of  disobedience. 
Sometimes,  without  going  quite  so  far  as  that,  the  wizard  declared  that 
he  would  scatter  the  bones  of  Osiris  or  reveal  his  sacred  legend  if  t 
god  proved  contumacious.  Similarly  in  India  at  the  present  day  the 
great* Hindoo  trinity  itself  of  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Siva  is  subject  to 
the  sorcerers  who,  by  means  of  their  spells,  exercise  such  an  ascendancy 
over  the  mightiest  deities,  that  these  are  bound  submissively  to  execute 
on  earth  below  or  in  heaven  above,  whatever  commands  their  maste  s 
the  ma  icians’may  please  to  issue.  There  is  a paying  everywhere 
current  in  India :  “  The  whole  universe  is  subject  to  the  gods  ,  the 
gods  are  subject  to  the  spells  ( mantras )  ;  the  spells  to  the  Brahmans , 

therefore  the  Brahmans  are  our  gods.” 

has  otomirsued^tbe-jnagkLm.  The  haughty  self-sufficiency  of  the  , 

mamclan  his  arrogant  demeanour  towards  the  higher  powers,  and  his 
unabashed  claim  to  exercise  a  sway  like  theirs  could  not  but  revolt  t  e 
Driest  to  whom,  with  his  awful  sense  of  the  divine  majesty,  and  j 
humble  prostration  in  presence  of  it,  such  claims  and  such  a  demeanour 
must  have  appeared  an  impious  and  blasphemous  usurpation  of  pre-  : 
relatives  that  belong  to  God  alone.  And  sometimes,  we  may  suspect, 
lower1  motives  concurred  to  whet  the  edge  of  the  priest’s  hostility.  He 
professed  to  be  the  proper  medium,  the  true  intercessor  between  Go 
and  man  and  no  doubt  his  interests  as  well  as  his  feelings  were  often 
injured  by  a  rival  practitioner,  who  preached  a  surer  and  smoother  road 
to  fortune  than  the  rugged  and  slippery  path  of  divme  favour 

Yet  this  antagonism,  familiar  as  it  is  to  us,  seems  to  have  made  its 
appearance  comparatively  late  in  the  history  of  religion.  Atanearher 
the  fount  ion  s-cif  priesLand  sorcere_r_ were  o ften  romjpined  01 ,  to 
Speak__EeiIiapsJIl2i£-J^t££lilAA?ereJloL-y£t .  ^i®ei  ®^tiate  rom  ea  1 

other  To  serve  his  purpose  man  wooed  the  good-will  of  gods  or  spirits 
by  prayer  and  sacrifice,  while  at  the  same  time  he  had  recourse  to 
ceremonies  and  forms  of  words  which  he  hoped  would  of  themselves 
bring  about  the  desired  result  without  the  help  of  god  or  devi  ..  n  J 
short  he  performed  religious  and  magical  rites  simultaneously^Jie 
utfereiprayers  andjncantafinm  almost  knowing  or 

reddngli  t  tl  e^f-  theJJieoreiical  incQnsistency_QLhls_behayiour ,  so  long 

as  JiyJioak-fir.  CK^isIc^iS^dJxi-gat-iSiliat-lia  wanted.  Instances 
of  this  fusion  or  confusion  of  magic  with  religion  have  already  met  us 
in  the  practices  of  Melanesians  and  of  other  peoples.^ 

The  same  confusion  of  magic  and  religion  has  survived  among 
peoples  that  have  risen  to  higher  levels  of  culture.  It  was  rife  m  ancient 
India  and  ancient  Egypt ;  it  is  by  no  means  extinct  among  European 


IV 


MAGIC  AND  RELIGION  53 

peasantry  at  the  present  day.  With  regard  to  ancient  India  we  are 
told  by  an  eminent  Sanscrit  scholar  that  “  the  sacrificial  ritual  at  the 
earliest  period  of  which  we  have  detailed  information  is  pervaded 
with  practices  that  breathe  the  spirit  of  the  most  primitive  magic  ” 
Speaking  of  the  importance  of  magic  in  the  East,  and  especially  in 
Egypt,  Pi  ofessor  Maspero  remarks  that  “  we  ought  not  to  attach  to 
the  word  magic  the  degrading  idea  which  it  almost  inevitably  calls  up 
m  the  mind  of  a  modern  Ancient  magic  was  the  very  foundation  of 
religion.  The  faithful  who  desired  to  obtain  some  favour  from  a  god 
had  no  chance  of  succeeding  except  by  laying  hands  on  the  deity,  and 
this  arrest  could  only  be  effected  by  means  of  a  certain  number  of  rites 
sacrifices  prayers,  and  chants,  which  the  god  himself  had  revealed,  and 
which  obliged  him  to  do  what  was  demanded  of  him.” 

Among  the  ignorant  classes  of  modern  Europe  the  same  confusion 
of  ideas,  the  same  mixture  of  religion  and  magic,  crops  up  in  various 
Thus  we  are  told  that  in  France  “  the  majority  of  the  peasants 
still  believe  that  the  priest  possesses  a  secret  and  irresistible  power  over 
the  elements.  By  reciting  certain  prayers  which  he  alone  knows  and 
has  the  right  to  utter,  yet  for  the  utterance  of  which  he  must  afterwards 
demand  absolution,  he  can,  on  an  occasion  of  pressing  danger  arrest 
or  reverse  for  a  moment  the  action  of  the  eternal  laws  of  the  physical 
worid.  The  winds,  the  storms,  the  hail,  and  the  rain  are  at  his  com¬ 
mand  and  obey  his  will  The  fire  also  is  subject  to  him,  and  the  flames 
of  a  conflagration  are  extinguished  at  his  word.”  For  example,  French 
peasants  used  to  be,  perhaps  are  still,  persuaded  that  the  priests  could 
celebrate,  with  certain  special  rites,  a  Mass  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  of 
which  the  efficacy  was  so  miraculous  that  it  never  met  with  any  opposi- 
tion  from  the  divine  will ;  God  was  forced  to  grant  whatever  was  asked 
ot  Him  m  this  form,  however  rash  and  importunate  might  be  the 
petition  No  idea  of  impiety  or  irreverence  attached  to  the  rite  in  the 
minds  of  those  who,  in  some  of  the  great  extremities  of  life,  sought  bv 
this  singular  means  to  take  the  kingdom  of  heaven  by  storm  The 
secular  priests  generally  refused  to  say  the  Mass  of  the  Holy  Spirit  • 
but  the  monks,  especially  the  Capuchin  friars,  had  the  reputation  of 
yielding  with  less  scruple  to  the  entreaties  of  the  anxious  and  distressed, 
n  the  constraint  thus  supposed  by  Catholic  peasantry  to  be  laid  by  the 
priest  upon  the  deity  we  seem  to  have  an  exact  counterpart  of  the 
power  which  the  ancient  Egyptians  ascribed  to  their  magicians.  Again 
I t0  take  another  example,  in  many  villages  of  Provence  the  priest  is  still 
reputed  to  possess  the  faculty  of  averting  storms.  It  is  not  every  priest 
who  enjoys  this  reputation  ;  and  in  some  villages,  when  a  change  of 
pas  ors  takes  place,  the  parishioners  are  eager  to  learn  whether  the  new 
incumbent  has  the  power  {ponder ),  as  they  call  it.  At  the  first  sign  of 
a  heavy  storm  they  put  him  to  the  proof  by  inviting  him  to  exorcise 
e  threatening  clouds  ;  and  if  the  result  answers  to  their  hopes,  the 
mew  shepherd  is  assured  of  the  sympathy  and  respect  of  his  flock.  In 
some  paiishes,  where  the  reputation  of  the  curate  in  this  respect  stood 
higher  than  that  of  his  rector,  the  relations  between  the  two  have  been 


54 


MAGIC  AND  RELIGION 


CH. 


so  strained  in  consequence  that  the  bishop  beiieve  that  to 

rector  to  another  benc^e‘  bad  men  will  sometimes  induce 

revenge  themselves  on  th  M  f  Saint  Secaire.  Very  few 

a  priest  to  say  a  mass  call«a  1  ,  f  th  e  who  do  know  it 

priests  know  this  m<*s  and  three-i [ourth  of  ^  ^  dare  tQ 

you  njay  be  quite  sure  that  they 
that  right  belongs  to  the  pope  o ^  where  owls 

mo'prandToo^  whte  batsflit  in  the  gloaming  where  gypsks  lodge  of 

anunbaptized  infant  has  °0  hehtogs 

Sm^ifst idwi?heTsbaway  httle  by  little,  and  nobody  can  say  what 

Thtyho  nSntw  t£he  isTlow^y  dyS°of  thehtes  of' Saint ^Secatre^ 
Th  L? ‘1^  is  thuajQimd .to  fuse  aad^mateamatejth 

thinking  that  tTuaiusimLis_nat  nrimrttae.  .aBa-tnar  - 


3^s^afflasg55a^,.ae.»  \ 

in  the  history  flf  humanity, 
us  to  surmise  thalmagltasoiae^iiaii  i  cld5_— hllt  ^taien 
Wp  h-ive  seen  that  on  the  one  hand  magic  is  nottang_buUwi»sianeii 

screen  of  nature.^  Obviously  the_eoMeption_of£ersonal  agsal^s-mo 
i  o  oirrmle  recognition  oT  the  simflaritv  _pr  CD 

mined  b^donscioulhgents  Ts  moieiahstruse^  ai^  recojiditer^nd.-requnes 

for  i  ts~appreKensIon  a  farhigh£L<kgre.S..  of  mtelhgeraS-aild- refl®ctl0”' 
thanlKe  vi^w  +h?it  thing’s  succeed  each  qtherjimp.lxby^.apLI^ 
contigS  of'  'Wmbrak^  The  very  beasts  associate  the  ideas 
thii^^thL  are  like  each  other  or  that  have  been  found  together  m  their 
expedience  ;  and  thev  could  hardly  survive  for  a  day  if  they  ceased  to 
doPso  But  who  attributes  to  the  animals  a  belief  that  the  phenome 
of  nature  are  worked  by  a  multitude  of  invisible  animals  or  by  one 


IV 


MAGIC  AND  RELIGION  55 

enormous  and  prodigiously  strong  animal  behind  the  scenes  ?  It  is 
probably  no  injustice  to  the  brutes  to  assume  that  the  honour  of 
devising  a  theory  of  this  latter  sort  must  be  reserved  for  human  reason. 
Thus,  if  magic  be  deduced  immediately  from  elementary  processes  of 
reasoning,  and  be,  in  fact,  an  error  into  which  the  mind  falls  almost 
spontaneously,  while  religion  rests  on  conceptions  which  the  merely 
animal  intelligence  can  hardly  be  supposed  to  have  yet  attained  to, 
it  becomes  probable  that  magic  arose  before  religion  in  the  evolution 
of  our  lace,  and  that  man  essayed  to  bend  nature  to  his  wishes  by  the 
sheer  force  of  spells  and  enchantments  before  he  strove  to  coax  and 

mollify  a  coy,  capricious,  or  irascible  deity  by  the  soft  insinuation  of 
prayer  and  sacrifice. 

The  conclusion  which  we  have  thus  reached  deductively  from  a 
consideration  ot  the  fundamental  ideas  of  magic  and  religion  is  con¬ 
firmed  inductively  by  the  observation  that  among  the  aborigines  of 
Australia,  the  rudest  savages  as  to  whom  we  possess  accurate  informa¬ 
tion,  magic  is  universally  practised,  whereas  religion  in  the  sense  of  a 
propitiation  or  conciliation  of  the  higher  powers  seems  to  be  nearly 
unknown.  Roughly  speaking,  all  men  in  Australia  are  magicians,  but 
not  one  is  a  priest ;  everybody  fancies  he  can  influence  his  fellows  or 
the  course  of  nature  by  sympathetic  magic,  but  nobody  dreams  of 
propitiating  gods  by  prayer  and  sacrifice. 

13ut  if  in  the  most  backward  state  of  human  society  now  known 
tdus_we^ndjnagic  thusconspicuously  present  anrl^TmTTTTii^gTh- 
nayjye  not  reasonably  conjecturethat  the  civilised  races'" 

o£The__wpr3d_Jiaye^Lo j^^ome  periocr7)f  theE  histor^y)a^ed  tiirougii  ~~ 

a^simila.r  inielkctiiaLplLase,  tha£_the\T attempted  to  force  the  great 
powers  of  nature  to  do  their  pleasure  before  they  thought  of  courting 
their  favour  by  offerings  and  prayer— in  short  that,  just  as  on  the 
material  side  of  human  culture  there  has  everywhere  been  an  Age  of 
Stone,  so  on  the  intellectual  side  there  has  everywhere  been  an  Age  of 
Magic  Thera-axe_i£asons^f or  answering  this  question  in  the  affirm n-" 

nve^  When  we  survey  the~exTs tmgTaces  of  mankirnffrom  Greenland 
to  Tierra  del  Fuego,  or  from  Scotland  to  Singapore,  we  observe  that 
they  are  distinguished  one  from  the  other  by  a  great  variety  of  religions, 
and  that  these  distinctions  are  not,  so  to  speak,  merely  coterminous 
with  the  broad  distinctions  of  race,  but  descend  into  the  minuter  sub¬ 
divisions  of  states  and  commonwealths,  nay,  that  they  honeycomb  the 
town,  the  village,  and  even  the  family,  so  that  the  surface  of  society  all 
over  the  world  is  cracked  and  seamed,  sapped  and  mined  with  rents  and 
fissures  and  yawning  crevasses  opened  up  by  the  disintegrating  influence 
of  religious  dissension.  Yet  when  we  have  penetrated  through  these 
differences,  which  affect  mainly  the  intelligent  and  thoughtful  part  of 
;  the  community,  we  shall  find  underlying  them  all  a  solid  stratum  of 
intellectual  agreement  among  the  dull,  the  weak,  the  ignorant,  and  the 
.superstitious,  who  constitute,  unfortunately,  the  vast  majority  of 
mankind.  One  of  the  great  achievements  of  the  nineteenth  century 
.was  to  run  shafts  down  into  this  low  mental  stratum  in  many  parts  of 


56 


MAGIC  AND  RELIGION 


CH 


the  world,  and  thus  to  discover  its  substantial  identity  everywhere. 
It  is  beneath  our  feet — and  not  very  far  beneath  them — -here  in  Europe 
at  the  present  day,  and  it  crops  up  on  the  surface  in  the  heait  of  the 
Australian  wilderness  and  wherever  the  advent  of  a  higher  civilisa¬ 
tion  has  not  crushed  it  underground.  This  universal  faith,  this  truly 
Catholic  creed,  is  a  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  magic.  While  religious 
systems  differ  not  only  in  different  countries,  but  in  the  same  country 
in  different  ages,  the  system  of  sympathetic  magic  remains  everywhere 
and  at  all  times  substantially  alike  in  its  principles  and  practice. 
Among  the  ignorant  and  superstitious  classes  of  modern  Eui  ope  it  is 
very  much  what  it  was  thousands  of  years  ago  in  Egypt  and  India,  and 
what  it  now  is  among  the  lowest  savages  surviving  in  the  remotest 
corners  of  the  world.  If  the  test  of  truth  lay  in  a  show  of  hands  or  a 
counting  of  heads,  the  system  of  magic  might  appeal,  with  far  more 
reason  than  the  Catholic  Church,  to  the  proud  motto,  “  Quod' semper, 
quod  ubique,  quod  ah  omnibus,”  as  the  sure  and  certain  credential  of  its 


' 


own  infallibility. 

It  ^  -not  nnr  biliary  herp  tn  rn^ider  what  bearing  the  permanent 
existence  of  such  a  solid  layer  of  savagery.,  beneath .  the  surface  of 
society,  and  unaffected  by  the  superficigdcbaagfiSJ^ 
hnc;  i-|prm  fhe.fnt.nrf.  of  humanity.  The  dispassionate  observer,  whose 
studies  have  led  him  to  plumb  its  depths,  can  hardly  regard  it  other¬ 
wise  than  as  a  standing  menace  to  civilisation.  We  seem  to  move 
on  a  thin  crust  which  may  at  any  moment  be  rent  by  the  subterranean 
forces  slumbering  below.  From  time  to  time  a  hollow  murmur  under¬ 
ground  or  a  sudden  spirt  of  flame  into  the  air  tells  of  what  is  going  on 

beneath  our  feet.  N ow-anxl  a 

paragraph  in  a.  n ewspaper-  which- tel  1  s  .how.. in  ..Scot]  and_iui_iinage  h as 
hpppjbimd  stuck  full_of  pins  for, J±u^mmosemf^Uing.,an  obnoxious 
laird  or  minister,  how  a  woman  has  been  slowly  roasted  to  death  as  a 
witch  in  Ireland,  or  how  a  girl  has  been  murdered  and  chopped  up  in 
Russia  to  make  those  candles  of  human  tallow  by  whose  light  thieves 
hope  to  pursue  their  midnight  trade  unseen.  But  whether  the  in¬ 
fluences  that  make  for  further  progress,  or  those  that  threaten  to 
undo  what  has  already  been  accomplished,  will  ultimately  prevail ; 
whether  the  impulsive  energy  of  the  minority  or  the  dead  weight  of 
the  majority  of  mankind  will  prove  the  stronger  force  to  carry  us  up 
to  higher  heights  or  to  sink  us  into  lower  depths,  are  questions  rather 
for  the  sage,  the  moralist,  and  the  statesman,  whose  eagle  vision  scans 
the  future,  than  for  the  humble  student  of  the  present  and  the  past. 
Here  we  are  only  concerned  to  ask  how  far  the  uniformity,  the  univer-  | 
sality,  and  the  permanence  of  a  belief  in  magic,  compared  with  the  1 
endless  variety  and  the  shifting  character  of  religious  creeds,  raises 
a  presumption  that  the  former  represents  a  ruder  and  earlier  phase  of 
the  human  mind,  through  which  all  the  races  of  mankind  have  passed 
or  are  passing  on  their  way  to  religion  and  science. 

If  .gruApp  of  Religion  has  thus^yprywherp,.  as  I  ventnmir.  mirmise. 

of  MaglcTiLisJiatural  that  we^hquhlnenquire 


IV 


MAGIC  AND  RELIGION 


57 

whaLcaiisey^  or  rather  a  poxiiorLollhem.  to  abandon 

niagic_^,g  a  principle.  nfJhlt^and-practice  and  to  betake  thorn  ta 

'f™  msteyL--  When  we  reflect  upon  the  multitude,  the  variety 
and  the  complexity  of  the  facts  to  be  explained,  and  the  scantiness  of 
our  mformation  regarding  them,  we  shall  be  ready  to  acknowledge 
that  a  full  and  satisfactory  solution  of  so  profound  a  problem  is  hardly 
to  be  hoped  for,  and  that  the  most  we  can  do  in  the  present  state  of  our 
knowledge  is  to  hazard  a  more  or  less  plausible  conjecture.  With  all 
.  dl*™ei}ce'  th?n'  1  would  suggest  that  a  tardy  recognition  of  tho 
mhyrgn t.  -ialsehi^^ncl  bayrenness  _qL  magic_set  the  more  thoughtful 
Eartofjnank^jto^  for  a  truer  theory  of  nature  and 

The  shrewder 

intelligences  must_  in  time  have  come  to  perceive  that  maeica]  eere- 
monies  and  mcantation$  didm at.  really  effect  the  results  which  tw 
w^e^signe^Io^duc^  and  which  the  maioritv  of  their  simpIE 
fellpHS_stiIL.beheved  that„.they  _did^tually  produce.  This  grelt 
discovery  of  the  mefficacy  of  magic  must  have  wrought  a  radical 
though  probably  slow  revolution  in  the  minds  of  those  who  had  the 
sagacity  to  make  it.  Ihe^iscoyery  amounted  to  this,  that  men  for 
first. iime^cognised __  their  inability  to  manipulate'  at  pteure~ 
Cyr*a|n  Taturaj iorces^which  hhhe^  IhayJiM-believed 
P  |piy-Wlthin  themppri fro] j — It  was  a  confession  of  human  ignorance 
and  weakness.  Man  saw  that  he  had  taken  for  causes  what  were  no 
causes  and  that  all  his  efforts  to  work  by  means  of  these  imaginary 
causes  had  been  vam.  His  painful  toil  had  been  wasted,  his  curious 
ingenuity  had  been  squandered  to  no  purpose.  He  had  been  pulling 
at  strings  to  which  nothing  was  attached  ;  he  had  been  marching 
as  he  thought,  straight  to  the  goal,  while  in  reality  he  had  only  been 
treading  m  a  narrow  circle.  Not  that  the  effects  which  he  had  striven 
so  hard  to  produce  did  not  continue  to  manifest  themselves.  They 
were  still  produced,  but  not  by  him.  The  rain  still  fell  on  the  thirsty 
ground  :  the  sun  still  pursued  his  daily,  and  the  moon  her  nightly 
journey  across  the  sky  :  the  silent  procession  of  the  seasons  still  moved 
m  light  and  shadow,  m  cloud  and  sunshine  across  the  earth  :  men  were 
still  born  to  labour  and  sorrow,  and  still,  after  a  brief  sojourn  here 
were  gathered  to  their  fathers  in  the  long  home  hereafter.  All  things 
indeed  went  on  as  before,  yet  all  seemed  different  to  him  from  whose 
eyes  the  old  scales  had  fallen.  For  he  could  no  longer  cherish  the 
p  easing  illusion  that  it  was  he  who  guided  the  earth  and  the  heaven 
m  their  courses,  and  that  they  would  cease  to  perform  their  great 
revolutions  were  he  to  take  his  feeble  hand  from  the  wheel.  In  the 
death  of  his  enemies  and  his  friends  he  no  longer  saw  a  proof  of  the 
resistless  potency  of  his  own  or  of  hostile  enchantments  ;  he  now  knew 
that  friends  and  foes  alike  had  succumbed  to  a  force  stronger  than 

any  that  he  could  wield,  and  in  obedience  to  a  destiny  which  he  was 
powerless  to  control. 

Thus_cut_adrift  from  his  ancient  moorings  and  left  to  toss  on 


5S 


MAGIC  AND  RELIGION 


CH. 


himself  and  his  po w^s_rudd^shate  ^Ye  philosopher  must 

have  been  sadlv  perplexed  and_agi£ai£d  tih  he  ^a.me  t.g  r  esk-  as  m  a 

quiet  haven  after  a  tejnpesinaus^vQyai^^  an^ 

of  his  harassmgjdoubts  and 

a  substitute,  however  precarious,  R»rJI^soverei^nty_over  nature 
which  he  had  reluctantly  abdicafed.  If  the  great  world  went_  on  its 
wav  without  the  help  of  him  or  his  fellows,  it  must  surely  bejbecause 
there  were  beings,  like  himscllZJ5uT  far  stronger,  who,  unseen 

themselves^ directed  its  course  and  brought  about  all  the  varied  series 
of  events  which  he  had  hitherto  believed  to  be  dependent  on  his  own 
magic.  It  was  they,  as  he  now  believed,  and  not  he  himself,  who  made 
the  stormy  wind  to  blow,  the  lightning  to  flash,  and  the  thunder  to  roll , 
who  had  laid  the  foundations  of  the  solid  earth  and  set  bounds  to  the 
restless  sea  that  it  might  not  pass  ;  who  caused  all  the  glorious  lights 
of  heaven  to  shine  ;  who  gave  the  fowls  of  the  air  their  meat  and  the 
wild  beasts  of  the  desert  their  prey  ;  who  bade  the  fruitful  land  to 
bring  forth  in  abundance,  the  high  hills  to  be  clothed  with  forests,  the 
bubbling  springs  to  rise  under  the  rocks  in  the  valleys,  and  green  pas¬ 
tures  to  grow  by  still  waters  ;  who  breathed  into  man  s  nostrils  and 
made  him  live,  or  turned  him  to  destruction  by  famine  and  pestilence 
and  war.  To  these  mighty  beings,  whose  handiwork  he  traced  m  all 
the  gorgeous  and  varied  pageantry  of  nature,  man  now  addressed 
himself  humbly  confessing  his  dependence  on  their  invisible  power, 
and  beseeching  them  of  their  mercy  to  furnish  him  with  all  good  things, 
to  defend  him  from  the  perils  and  dangers  by  which  our  mortal  life  is 
compassed  about  on  every  hand,  and  finally  to  bring  his  immortal 
spirit  freed  from  the  burden  of  the  body,  to  some  happiei  woild, 
beyond  the  reach  of  pain  and  sorrow,  where  he  might  rest  with  them 
and  with  the  spirits  of  good  men  in  joy  and  felicity  for  ever. 

In  this,  or  some  such  way  as  this,  the  deeper  minds  may  be  con¬ 
ceived  to  have  made  the  great  transition  from  magic  to  religion.  But 
even  in  them  the  change  can  hardly  ever  have  been  sudden  ;  probably 
it  proceeded  very  slowly,  and  required  long  ages  for  its  more  or  less 
perfect  accomplishment.  For  the  recognition  of  man  s  poweilessness 
to  influence  the  course  of  nature  on  a  grand  scale  must  have  been 
gradual  •  he  cannot  have  been  shorn  of  the  whole  of  his  fancied 
dominion  at  a  blow.  Step  by  step  he  must  have  been  driven  back 
from  his  proud  position  ;  foot  by  foot  he  must  have  yielded,  with  a 
sigh,  the  ground  which  he  had  once  viewed  as  his  own.  Now  it  would 
be  the  wind,  now  the  rain,  now  the  sunshine,  now  the  thunder,  that  he 
confessed  himself  unable  to  wield  at  will  ;  and  as  piovince  aftei  pro¬ 
vince  of  nature  thus  fell  from  his  grasp,  till  what  had  once  seemed  a 
kingdom  threatened  to  shrink  into  a  prison,  man  must  have  been  more 
and  more  profoundly  impressed  with  a  sense  of  his  own  helplessness 
and  the  might  of  the  invisible  beings  by  whom  he  believed  himself 
to  be  surrounded.  Thus  religion,  beginning  as  a  slight  and  partial  j 
acknowledgment  of  powers  superior  to  man,  tends  with  the  growth  of 
knowledge  to  deepen  into  a  confession  of  man’s  entire  and  absolute 


MAGIC  AND  RELIGION 


59 


iV 


dependence  on  the  divine  ;  his  old  free  bearing  is  exchanged  for  an 
attitude  of  lowliest  prostration  before  the  mysterious  powers  of  the 
unseen,  and  his  highest  virtue  is  to  submit  his  will  to  theirs  :  In  la 
sua  volontade  e  nostra  pace.  But_this.de.ape.ping  sense  of  religion,  this, 
nreg^&effect  submission  toJ&f^divine  will  in  all  things,  affects  only 
tliQ^ehigher  intelligences  who  have  breadth  of  view  enough  tpxompre- 
hen^Ee^asBrt^s^~ universe  and^'tlieMftflen'ess  of  man.  Srnail 
mipds  canjmt'grasprgteatldeas j  To  their  narrow  comprehension,  their 


purblind  vision,  nothing  seems  really  great  and  important  but  them¬ 
selves.  Such  minds  hardly,  risej^ntojeligion  at^alh  They  are,  indeed, 
drilled  by  theiTbetFers  into  an^u±mrd^ij^rmit^  with  its  precepts 
and  a  verbal  profession  of  its  tenets  ;  but,  at.  henrt  thay^aling  fnj-hpir 
oldjnagicaLsupsjstitions,  which  may  be  discountenanced  and  forbidden, 
but  cannot  be  eradicated  by  religion,  so  long  as  they  have  their  roots 
deep  down  in  the  mental  framework  and  constitution  of  the  great 
majority  of  mankind. 

The  reader  may  well  be  tempted  to  ask,  How  was  .it.  th  al.i  n  tolWnt 
men  _did  jiaL_soon_er  detect  the  fallacy  of  magic  ?  How  could  they 
continue  to  cherish  expectations  That  were  invariably  doomed  to 
disappointment  ?  With  what  heart  persist  in  playing  venerable 
antics  that  led  to  nothing,  and  mumbling  solemn  balderdash  that 
remained  without  effect  ?  Why  cling  to  beliefs  which  were  so  flatly 
contradicted  by  experience  ?  How  dare  to  repeat  experiments  that 
had  failed  so  often  ?  The  answer  seems  to  be  that  the  fallacy  was  far 
frQhhTa^y,Lfi-^f;£uL..theJ[ailm;£i  by-4io  means  obvious,  since  in  many, 
P  e  rhjrps  _iu_JQiQsW  9  usesth  e_  d.  e  si  red _  e  venTdiT-  actually  Tollo  w ,  at  a 
longer,  or  shorter  intei3£^  the  rite  whirh,  was 

dQgignsTiQ^^  a  mind  of  more  than  common  acute¬ 

ness  was  needed  to  perceive  that,  even  in  these  cases,  the  rite  was 
not  necessarily  the  cause  of  the  event.  A  ceremony  intended  to 
make  the  wind  blow  or  the  rain  fall,  or  to  work  the  death  of  an  enemy, 
will  always  be  followed,  sooner  or  later,  by  the  occurrence  it  is  meant 
to  bring  to  pass  ;  and  primitive  man  may  be  excused  for  regarding 
the  occurrence  as  a  direct  result  of  the  ceremony,  and  the  best  possible 
proof  of  its  efficacy.  Similarly,  rites  observed  in  the  morning  to  help 
the  sun  to  rise,  and  in  spring  to  wake  the  dreaming  earth  from  her 
winter  sleep,  will  invariably  appear  to  be  crowned  with  success,  at 
least  within  the  temperate  zones  ;  for  in  these  regions  the  sun  lights 
his  golden  lamp  in  the  east  every  morning,  and  year  by  year  the 
vernal  earth  decks  herself  afresh  with  a  rich  mantle  of  green.  Hence 
the  practical  savage,  with  his  conservative  instincts,  might  well  turn 
a  deaf  ear  to  the  subtleties  of  the  theoretical  doubter,  the  philosophic 
radical,  who  presumed  to  hint  that  sunrise  and  spring  might  not, 

'  after  all,  be  direct  consequences  of  the  punctual  performance  of 
certain  daily  or  yearly  ceremonies,  and  that  the  sun  might  perhaps 
i  continue  to  rise  and  trees  to  blossom  though  the  ceremonies  were 
5  occasionally  intermitted,  or  even  discontinued  altogether.  These 
:  sceptical  doubts  would  naturally  be  repelled  by  the  other  with  scorn 


6o 


THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  THE  WEATHER  ch. 

and  indignation  as  airy  reveries  subversive  of  the  faith  and  manifestly  ] 
contradicted  by  experience.  “  Can  anything  be  plainer/  he  might 
say,  “  than  that  I  light  my  twopenny  candle  on  earth  and  that  the 
sun  then  kindles  his  great  fire  in  heaven  ?  I  should  be  glad  to  know 
whether,  when  I  have  put  on  my  green  robe  in  spring,  the  trees  do 
not  afterwards  do  the  same  ?  These  are  facts  patent  to  everybody, 
and  on  them  I  take  my  stand.  I  am  a  plain  practical  man,  not  one  of 
your  theorists  and  splitters  of  hairs  and  choppers  of  logic.  Theories 
and  speculation  and  all  that  may  be  very  well  in  their  way,  and  I 
have  not  the  least  objection  to  your  indulging  in  them,  provided,  of 
course,  you  do  not  put  them  in  practice.  But  give  me  leave  to  stick 
to  facts  ;  then  I  know  where  I  am.”  The  fallacy  of  this  reasoning 
is  obvious  to  us,  because  it  happens  to  deal  with  facts  about  which 
we  have  long  made  up  our  minds.  But  let  an  argument  of  precisely 
the  same  calibre  be  applied  to  matters  which  are  still  under  debate, 
and  it  may  be  questioned  whether  a  British  audience  would  not  applaud, 
it  as  sound,  and  esteem  the  speaker  who  used  it  a  safe  man  not 
brilliant  or  showy,  perhaps,  but  thoroughly  sensible  and  hard-headed. 

If  such  reasonings  could  pass  muster  among  ourselves,  need  we  wonder 
that  they  long  escaped  detection  by  the  savage  ? 

' 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  THE  WEATHER 

§  i.  The  Public  Magician. — The  reader  may  remember  that  we  were 
led  to  plunge  into  the  labyrinth  of  magic  by  a  consideration  of  two 
different  types  of  man-god.  This  is  the  clue  which  has  guided  our 
devious  steps  through  the  maze,  and  brought  us  out  at  last  on  higher 
ground,  whence,  resting  a  little  by  the  way,  we  can  look  back  over 
the  path  we  have  already  traversed  and  forward  to  the  longer  and 
steeper  road  we  have  still  to  climb. 

As  a  result  of  the  foregoing  discussion,  the  two  types  of  human 
gods  may  conveniently  be  distinguished  as  the  religious  and  the 
magical  man-god  respectively.  In  the  former,  a  being  of  an  order 
different  from  and  superior  to  man  is  supposed  to  become  incarnate, 
for  a  longer  or  a  shorter  time,  in  a  human  body,  manifesting  his  super¬ 
human  power  and  knowledge  by  miracles  wrought  and  prophecies 
uttered  through  the  medium  of  the  fleshly  tabernacle  in  which  he  has 
deigned  to  take  up  his  abode.  This  may  also  appropriately  be  called 
the  inspired  or  incarnate  type  of  man-god.  In  it  the  human  body  is 
merely  a  frail  earthly  vessel  filled  with  a  divine  and  immortal  spirit. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  man-god  of  the  magical  sort  is  nothing  but  a 
man  who  possesses  in  an  unusually  high  degree  powers  which  most* 
of  his  fellows  arrogate  to  themselves  on  a  smaller  scale  ;  for  in  rude| 
society  there  is  hardly  a  person  who  does  not  dabble  in  magic.  Thus, 


V  THE  PUBLIC  MAGICIAN  61 

whereas  a  man-god  of  the  former  or  inspired  type  derives  his  divinity 
from  a  deity  who  has  stooped  to  hide  his  heavenly  radiance  behind 
a  dull  mask  of  earthly  mould,  a  man-god  of  the  latter  type  draws  his 
extiaoidinaiy  power  from  a  certain  physical  sympathy  with  nature. 
He  is  not  merely  the  receptacle  of  a  divine  spirit.  His  whole  being^ 
body  and  soul,  is  so  delicately  attuned  to  the  harmony  of  the  world 
that  a  touch  of  his  hand  or  a  turn  of  his  head  may  send  a  thrill  vibrat- 
ing,  through  the  universal  framework  of  things  ,*  and  conversely  his 
divine  organism  is  acutely  sensitive  to  such  slight  changes  of  environ¬ 
ment  as  would  leave  ordinary  mortals  wholly  unaffected.  But  the 
line  between  these  two  types  of  man-god,  however  sharply  we  may 
draw  it  in  theory,  is  seldom  to  be  traced  with  precision  in  practice 
and  in  what  follows  I  shall  not  insist  on  it. 

We  have  seen  that  in  practice  the  magic  art  may  be  employed 
01  the  benefit  either  of  individuals  or  of  the  whole  community,  and 
that  according  as  it  is  directed  to  one  or  other  of  these  two  objects 
it  may  be  called  private  or  public  magic,  further,  I  pointed  out 
that  the  public  magician  occupies  a  position  of  great  influence  from 
which,  if  he  is  a  prudent  and  able  man,  he  may  advance  step  by  step 
to  the  rank  of  a  chief  or  king.  Thus  an  examination  of  public  magic 
conduces  to  an  understanding  of  the  early  kingship,  since  in  savage 
and  barbarous  society  many  chiefs  and  kings  appear  to  owe  their 
authority  in  great  measure  to  their  reputation  as  magicians. 

Among  the  objects  of  public  utility  which  magic  may  be  employed 
to  secure,  the  most  essential  is  an  adequate  supply  of  food.  The 
examples  cited  in  preceding  pages  prove  that  the  purveyors  of  food — 
the  hunter,  the  fisher,  the  farmer — all  resort  to  magical  practices  in 
the  puisuit  of  their  various  callings  *  but  they  do  so  as  private  in¬ 
dividuals  for  the  benefit  of  themselves  and  their  families,  rather  than 
as  public  functionaries  acting  in  the  interest  of  the  whole  people.  It 
is  otherwise  when  the  rites  are  performed,  not  by  the  hunters,  the 
fishers,  the  farmers  themselves,  but  by  professional  magicians  on  their 
behalf.  In  primitive  society,  where  uniformity  of  occupation  is  the 
rule,  and  the  distribution  of  the  community  into  various  classes  of 
workers  has  hardly  begun,  every  man  is  more  or  less  his  own  magician  ; 
ae  practises  charms  and  incantations  for  his  own  good  and  the  injury 
H  his  enemies.  But  a  great  step  in  advance  has  been  taken  when  a 
special  class  of  magicians  has  been  instituted  ;  when,  in  other  words, 
i  number  of  men  have  been  set  apart  for  the  express  purpose  of  benefit¬ 
's  the  whole  community  by  their  skill,  whether  that  skill  be  directed 
:o  the  healing  of  diseases,  the  forecasting  of  the  future,  the  regulation 
)f  the  weather,  or  any  other  object  of  general  utility.  The  impotence 
)f  the  means  adopted  by  most  of  these  practitioners  to  accomplish 
heir  ends  ought  not  to  blind  us  to  the  immense  importance  of  the 
nstitution  itself.  Here  is  a  body  of  men  relieved,  at  least  in  the 
ligher  stages  of  savagery,  from  the  need  of  earning  their  livelihood 
>y  hard  manual  toil,  and  allowed,  nay,  expected  and  encouraged,  to 
irosecute  researches  into  the  secret  ways  of  nature.  It  was  at  once 


THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  THE  WEATHER 


CH. 


62 

their  duty  and  their  interest  to  know  more  than  their  fellows,  to  I 
acquaint  themselves  with  everything  that  could  aid  man  m  his  arduous 
struggle  with  nature,  everything  that  could  mitigate  his  suffer  g 
and  prolong  his  life.  The  properties  of  drugs  and  minerals,  the  causes 
of  rain  and  drought,  of  thunder  and  lightning,  the  changes  of 
seasons,  the  phases  of  the  moon,  the  daily  and  yearly  journeys  of  e 
sun,  the  motions  of  the  stars,  the  mystery  of  life,  and  the  mystery  of  . 
death  all  these  things  must  have  excited  the  wonder  of  these  early 
philosophers,  and  stimulated  them  to  find  solutions  of  problems  that 
were  doubtless  often  thrust  on  their  attention  m  the  most  Pr^ctH 
form  by  the  importunate  demands  of  their  clients,  who  expected  t 
not  merely  to  understand  but  to  regulate  the  great  processes  of  nature 
for  the  good  of  man.  That  their  first  shots  fell  very  far  wide  of  the 
mark  could  hardly  be  helped.  The  slow,  the  never-ending  appioach 
to  truth  consists  in  perpetually  forming  and  testing  hypotheses 
accepting  those  which  at  the  time  seem  to  fit  the  facts  and  rejecting 
the  others.  The  views  of  natural  causation  embraced  by  the  savage 
magician  no  doubt  appear  to  us  manifestly  false  and  absurd  ,  yet 
in  their  day  they  were  legitimate  hypotheses,  though  they  have 
stood  the  test  of  experience.  Ridicule  and  blame  are  the  just  meed, 
not  of  those  who  devised  these  crude  theories,  but  of  those  who  obsti¬ 
nately  adhered  to  them  after  better  had  been  propounded.  Ceitain  y 
no  men  ever  had  stronger  incentives  in  the  pursuit  of  truth  than  these 
savage  sorcerers.  To  maintain  at  least  a  show  of  knowledge  was 
absolutely  necessary;  a  single  mistake  detected  niigi  co~ 
their  life.  This  no  doubt  led  them  to  practise  imposture  for  the  pur 
pose  of  concealing  their  ignorance  ;  but  it  also  supplied  them  wi 
the  most  powerful  motive  for  substituting  a  real  for  a  sham  knowledge, 
since  if  you  would  appear  to  know  anything,  by  far  the  best  way 
is  actually  to  know  it.  Thus,  however  justly  we  may  reject  the 
extravagant  pretensions  of  magicians  and  condemn  the  deceptions 
which  they  have  practised  on  mankind,  the  original  institution  of  t 
class  of  men  has,  take  it  all  in  all,  been  productive  of  incalculable 
good  to  humanity.  They  were  the  direct  predecessors,  not  merely  of 
our  physicians  and  surgeons,  but  of  our  investigators  and  discoverers 
in  every  branch  of  natural  science.  They  began  the  work  which  - 
since  been  carried  to  such  glorious  and  beneficent  issues  by  then 
successors  in  after  ages  ;  and  if  the  beginning  was  al}  *le  ’ 

this  is  to  be  imputed  to  the  inevitable  difficulties  which  beset  the 
path  of  knowledge  rather  than  to  the  natural  incapacity  or  wilful 

fraud  of  the  men  themselves.  .  ,,  , 

s  2  The  Magical  Control  of  Rain.— Of  the  things  which  the  public 

magician  sets  himself  to  do  for  the  good  of  the  tribe,  one  of  the  chie 
is  to  control  the  weather  and  especially  to  ensure  an  adequate  faU 
of  rain.  Water  is  an  essential  of  life,  and  m  most  countries  th 
supply  of  it  depends  upon  showers.  Without  ram  vegetation  withers, 
animals  and  men  languish  and  die.  Hence  in  savage  communities  the 
rain-maker  is  a  very  important  personage  ;  and  often  a  special  class 


V 


THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  RAIN  63 

of  magicians  exists  for  the  purpose  of  regulating  the  heavenly  water- 
supply.  The  methods  by  which  they  attempt  to  discharge  the  duties 
of  their  office  are  commonly,  though  not  always,  based  on  the  principle 
of  homoeopathic  or  imitative  magic.  If  they  wish  to  make  rain  they 
simulate  it  by  sprinkling  water  or  mimicking  clouds  :  if  their  object 
is  to  stop  rain  and  cause  drought,  they  avoid  water  and  resort  to 
warmth  and  fire  for  the  sake  of  drying  up  the  too  abundant  moisture. 
Such  attempts  are  by  no  means  confined,  as  the  cultivated  reader  might 
imagine,  to  the  naked  inhabitants  of  those  sultry  lands  like  Central 
Australia  and  some  parts  of  Eastern  and  Southern  Africa,  where  often 
for  months  together  the  pitiless  sun  beats  down  out  of  a  blue  and 
cloudless  sky  on  the  parched  and  gaping  earth.  They  are,  or  used  to 
be,  common  enough  among  outwardly  civilised  folk  in  the  moister 
climate  of  Euiope.  I  will  now  illustrate  them  by  instances  drawn 
from  the  practice  both  of  public  and  private  magic. 

Thus,  for  example,  in  a  village  near  Dorpat,  in  Russia,  when  rain 
was  much  wanted,  three  men  used  to  climb  up  the  fir-trees  of  an  old 
sacred  grove.  One  of  them  drummed  with  a  hammer  on  a  kettle  or 
small  cask  to  imitate  thunder  ;  the  second  knocked  two  fire-brands 
together  and  made  the  sparks  fly,  to  imitate  lightning  ;  and  the  third, 
who  was  called  “  the  rain-maker,”  had  a  bunch  of  twigs  with  which 
he  sprinkled  water  from  a  vessel  on  all  sides.  To  put  an  end  to  drought 
and  bring  down  rain,  women  and  girls  of  the  village  of  Ploska  are  wont 
to  go  naked  by  night  to  the  boundaries  of  the  village  and  there  pour 
water  on  the  ground.  In  Halmahera,  or  Gilolo,  a  large  island  to  the 
west  of  New  Guinea,  a  wizard  makes  rain  by  dipping  a  branch  of  a 
particular  kind  of  tree  in  water  and  then  scattering  the  moisture  from 
the  dripping  bough  over  the  ground.  In  New  Britain  the  rain-maker 
wraps  some  leaves  of  a  red  and  green  striped  creeper  in  a  banana-leaf, 
moistens  the  bundle  with  water,  and  buries  it  in  the  ground  ;  then  he 
i  imitates  with  his  mouth  the  plashing  of  rain.  Amongst  the  Omaha 
•  Indians  of  North  America,  when  the  corn  is  withering  for  want  of  rain, 
the  members  of  the  sacred  Buffalo  Society  fill  a  large  vessel  with  water 
’  and  dance  four  times  round  it.  One  of  them  drinks  some  of  the  water 
and  spirts  it  into  the  air,  making  a  fine  spray  in  imitation  of  a  mist  or 
drizzling  rain.  Then  he  upsets  the  vessel,  spilling  the  water  on  the 
ground  ;  whereupon  the  dancers  fall  down  and  drink  up  the  water, 
getting  mud  all  over  their  faces.  Lastly,  they  squirt  the  water  into 
the  air,  making  a  fine  mist.  This  saves  the  corn.  In  spring-time  the 
;  Natchez  of  North  America  used  to  club  together  to  purchase  favourable 
weather  for  their  crops  from  the  wizards.  If  rain  was  needed,  the 
wizards  fasted  and  danced  with  pipes  full  of  water  in  their  mouths. 
The  pipes  were  perforated  like  the  nozzle  of  a  watering-can,  and  through 
the  holes  the  rain-maker  blew  the  water  towards  that  part  of  the  sky 
where  the  clouds  hung  heaviest.  But  if  fine  weather  was  wanted,  he 
mounted  the  roof  of  his  hut,  and  with  extended  arms,  blowing  with  all 
i  his  might,  he  beckoned  to  the  clouds  to  pass  by.  When  the  rains  do 
not  come  in  due  season  the  people  of  Central  Angoniland  repair  to 


64  THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  THE  WEATHER  ch. 


what  is  called  the  rain-temple.  Here  they  clear  away  the  grass,  and 
the  leader  pours  beer  into  a  pot  which  is  buried  m  the  groun  ,  w  1  e 
he  savs  "  Master  Chauta,  you  have  hardened  your  heart  towards  us, 
what  would  you  have  us  do  ?  We  must  perish  indeed.  Give  your 
children  the  rains,  there  is  the  beer  we  have  given  you.  Then  t  y 
all  partake  of  the  beer  that  is  left  over,  even  the  children  being  made 
to  sip  it.  Next  they  take  branches  of  trees  and  dance  and  smg  for  ram. 
When  they  return  to  the  village  they  find  a  vessel  of  water  set  at  the 
doorway  by  an  old  woman  ;  so  they  dip  their  branches  m  it  and  wave 
them  aloft,  so  as  to  scatter  the  drops.  After  that  the  ram  is  sure  to 
come  driving  up  in  heavy  clouds.  In  these  practices  we  see  a  com¬ 
bination  of  religion  with  magic  ;  for  while  the  scattering  of  the  water- 
drops  by  means  of  branches  is  a  purely  magical  ceremony  the  prayer 
for  rain  and  the  offering  of  beer  are  purely  religious  rites.  In  the  Mara 
tribe  of  Northern  Australia  the  rain-maker  goes  to  a  pool  and  sings  over 
it  his  made  song.  Then  he  takes  some  of  the  water  m  his  hands, 
drinks  it,  and  spits  it  out  in  various  directions.  After  that  he  throws 
water  all  over  himself,  scatters  it  about,  and  returns  quietly  to  the 
camp.  Rain  is  supposed  to  follow.  The  Arab  historian  Maknzi 
describes  a  method  of  stopping  rain  which  is  said  to  have  been  resorted 
to  by  a  tribe  of  nomads  called  Alqamar  in  Hadramaut.  They  cut  a 
branch  from  a  certain  tree  in  the  desert,  set  it  on  fire,  and  then  sprinkled 
the  burning  brand  with  water.  After  that  the  vehemence  of  the  ram 
abated  iust  as  the  water  vanished  when  it  fell  on  the  glowing  brand. 
Some  of  the  Eastern  Angamis  of  Manipur  are  said  to  perform  a  some¬ 
what  similar  ceremony  for  the  opposite  purpose,  in  order,  name  y  o 
produce  rain.  The  head  of  the  village  puts  a  burning  brand  on  the 
grave  of  a  man  who  has  died  of  burns,  and  quenches  the  brand  with 
water,  while  he  prays  that  rain  may  fall.  Here  the  putting  out  the 
fire  with  water,  which  is  an  imitation  of  ram,  is  reinforced  by  the 
influence  of  the  dead  man,  who,  having  been  burnt  to  death,  will 
naturally  be  anxious  for  the  descent  of  rain  to  cool  his  scorched  body 


and  assuage  his  pangs.  ,  , 

Other  people  besides  the  Arabs  have  used  fire  as  a  means  of  stopping 

rain.  Thus  the  Sulka  of  New  Britain  heat  stones  red  hot  in  the  fire 
and  then  put  them  out  in  the  rain,  or  they  throw  hot  ashes  in  the  air. 
They  think  that  the  rain  will  soon  cease  to  fall,  for  it  does  not  like  to 
be  burned  by  the  hot  stones  or  ashes.  The  Telugus  send  a  little  girl 
out  naked  into  the  rain  with  a  burning  piece  of  wood  in  her  hand, 
which  she  has  to  show  to  the  rain.  That  is  supposed  to  stop  the 
downpour.  At  Port  Stephens  in  New  South  Wales  the  medicme-men 
used  to  drive  away  rain  by  throwing  fire-sticks  into  the  air,  while  at 
the  same  time  they  puffed  and  shouted.  Any  man  of  the  Anula  tribe 
in  Northern  Australia  can  stop  rain  by  simply  warming  a  green  stick 

in  the  fire,  and  then  striking  it  against  the  wind. 

In  time  of  severe  drought  the  Dieri  of  Central  Australia,  loudly  1 
lamenting  the  impoverished  state  of  the  country  and  their  own  half- 
starved  condition,  call  upon  the  spirits  of  their  remote  predecessors 


V  THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  RAIN  65 

whom  they  call  Mura-muras,  to  grant  them  power  to  make  a  heavv  rain 
a  .  F01  they  believe  that  the  clouds  are  bodies  in  which  rain  is  generated 

suarp  mnt  ,  and  the  blood,  drawn  from  their  arms  helnw  ii.^,  ,,11, 

in  The  hut  fl°At°tni  °thef  men,0f  the  tribe,  who  «t  huddled  togethw 
in  the  hut  At  the  same  time  the  two  bleeding  men  throw  lnndf.ds 

of  down  about,  some  of  which  adheres  to  the  biod-stained  bodies  of 
their  comiades,  while  the  rest  floats  in  the  air  Thp  hlonri  *  1 

;»  lh*  *»■  «>'  <>»»  tile  L": 

wo  laige  stones  are  placed  in  the  middle  of  the  hut  •  They  stand  for 
gathering  clouds  and  presage  rain.  Then  the  wizard^  whTwere  bled 
arry  away  the  two  stones  for  about  ten  or  fifteen  miles  and  place 
them  as  high  as  they  can  in  the  tallest  tree.  Meanwhile  the  other 
men  gather  gypsum,  pound  it  fine,  and  throw  it  into  a  water  hole 

tTe  skv  STTlf  and  at  °nCe  they  Cause  clouds  to  Jpeartn 
.  ■  ^  1  men’  y°nng  and  old,  surround  the  hut  and 

stooping  down,  butt  at  it  with  their  heads,  like  so  many  rams  Thus 

they  force  their  way  through  it  and  reappear  on  the  Tther  side  re 
peating  the  process  till  the  hut  is  wrecked.  In  doing  this  thev’  are 

emafn  T  ^  'Tf  “  °r  arms  ■'  but  when  the  h!aTy  logs  Tlone 
remain,  they  are  allowed  to  pull  them  out  with  their  hands  “  The 

piercing  of  the  hut  with  their  heads  symbolises  the  piercing  of  The 

clouds  ;  the  fcn  f  the  hut>  the  fall  of  the  rain  ”  SffiJ  £ 

is  a  wav  oT  nf  iT^  Sf  m  Tf  the  two  stones,  which  stand  for  clouds 
is  a  way  of  making  the  real  clouds  to  mount  up  in  the  sky  The  Fieri 

also  imagine  that  the  foreskins  taken  from  lads  at  circumcision  have 

a  great  power  of  producing  rain.  Hence  the  Great  Council  of  the  tribe 

vays  keeps  a  small  stock  of  foreskins  ready  for  use  Thev  are  care 

doTyan°dnCoef  the’  rbeinT  WraT  Uhin  feathers  with  the  to  of  Z  wild 
g  the  carpet  snake.  A  woman  may  not  see  such  a  mrrp] 

pene  on  any  account.  When  the  ceremony  is  over  the  foreskin  is 

5 The’  tl Vlrt,Ue  bdng  ®xhausted-  After  the7  rains  hi* 

cJttTg  the  slSTfThe1!11  h^f  a  *urSical  operation,  which  consists  in 
L  g  re  skln  of  ,thelr  chest  and  arms  with  a  sharp  flint.  The  wound 

SiTnfo  ™ tk «”  »f 

nil  -I  1  yecl  ln.  ^  Raised  scars  are  thus  produced  The  re^en 
rairfTncTth  e  naj*lvestor  tbis  practice  is  that  they  are  pleased  with  the 
Apparently  thTT^  T  ^  COnnexion  between  the  rain  and  the  scars. 
anTiokes  while  ls  not  very  painful,  for  the  patient  laughs 

to  crowH  m  1+1  ^01nb  on-  Indeed,  little  children  have  been  seen 

being* 'operated  0/  T ^  take  their  turn  i  then  after 

singing  foTriT  ’  ^ T  ran  aWay'  exPand>ng  their  little  chests  and 
,Ingmg  foi  the  ram  to  beat  upon  them.  However,  they  were  not  so 


66 


the  magical  control  of  THE  WEATHER 


CH. 


well  pleased 

K ’supple  rods  till  the  blood  flow >  down  nSke'S'on 

blood  represents  the  Mn  and  d  ^  ^JP  ^  Abyssinia>  d  to 

the  ground.  The  people  oi  58  >  viHage  against  village, 

engage  in  sanguinary  conflicts  ‘  Durnose  of  procuring  rain, 

for  a  week  together  every  January  to ^  Cust0m.  However, 

Some  years  ago  the  emperor  en  an(j  tpe  popular  outcry  so 

the  following  year  the  ram  J8' L  Jfiand  allowed  tlTmurderous  fights 

« 1*  ocStfi  .  propitiatory 

tr  trto"3',0  spirits  who  control  the  showers  ;  hut  perhaps,  as 

STnfr,5!riS3^ru..y  have^tet.  on  the 

principle.  .  ,  helief  that  twin  children  possess  magical 

There  is  a  widespiead  beliei  tna :  i  p  weather.  This  curious 

powers  over  nature,  especia  y over r  j  ^  tribes  of  British 

superstition  prevails  among  some  of the^d “ingUiar  restrictions 

Columbia,  and  has  led  them  often  to  exaTmeaning  of  these 

or  taboos  on  the  parents  of  twins,  though  he  exact  m  g  of 

restrictions  is  generally  obscure.  Thus “ther  ;  therefore 
British  Columbia  believe  that  twm .  control  the  weatl  {  ^  „ 

they  pray  to  wind  and _  ram  twi’ns  are  always  fulfilled; 

Further,  they  think  that  the  wishes  on  ^  they  hate. 

hence  twins  are  feared,  becaus  y  candle-fish,  and  so 

They  can  also  call  the  salmon  and  teoladm®  Tntiful.”  In  the 

they  are  known  by  a  name  w  ic  m  Columbia  twins  are  trans¬ 
opinion  of  the  Kwakiutl  Indians  of  British  ^“a  ^  should 

formed  salmon  ;  hence  they  may  not  go^n  chiidhood  they  can 

be  changed  back  again  into  the  fish  In  their  cmiQ  ^  ^  ^ 

summon  any  wind  by  motions  o  e  ^  „  a  iarge  wooden 

or  foul  weather,  and  also  cure  by  swrn^mg^ ‘b^ve  that 

rattle.  The  Nootka  Indians  o  ri  among  them  twins  may 

the  ram  dripping  from  the  dark  cioucis  f  they  call 

Thompson  Indians,  associate  twins  with Hhe  reymain 

them  “young  grizzly  bears  J,  particular 

throughout  lit.  endowed  ..ft  «£■ — 1  ?"“«»»  by  epdW 
they  can  make  good  or  bad _  weath  Y  P  by  shaking  a 

water  from  a  basket  m  he  air  they  maKe  /  they  raise 

email  flat  niece  of  wood  attached  to  a  stick  Dy  a  suing  ,  y 

S“  isra^r‘bUted  t0  tWiDS 


v  THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  RAIN  67 

by  the  Baronga,  a  tribe  of  Bantu  negroes  who  inhabit  the  shores  of 

Delagoa  Bay  in  South-eastern  Africa.  They  bestow  the  name  of  Tilo _ 

that  is,  the  sky — on  a  woman  who  has  given  birth  to  twins,  and  the 
infants  themselves  are  called  the  children  of  the  sky.  Now  when  the 
storms  which  generally  burst  in  the  months  of  September  and  October 
have  been  looked  for  in  vain,  when  a  drought  with  its  prospect  of 
famine  is  threatening,  and  all  nature,  scorched  and  burnt  up  by  a 
sun  that  has  shone  for  six  months  from  a  cloudless  sky,  is  panting  for 
the  beneficent  showers  of  the  South  African  spring,  the  women  perform 
ceremonies  to  bring  down  the  longed-for  rain  on  the  parched  earth. 
Stripping  themselves  of  all  their  garments,  they  assume  in  their  stead 
girdles  and  head-dresses  of  grass,  or  short  petticoats  made  of  the  leaves 
of  a  particular  sort  of  creeper.  Thus  attired,  uttering  peculiar  cries  and 
singing  libald  songs,  they  go  about  from  well  to  well,  cleansing  them  of 
the  mud  and  impurities  which  have  accumulated  in  them.  The  wells, 
it  may  be  said,  are  merely  holes  in  the  sand  where  a  little  turbid 
unwholesome  water  stagnates.  Further,  the  women  must  repair  to  the 
house  of  one  of  their  gossips  who  has  given  birth  to  twins,  and  must 
drench  her  with  water,  which  they  carry  in  little  pitchers.  Having 
done,  so  they  go  on  their  way,  shrieking  out  their  loose  songs  and 
dancing  immodest  dances.  No  man  may  see  these  leaf-clad  women 
going  their  rounds.  If  they  meet  a  man,  they  maul  him  and  thrust 
him  aside.  When  they  have  cleansed  the  wells,  they  must  go  and  pour 
water  on  the  graves  of  their  ancestors  in  the  sacred  grove.  It  often 
happens,  too,  that  at  the  bidding  of  the  wizard  they  go  and  pour  water 
on  the  graves  of  twins.  For  they  think  that  the  grave  of  a  twin  ought 
always  to  be  moist,  for  which  reason  twins  are  regularly  buried  near  a 
lake.  If  all  their  efforts  to  procure  rain  prove  abortive,  they  will 
remember  that  such  and  such  a  twin  was  buried  in  a  dry  place  on  the 
side  of  a  hill.  "No  wonder/’  says  the  wizard  in  such  a  case,  “  that 
the  sky  is  fiery.  Take  up  his  body  and  dig  him  a  grave  on  the  shore 
of  the  lake.”  His  orders  are  at  once  obeyed,  for  this  is  supposed  to  be 
the  only  means  of  bringing  down  the  rain. 

Some  of  the  foregoing  facts  strongly  support  an  interpretation 
which  Professor  Oldenberg  has  given  of  the  rules  to  be  observed  by  a 
Brahman  who  would  learn  a  particular  hymn  of  the  ancient  Indian 
collection  known  as  the  Samaveda.  The  hymn,  which  bears  the  name 
of  the  Sakvarl  song,  was  believed  to  embody  the  might  of  Indra’s 
weapon,  the  thunderbolt ;  and  hence,  on  account  of  the  dreadful  and 
dangerous  potency  with  which  it  was  thus  charged,  the  bold  student 
who  essayed  to  master  it  had  to  be  isolated  from  his  fellow-men,  and 
to  retire  from  the  village  into  the  forest.  Here  for  a  space  of  time, 
'which  might  vary,  according  to  different  doctors  of  the  law,  from  one 
to  twelve  years,  he  had  to  observe  certain  rules  of  life,  among  which 
were  the  following.  Thrice  a  day  he  had  to  touch  water  ;  he  must 
wear  black  garments  and  eat  black  food  ;  when  it  rained,  he  might 
not  seek  the  shelter  of  a  roof,  but  had  to  sit  in  the  rain  and  say,  “  Water 
is  the  Sakvarl  song  ”  ;  when  the  lightning  flashed,  he  said,  “  That  is 


68 


THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  THE  WEATHER 


CH. 


like  the  Sakvari  song  ”  ;  when  the  thunder  pealed,  he  said,  The  Great 
One  is  making  a  great  noise.”  He  might  never  cross  a  running  stream 
without  touching  water  ;  he  might  never  set  foot  on  a  ship  unless  his 

ana  iv,„  .hen  h,  mua.  ba »«« to  l.»ch  w.t.r  when 

he  went  on  board  ;  “  for  in  water,  so  ran  the  saying,  lies  the  vi 
of  the  Sakvari  song.”  When  at  last  he  was  allowed  to  learn  the  song 
itself,  he  had  to  dip  his  hands  in  a  vessel  of  water  m  which  plants  of  all 
sorts  had  been  placed.  If  a  man  walked  in  the  way  of  all  these  PrC(;ePts> 
the  rain-god  Parjanya,  it  was  said,  would  send  ram  at  the  wish  of  that 
man  It  is  clear,  as  Professor  Oldenberg  well  points  out,  that  all 
these  rules  are  intended  to  bring  the  Brahman  into  union  with  water, 
to  make  him,  as  it  were,  an  ally  of  the  water  powers  and  to  guard hi 
against  their  hostility.  The  black  garments  and  the  black  food  have 
the  same  significance  ;  no  one  will  doubt  that  they  refer  to  the  ram- 
clouds  when  he  remembers  that  a  black  victim  is  sacrificed  to  procure 
rain  ;  ‘  it  is  black,  for  such  is  the  nature  of  ram.  In  respect  of  another 
rain-charm  it  is  said  plainly,  ‘  He  puts  on  a  black  garment  edged  with 
black,  for  such  is  the  nature  of  rain.1  We  may  therefore  assume  that 
here  in  the  circle  of  ideas  and  ordinances  of  the  Vedic  schools  there  ha\  e 
been  preserved  magical  practices  of  the  most  remote  antiquity,  which 
were  intended  to  prepare  the  ram-maker  for  his  office  and  dedicate 

ln\ Us  interesting  to  observe  that  where  an  opposite  result  is  desired, 
primitive  logic  enjoins  the  weather-doctor  to  observe  precisely  opposite 
rules  of  conduct.  In  the  tropical  island  of  Java,  where  the  rich  vege  a- 
tion  attests  the  abundance  of  the  rainfall,  ceremonies  for  the  making 
of  rain  are  rare,  but  ceremonies  for  the  prevention  of  it  are  not  un¬ 
common.  When  a  man  is  about  to  give  a  great  feast  m  the  rainy 
season  and  has  invited  many  people,  he  goes  to  a  weather-doctor  an 
asks  him  to  “  prop  up  the  clouds  that  may  be  lowering.  If  the  doctor 
consents  to  exert  his  professional  powers,  he  begins  to  regulate  has 
behaviour  by  certain  rules  as  soon  as  his  customer  has  departed  He 
must  observe  a  fast,  and  may  neither  drink  nor  bathe  ,  what  little 
eats  must  be  eaten  dry,  and  in  no  case  may  he  touch  water.  The  host, 
on  his  side,  and  his  servants,  both  male  and  female,  must  neither  wash 
clothes  nor  bathe  so  long  as  the  feast  lasts,  and  they  have  all  dining  1  s 
continuance  to  observe  strict  chastity.  The  doctor  seats  himself  on  a 
new  mat  in  his  bedroom,  and  before  a  small  oil-lamp  he  murmuis, 
shortly  before  the  feast  takes  place,  the  following  prayer  or  incantation  . 
“  Grandfather  and  Grandmother  Sroekoel  ”  (the  name  seems  to  be  taken 
at  random  ;  others  are  sometimes  used),  “  return  to  your  country. 
Akkemat  is  your  country.  Put  down  your  water-cask,  close  it  properly, 
that  not  a  drop  may  fall  out.”  While  he  utters  this  prayer  the  sorcerer 
looks  upwards,  burning  incense  the  while.  So  among  the  Toradjas  t 
rain-doctor,  whose  special  business  it  is  to  drive  away  ram,  takes  care 
not  to  touch  water  before,  during,  or  after  the  discharge  of  his  pro¬ 
fessional  duties.  He  does  not  bathe,  he  eats  with  unwashed  hands, 
he  drinks  nothing  but  palm  wine,  and  if  he  has  to  cross  a  stream  he  is 


THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  RAIN  69 

caiefui  not  to  step  in  the  water.  Having  thus  prepared  himself  for  his 
task  he  has  a  small  hut  built  for  himself  outside  of  the  village  in  a  rice- 
eld,  anci  in  this  hut  he  keeps  up  a  little  fire,  which  on  no  account  may 
e  suffered  to  go  out.  In  the  fire  he  burns  various  kinds  of  wood,  which 
I  are  ^uPPose^  t0  possess  the  property  of  driving  off  rain  ;  and  he  puffs 
m  the  direction  from  which  the  rain  threatens  to  come,  holding  in  his 
hand  a  packet  of  leaves  and  bark  which  derive  a  similar  cloud-com- 
pe  mg  Vlrtue  not  from  their  chemical  composition,  but  from  their 
names,  which  happen  to  signify  something  dry  or  volatile.  If  clouds 
should  appear  in  the  sky  while  he  is  at  work,  he  takes  lime  in  the  hollow 
of  his  hand  and  blows  it  towards  them.  The  lime,  being  so  very  dry  is 
obviously  well  adapted  to  disperse  the  damp  clouds.  Should  rain 
afterwards  be  wanted,  he  has  only  to  pour  water  on  his  fire,  and  immedi¬ 
ately  the  ram  will  descend  in  sheets. 

The  reader  will  observe  how  exactly  the  Javanese  and  Toradja 
observances,  which  are  intended  to  prevent  rain,  form  the  antithesis  of 
the  Indian  observances,  which  aim  at  producing  it.  The  Indian  sage 
is  commanded  to  touch  water  thrice  a  day  regularly  as  well  as  on  various 
special  occasions  ;  the  Javanese  and  Toradja  wizards  may  not  touch  it 
at  all.  I  he  Indian  lives  out  in  the  forest,  and  even  when  it  rains  he 
may  not  take  shelter  ;  the  Javanese  and  the  Toradja  sit  in  a  house  or 
a  nut.  I  he  one  signifies  his  sympathy  with  water  by  receiving  the  rain 
on  his  person  and  speaking  of  it  respectfully  ;  the  others  light  a  lamp 
or  a  fire  and  do  their  best  to  drive  the  rain  away.  Yet  the  principle 
on  which  all  three  act  is  the  same  ;  each  of  them,  by  a  sort  of  childish 
make-believe,  identifies  himself  with  the  phenomenon  which  he  desires 
to  produce  It  is  the  old  fallacy  that  the  effect  resembles  its  cause  : 
it  you  would  make  wet  weather,  you  must  be  wet ;  if  you  would  make 
dry  weather,  you  must  be  dry. 

In  South-eastern  Europe  at  the  present  day  ceremonies  are  observed 
or  the  purpose  of  making  rain  which  not  only  rest  on  the  same  general 
tram  of  thought  as  the  preceding,  but  even  in  their  details  resemble  the 
ceremonies  practised  with  the  same  intention  by  the  Baronga  of  Delagoa 
Bay  Among  the  .Greeks. of  Thessaly  and  Macedonia,  when  a  drought 
has  lasted  a  long  time,  it  is  customary  to  send  a  procession  of  children 
round  to  all  the  wells  and  springs  of  the  neighbourhood.  At  the  head 
ot  the  procession  walks  a  girl  adorned  with  flowers,  whom  her  com¬ 
panions  drench  with  water  at  every  halting-place,  while  they  sing  an 
invocation,  of  which  the  following  is  part  i 


“  Perperia,  all  fresh  bedewed, 
Freshen  all  the  neighbourhood  ; 
By  the  woods,  on  the  highway , 

As  thou  goest,  to  God  now  pray  : 
0  my  God,  upon  the  plain, 


Send  thou  us  a  still,  small  rain  ; 
That  the  fields  may  fruitful  be, 

And  vines  in  blossom  we  may  see  ; 
That  the  grain  be  full  and  sound. 
And  wealthy  grow  the  folks  around. 


In  time  of  drought  the  Serbians  strip  a  girl  to  her  skin  and  clothe  hei 
rom  ead  to  foot  in  grass,  herbs,  and  flowers,  even  her  face  being  hidden 
! bellmd  a  veil  of  living  green.  Thus  disguised  she  is  called  the  Dodola, 


70 


THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  THE  WEATHER  ch. 


and  goes  through  the  village  with  a  troop  of  girls.  They  stop  before 
every  house  ;  the  Dodola  keeps  turning  herself  round  and  dancing, 
while  the  other  girls  form  a  ring  about  her  singing  one  of  the  Hodoia 
songs,  and  the  housewife  pours  a  pail  of  water  over  her.  One  ot  the 

songs  they  sing  runs  thus  : 


“We  go  through  the  village  ; 
The  clouds  go  in  the  sky  ; 
We  go  faster, 


Faster  go  the  clouds  ; 

They  have  overtaken  us, 

And  wetted  the  corn  and  the  vine ” 


At  Poona  in  India,  when  rain  is  needed,  the  boys  dress  up  one  of 
their  number  in  nothing  but  leaves  and  call  him  King  of  Ram. 
Then  they  go  round  to  every  house  in  the  village,  where  the  house 
holder  or  his  wife  sprinkles  the  Rain  King  with  water,  and  gives 
the  party  food  of  various  kinds.  When  they  have  thus  visited  all  the 
houses,  they  strip  the  Rain  King  of  his  leafy  robes  and  feast  upon  what 

they  have  gathered.  _  0  ,,  A 

Bathing  is  practised  as  a  rain-charm  m  some  parts  of  Southern  and 

Western  Russia.  Sometimes  after  service  in  church  the  priest  in  his 
robes  has  been  thrown  down  on  the  ground  and  drenched  with  water  by 
his  parishioners.  Sometimes  it  is  the  women  who,  without  stripping  off 
their  clothes,  bathe  in  crowds  on  the  day  of  St.  John  the  Baptist,  while 
they  dip  in  the  water  a  figure  made  of  branches,  grass,  and  herbs,  which 
is  supposed  to  represent  the  saint.  In  Kursk,  a  province  of  Southern 
Russia,  when  rain  is  much  wanted,  the  women  seize  a  passing  stranger 
and  throw  him  into  the  river,  or  souse  him  from  head  to  foot.  .  Later  on 
we  shall  see  that  a  passing  stranger  is  often  taken  for  a  deity  or  the 
personification  of  some  natural  power.  It  is  recorded  m  official  docu¬ 
ments  that  during  a  drought  in  1790  the  peasants  of  Scheroutz  and 
Werboutz  collected  all  the  women  and  compelled  them  to  bathe,  nr 
order  that  rain  might  fall.  An  Armenian  rain-charm  is  to  throw  the 
wife  of  a  priest  into  the  water  and  drench  her.  The  Arabs  of  North 
Africa  fling  a  holy  man,  willy-nilly,  into  a  spring  as  a  remedy  for  drought. 
In  Minahassa,  a  province  of  North  Celebes,  the  priest  bathes  as  a  1am- 
charm.  In  Central  Celebes  when  there  has  been  no  rain  for  a  long  time 
and  the  rice-stalks  begin  to  shrivel  up,  many  of  the  villagers,  especially 
the  young  folk,  go  to  a  neighbouring  brook  and  splash  each  other  with 
water  shouting  noisily,  or  squirt  water  on  one  another  through  bamboo 
tubes'  Sometimes  they  imitate  the  plump  of  rain  by  smacking  the 
surface  of  the  water  with  their  hands,  or  by  placing  an  inverted  gourd 
on  it  and  drumming  on  the  gourd  with  their  fingers.  .  . 

Women  are  sometimes  supposed  to  be  able  to  make  ram  by  plough¬ 
ing  or  pretending  to  plough.  Thus  the  Pshaws  and  Chewsurs  of  the 
Caucasus  have  a  ceremony  called  “  ploughing  the  rain,  which  they 
observe  in  time  of  drought.  Girls  yoke  themselves  to  a  plough  and 
drag  it  into  a  river,  wading  in  the  water  up  to  their  girdles.  In  the 
same  circumstances  Armenian  girls  and  women  do  the  same.  The  oldest 
woman,  or  the  priest’s  wife,  wears  the  priest’s  dress,  while  the  others, 
dressed  as  men,  drag  the  plough  through  the  water  against  the  stream. 


v  THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  RAIN  7x 

In  the  Caucasian  province  of  Georgia,  when  a  drought  has  lasted  long 
maniageable  giils  are  yoked  in  couples  with  an  ox-yoke  on  their 
shouldeis,.  a  priest  holds  the  reins,  and  thus  harnessed  they  wade 
through  rivers,  puddles,  and  marshes,  praying,  screaming,  weeping 
and  laughing.  In  a  district  of  Transylvania,  when  the  ground  is 
parched  with  drought,  some  girls  strip  themselves  naked,  and,  led  by 
an  older  woman,  who  is  also  naked,  they  steal  a  harrow  and  carry  it 
across  the  fields  to  a  brook,  where  they  set  it  afloat.  Next  they  sit  on 
the  harrow  and  keep  a  tiny  flame  burning  on  each  corner  of  it  for  an 
hour.  Then  they  leave  the  harrow  in  the  water  and  go  home.  A 
similar  rain-charm  is  resorted  to  in  some  parts  of  India  ;  naked  women 
drag  a  plough  across  a  field  by  night,  while  the  men  keep  carefully  out 
of  the  way,  for  their  presence  would  break  the  spell. 

Sometimes  the  rain-charm  operates  through  the  dead.  Thus  in 
New  Caledonia  the  rain-makers  blackened  themselves  all  over,  dug 
up  a  dead  body,  took  the  bones  to  a  cave,  jointed  them,  and  hung  the 
skeleton  over  some  taro  leaves.  Water  was  poured  over  the  skeleton 
to  run  down  on  the  leaves.  They  believed  that  the  soul  of  the  deceased 
took  up  the  water,  converted  it  into  rain,  and  showered  it  down  again. 
In  Russia,  if  common  report  may  be  believed,  it  is'not  long  since  the 
peasants  of  any  district  that  chanced  to  be  afflicted  with  drought  used 
to  dig  up  the  corpse  of  some  one  who  had  drunk  himself  to  death  and 
sink  it  m  the  nearest  swamp  or  lake,  fully  persuaded  that  this  would 
ensure  the  fall  of  the  needed  rain.  In  1868  the  prospect  of  a  bad 
harvest,  caused  by  a  prolonged  drought,  induced  the  inhabitants  of  a 
village  in  the  Tarashchansk  district  to  dig  up  the  body  of  a  Raskolnik, 
or  Dissenter,  who  had  died  in  the  preceding  December.  Some  of  the 
party  beat  the  corpse,  or  what  was  left  of  it,  about  the  head,  exclaiming, 

"  Give  us  ram  !  ”  while  others  poured  water  on  it  through  a  sieve.  Here 
the  pouring  of  water  through  a  sieve  seems  plainly  an  imitation  of  a 
shower,  and  reminds  us  of  the  manner  in  which  Strepsiades  in  Aristo¬ 
phanes  imagined  that  rain  was  made  by  Zeus.  Sometimes,  in  order  to 
procure  rain,  the  Toradjas  make  an  appeal  to  the  pity  of  the  dead. 
Thus,  in  the  village  of  Kalingooa  there  is  the  grave  of  a  famous  chief, 
the  giandfather  of  the  present  ruler.  When  the  land  suffers  from  un¬ 
seasonable  drought,  the  people  go  to  this  grave,  pour  water  on  it,  and 
say,  “  0  grandfather,  have  pity  on  us  ;  if  it  is  your  will  that  this  year  we 
should  eat,  then  give  rain.”  After  that  they  hang  a  bamboo  full  of  water 
over  the  grave  ,  there  is  a  small  hole  in  the  lower  end  of  the  bamboo,  so 
that  the  water  drips  from  it  continually.  The  bamboo  is  always  refilled 
with  watei  until  rain  drenches  the  ground.  Here,  as  in  New  Caledonia, 
we  find  religion  blent  with  magic,  for  the  prayer  to  the  dead  chief,  which 
[  ls  Purety  religious,  is  eked  out  with  a  magical  imitation  of  rain  at  his 
'  &rave-  We  have  seen  that  the  Baronga  of  Delagoa  Bay  drench  the 
ombs  of  their  ancestors,  especially  the  tombs  of  twins,  as  a  rain- 
chaim.  Among  some  of  the  Indian  tribes  in  the  region  of  the  Orinoco 
rt  was  customary  for  the  relations  of  a  deceased  person  to  disinter  his 
bones  a  year  after  burial,  burn  them,  and  scatter  the  ashes  to  the 


72  THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  THE  WEATHER  ch. 

winds,  because  they  believed  that  the  ashes  were  changed  into  rain, 
which  the  dead  man  sent  in  return  for  his  obsequies.  _  The  Chinese 
are  convinced  that  when  human  bodies  remain  unbuned,  the  souls 
of  their  late  owners  feel  the  discomfort  of  rain,  just  as  living  men  would 
do  if  they  were  exposed  without  shelter  to  the  inclemency  of  the 
weather.  These  wretched  souls,  therefore,  do  all  in  their  power  to  pre¬ 
vent  the  rain  from  falling,  and  often  their  efforts  are  only  too  successful. 
Then  drought  ensues,  the  most  dreaded  of  all  calamities  m  China, 
because  bad  harvests,  dearth,  and  famine  follow  in  its  tram.  Hence 
it  has  been  a  common  practice  of  the  Chinese  authorities  m  time  of 
drought  to  inter  the  dry  bones  of  the  unbuned  dead  for  the  purpose 
of  putting  an  end  to  the  scourge  and  conjuring  down  the  ram. 

Animals,  again,  often  play  an  important  part  in  these  weather- 
charms.  The  Anula  tribe  of  Northern  Australia  associate  the  dollar- 
bird  with  rain,  and  call  it  the  rain-bird.  A  man  who  has  the  bird  for 
his  totem  can  make  rain  at  a  certain  pool.  He  catches  a  snake  puts 
it  alive  into  the  pool,  and  after  holding  it  under  water  for  a  time  takes 
it  out,  kills  it,  and  lays  it  down  by  the  side  of  the  creek.  Then  he  makes 
an  arched  bundle  of  grass  stalks  in  imitation  of  a  rainbow,  and  sets  it 
up  over  the  snake.  After  that  all  he  does  is  to  sing  over  the  snake  and 
the  mimic  rainbow  ;  sooner  or  later  the  rain  will  fall.  They  explain 
this  procedure  by  saying  that  long  ago  the  dollar-bird  had  as  a  mate 
at  this  spot  a  snake,  who  lived  in  the  pool  and  used  to  make  ram  by 
spitting  up  into  the  sky  till  a  rainbow  and  clouds  appeared  and  ram 
fell.  A  common  way  of  making  rain  in  many  parts  of  Java  is  to  bathe 
a  cat  or  two  cats,  a  male  and  a  female  ;  sometimes  the  animals  are  . 
carried  in  procession  with  music.  Even  in  Batavia  you  may  from  time 
to  time  see  children  going  about  with  a  cat  for  this  purpose  ;  when  they 

have  ducked  it  in  a  pool,  they  let  it  go.  . 

Among  the  Wambugwe  of  East  Africa,  when  the  sorcerer  desires 

to  make  rain,  he  takes  a  black  sheep  and  a  black  calf  in  bright  sun-  < 
shine,  and  has  them  placed  on  the  roof  of  the  common  hut  m  which  the 
people  live  together.  Then  he  slits  the  stomachs  of  the  animals  and 
scatters  their  contents  in  all  directions.  After  that  he  pours  water 
and  medicine  into  a  vessel ;  if  the  charm  has  succeeded,  the  water  boils 
up  and  rain  follows.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  sorcerer  wishes  to  pre¬ 
vent  rain  from  falling,  he  withdraws  into  the  interior  of  the  hut,  and 
there  heats  a  rock-crystal  in  a  calabash.  In  order  to  procure  ram  the 
Wagogo  sacrifice  black  fowls,  black  sheep,  and  black  cattle  at  the 
graves  of  dead  ancestors,  and  the  rain-maker  wears  black  clothes 
during  the  rainy  season.  Among  the  Matabele  the  rain-charm  em-j 
ployed  by  sorcerers  was  made  from  the  blood  and  gall  of  a  black  ox. 
In  a  district  of  Sumatra,  in  order  to  procure  rain,  all  the  women  of  the 
village,  scantily  clad,  go  to  the  river,  wade  into  it,  and  splash  each 
other  with  the  water.  A  black  cat  is  thrown  into  the  stream  and  made 
to  swim  about  for  a  while,  then  allowed  to  escape  to  the  bank,  pursued 
by  the  splashing  of  the  women.  The  Garos  of  Assam  offer  a  black 
goat  on  the  top  of  a  very  high  mountain  in  time  of  drought.  In  all 


THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  RAIN  73 

these  cases  the  colour  of  the  animal  is  part  of  the  charm  ;  being  black 
it  will  darken  the  sky  with  rain-clouds.  So  the  Bechuanas  burn  the 

Ta<7,  °f  °,X  at  evemn£h  because  they  say,  “  The  black  smoke  will 
gather  the  clouds  and  cause  the  rain  to  come.”  The  Timorese  sacrifice 
a  black  pig  to  the  Earth-goddess  for  rain,  a  white  or  red  one  to  the 
Sun-god  for  sunshine.  The  Angoni  sacrifice  a  black  ox  for  rain  and  a 
white  one  for  fine  weather.  Among  the  high  mountains  of  Japan  there 
is  a  district  in  which,  if  rain  has  not  fallen  for  a  long  time,  a  party  of 
villagers  goes  in  procession  to  the  bed  of  a  mountain  torrent,  headed 
by  a  priest,  who  leads  a  black  dog.  At  the  chosen  spot  they  tether 
the  beast  to  a  stone  and  make  it  a  target  for  their  bullets  and  arrows. 
When  its  life-blood  bespatters  the  rocks,  the  peasants  throw  down  their 
weapons  and  lift  up  their  voices  in  supplication  to  the  dragon  divinity 
of  the  stream,  exhorting  him  to  send  down  forthwith  a  shower  to 
c  eanse  the  spot  from  its  defilement.  Custom  has  prescribed  that  on 
these  occasions  the  colour  of  the  victim  shall  be  black,  as  an  emblem 

of  the  wished-for  rain-clouds.  But  if  fine  weather  is  wanted  the 
victim  must  be  white,  without  a  spot. 

The  intimate  association  of  frogs  and  toads  with  water  has  earned 
tor  these  creatures  a  widespread  reputation  as  custodians  of  rain  • 
and  hence  they  often  play  a  part  in  charms  designed  to  draw  needed 
showers  from  the  sky.  Some  of  the  Indians  of  the  Orinoco  held  the 
toad  to  be  the  god  or  lord  of  the  waters,  and  for  that  reason  feared  to 
kill  the  creature.  They  have  been  known  to  keep  frogs  under  a  pot 
and  to  beat  them  with  rods  when  there  was  a  drought.  It  is  said  that 
the  Ay  mar  a  Indians  often  make  little  images  of  frogs  and  other  aquatic 
animals  and  place  them  on  the  tops  of  the  hills  as  a  means  of  bringing 
down  ram  The  Thompson  Indians  of  British  Columbia  and  some 
people  m  Europe  think  that  to  kill  a  frog  will  cause  rain  to  fall  In 
order  to  procure  rain  people  of  low  caste  in  the  Central  Provinces  of 
India  will  tie  a  frog  to  a  rod  covered  with  green  leaves  and  branches  of 
the  mm  tree  (Azadirachta  Indica)  and  carry  it  from  door  to  door  singing : 

“  Send  soon,  O  frog,  the  jewel  of  water  ! 

And  ripen  the  wheat  and  millet  in  the  field." 

.  lh\^FUS  ^  Reddis  are  a  large  caste  of  cultivators  and  landowners 
m  the  Madras  Presidency.  When  rain  fails,  women  of  the  caste  will 
catch  a  frog  and  tie  it  alive  to  a  new  winnowing  fan  made  of  bamboo. 
Un  this  fan  they  spread  a  few  margosa  leaves  and  go  from  door  to 
door  singing,  "  Lady  frog  must  have  her  bath.  O  ‘rain-god,  give  a 
ittle  water  for  her  at  least.”  While  the  Kapu  women  sing  this  song 
the  woman  of  the  house  pours  water  over  the  frog  and  gives  an  alms’ 
convinced  that  by  so  doing  she  will  soon  bring  rain  down  in  torrents. 

Sometimes,  when  a  drought  has  lasted  a  long  time,  people  drop 
lhe  usual  hocus-pocus  of  imitative  magic  altogether,  and  being  far 
-oo  angry  to  waste  their  breath  in  prayer  they  seek  by  threats  and 
:urses  or  even  downright  physical  force  to  extort  the  waters  of  heaven 
rom  the  supernatural  being  who  has,  so  to  say,  cut  them  off  at  the 


74 


THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  THE  WEATHER 


CH. 


main.  In  a  Japanese  village,  when  the  guardian  divinity  had 
long  been  deaf  to  the  peasants  prayers  for  rain,  they  at  ast 
threw  down  his  image  and,  with  curses  loud  and  long,  hurled  it  head 
foremost  into  a  stinking  rice-field  “There/'  they  said  '  you  may 
stav  vourself  for  a  while,  to  see  how  you  will  feel  after  a  few  days 
scorching  in  this  broiling  sun  that  is  burning  the  life  from  our  cracking 
fields.”  In  the  like  circumstances  the  Feloupes  of  Senegambia  cast 
down  their  fetishes  and  drag  them  about  the  fields,  cursing  em  l 

rainThelChinese  are  adepts  in  the  art  of  taking  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
bv  storm  Thus,  when  rain  is  wanted  they  make  a  huge  dragon  of 
paper  or  wood  to  represent  the  rain-god,  and  carry  it  about  m  pro¬ 
cession  •  but  if  no  rain  follows,  the  mock-dragon  is  execrated  and  torn 
to  piecek  At  other  times  they  threaten  and  beat  the  god  if  he  does  no 
give  rain;  sometimes  they  publicly  depose  him  from  the >  ran 
deity  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  wished-for  rain  falls,  the  god  is 
promoted  to  a  higher  rank  by  an  imperial  decree.  In  Apnl  1SS8  the 
mandarins  of  Canton  prayed  to  the  god  I  ung-wong  to  st°P  the  in¬ 
cessant  downpour  of  rain  ;  and  when  he  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  their 
petitions  they  put  him  in  a  lock-up  for  five  days.  This  had  a  salutary 
effect.  The  rain  ceased  and  the  god  was  restored  to  liberty.  Som 
years  before,  in  time  of  drought,  the  same  deity  had  been  chained  an  | 
exposed  to  the  sun  for  days  in  the  courtyard  of  his  temple  m  order  that 
he  might  feel  for  himself  the  urgent  need  of  ram.  So  when  the  Siamese 
need  rain,  they  set  out  their  idols  in  the  blazing  sun  ;  but  if  they  want 
dry  weather,  they  unroof  the  temples  and  let  the  rain  pour  down  on  the 
idols.  They  think  that  the  inconvenience  to  which  the  gods  are  thus 
subjected  will  induce  them  to  grant  the  wishes  of  their  worshippers. 

The  reader  may  smile  at  the  meteorology  of  the  Far  Fast  but 
precisely  similar  modes  of  procuring  rain  have  been  resorted  to  in 
Christian  Europe  within  our  own  lifetime.  By  the  end  of  April  1893 
there  was  grea?  distress  in  Sicily  for  lack  of  water  The  drought  had 
lasted  six  months.  Every  day  the  sun  rose  and  set  m  a  sky  of  cloud¬ 
less  blue  The  gardens  of  the  Conca  d'  Oro,  which  surround  Palermo 
with  a  magnificent  belt  of  verdure,  were  withering  Food  was  becom¬ 
ing  scarce.”  The  people  were  in  great  alarm.  All  the  most  approved 
methods  of  procuring  rain  had  been  tried  without  effect.  Processions 
had  traversed  the  streets  and  the  fields.  Men,  women,  and  children, 
telling  their  beads,  had  lain  whole  nights  before  the  holy  images. 
Consecrated  candles  had  burned  day  and  night  in  the  churches, 
branches,  blessed  on  Palm  Sunday,  had  been  hung  on  the  tiees.  A 
Solaparuta,  in  accordance  with  a  very  old  custom,  the  c  us  sw  p 
from  the  churches  on  Palm  Sunday  had  been  spread  on  the  fields. 
In  ordinary  years  these  holy  sweepings  preserve  the  crops  ;  but  that 
year,  if  you  will  believe  me,  they  had  no  effect  whatever  At  Nicosia 
the  inhabitants,  bare-headed  and  bare-foot,  carried  the  cmcifixes 
through  all  the  wards  of  the  town  and  scourged  each  other  with  iron 
whips  It  was  all  in  vain.  Even  the  great  St.  Francis  of  Paolo 


THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  RAIN 


himself,  who  annually  performs  the  miracle  of  rain  and  is  carried 
every  spring  through  the  market-gardens,  either  could  not  or  would 
not  help.  Masses,  vespers,  concerts,  illuminations,  fire-works— 
nothing  could  move  him.  At  last  the  peasants  began  to  lose  patience. 

ost  .  saints  were  banished.  At  Palermo  they  dumped  St 
Joseph  m  a  garden  to  see  the  state  of  things  for  himself,  and  they 
swore  to  leave  him  there  in  the  sun  till  rain  fell.  Other  saints  were 
turned,  like  naughty  children,  with  their  faces  to  the  wall.  Others 
again  stripped  of  their  beautiful  robes,  were  exiled  far  from  their 
parishes,  threatened,  grossly  insulted,  ducked  in  horse-ponds.  At 
Caltamsetta  the  golden  wings  of  St.  Michael  the  Archangel  were 
torn  from  his  shoulders  and  replaced  with  wings  of  pasteboard  ;  his 
purple  mantle  was  taken  away  and  a  clout  wrapt  about ’him 
instead.  At  Licata  the  patron  saint,  St.  Angelo,  fared  even  worse 
for  he  was  left  without  any  garments  at  all ;  he  was  reviled,  he 
was  put  m  irons,  he  was  threatened  with  drowning  or  hanging 

Rain  or  the  rope!”  roared  the  angry  people  at  him,  as  they 
shook  their  fists  m  his  face. 


Sometimes  an  appeal  is  made  to  the  pity  of  the  gods.  When 
their  corn  is  being  burnt  up  by  the  sun,  the  Zulus  look  out  for  a 
heaven  bn-d/;  kill  it,  and  throw  it  into  a  pool.  Then  the  heaven 
melts  with  tenderness  for  the  death  of  the  bird  ;  "  it  wails  for  it  by 
raining,  wailing  a  funeral  wail.  In  Zululand  women  sometimes 
bury  their  children  up  to  the  neck  in  the  ground,  and  then  retiring 
to  a  distance  keep  upNa  dismal  howl  for  a  long  time.  The  sky  is  sup- 
posed  to  melt  with  pity  at  the  sight.  Then  the  women  dig  the  children 
out  and  feel  sure  that  rain  will  soon  follow.  They  say  that  they  call 
to  the  lord  above  ”  and  ask  him  to  send  rain.  If  it  comes  they 
dedare  that  'Usondo  rains.”  In  times  of  drought  the  Guanches  of 
j  leneriffe  led  their  sheep  to  sacred  ground,  and  there  they  separated 
e  lambs  from  their  dams,  that  their  plaintive  bleating  might 
touch  the  heart  of  the  god.  In  Kumaon  a  way  of  stopping  rain 

1S  t0  P°U[  h0t  011  m  the  left  ear  of  a  doS-  The  animal  howls  with 
pam,  his  howls  are  heard  by  Indra,  and  out  of  pity  for  the  beast’s 

sufferings  the  god  stops  the  rain.  Sometimes  the  Toradjas  attempt 
to  procure  rain  as  follows.  They  place  the  stalks  of  certain  plants 
m  water,  saying,  “  Go  and  ask  for  rain,  and  so  long  as  no  rain  falls 
I  will  not  plant  you  again,  but  there  shall  you  die.”  Also  they  string 
some  fresh-water  snails  on  a  cord,  and  hang  the  cord  on  a  tree,  and 
say  to  the  snails,  “  Go  and  ask  for  rain,  and  so  long  as  no  rain  comes 
n°t  take  you  back  to  the  water.”  Then  the  snails  go  and  weep' 
and  the  gods  take  pity  and  send  rain.  However,  the  foregoing  cere- 
imonies  are  religious  rather  than  magical,  since  they  involve  an  appeal 
to  the  compassion  of  higher  powers. 

Stones,  are  often  supposed  to  possess  the  property  of  bringing  on 
ram,  provided  they  be  dipped  in  water  or  sprinkled  with  it,  or  treated 
m  some  other  appropriate  manner.  In  a  Samoan  village  a  certain 
is  one  was  carefully  housed  as  the  representative  of  the  rain-making 


THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  THE  WEATHER  ch. 


god,  and  in  time  of  drought  his  priests  carried  the  stone  m procession 
and  dipped  it  in  a  stream.  Among  the  Ta-ta-thi  tribe  of  New  South 
Wales  the  rain-maker  breaks  off  a  piece  of  quartz-crystal  and  spits 
it  towards  the  sky  ;  the  rest  of  the  crystal  he  wraps  in  emu  feathers, 
soaks  both  crystal  and  feathers  in  water,  and  carefully  hides  them. 

In  the  Keramin  tribe  of  New  South  Wales  the  wizard  retires  to  the 
bed  of  a  creek,  drops  water  on  a  round  flat  stone,  then  covers  up  an 
conceals  it.  Among  some  tribes  of  North-western  Australia  the  rain¬ 
maker  repairs  to  a  piece  of  ground  which  is  set  apart  for  the  purpose 
of  rain-making.  There  he  builds  a  heap  of  stones  or  sand,  places  on 
the  top  of  it  his  magic  stone,  and  walks  or  dances  round  the  pile  chant¬ 
ing  his  incantations  for  hours,  till  sheer  exhaustion  obliges  him  to  I 
desist,  when  his  place  is  taken  by  his  assistant.  Water  is  sprinkled 
on  the  stone  and  huge  fires  are  -kindled.  No  layman  may  approach 
the  sacred  spot  while  the  mystic  ceremony  is  being  performed.  When 
the  Sulka  of  New  Britain  wish  to  procure  ram  they  blacken  stones 
with  the  ashes  of  certain  fruits  and  set  them  out,  along  with  certain 
other  plants  and  buds,  in  the  sun.  Then  a  handful  of  twigs  is  dipped 
in  water  and  weighted  with  stones,  while  a  spell  is  chanted.  After 
that  rain  should  follow.  In  Manipur,  on  a  lofty  hill  to  the  east  of 
the  capital,  there  is  a  stone  which  the  popular  imagination  likens  to 
an  umbrella.  When  rain  is  wanted,  the  rajah  fetches  water  from  a 
spring  below  and  sprinkles  it  on  the  stone.  At  Sagami  m  Japan 
there  is  a  stone  which  draws  down  rain  whenever  water  is  poured  on 
it.  When  the  Wakondyo,  a  tribe  of  Central  Aliica,  desire  ram,  they 
send  to  the  Wawamba,  who  dwell  at  the  foot  of  snowy  mountains, 
and  are  the  happy  possessors  of  a  “  rain-stone.”  >  In  consideration  j 
of  a  proper  payment,  the  Wawamba  wash  the  precious  stone,  anoint 
it  with  oil,  and  put  it  in  a  pot  full  of  water.  After  that  the :  ram  can¬ 
not  fail  to  come.  In  the  arid  wastes  of  Arizona  and  New  Mexico  the 
Apaches  sought  to  make  rain  by  carrying  water  from  a  certain  spring  | 
and  throwing  it  on  a  particular  point  high  up  on  a  rock ;  after  that 
they  imagined  that  the  clouds  would  soon  gather,  and  that  ram  would 


But  customs  of  this  sort  are  not  confined  to  the  wilds  of  Africa  and 
Asia  or  the  torrid  deserts  of  Australia  and  the  New  World.  They 
have  been  practised  in  the  cool  air  and  under  the  grey  skies  of  Europe. 
There  is  a  fountain  called  Barenton,  of  romantic  fame,  m  those  wild 
woods  of  Broceliande,”  where,  if  legend  be  true,  the  wizard  Merlin 
still  sleeps  his  magic  slumber  m  the  hawthorn  shade.  Thither  the 
Breton  peasants  used  to  resort  when  they  needed  ram.  They  caught 
some  of  the  water  in  a  tankard  and  threw  it  on  a  slab  near  the  spnng. 
On  Snowdon  there  is  a  lonely  tarn  called  Dulyn,  or  the  Black  Lake, 
lving  “in  a  dismal  dingle  surrounded  by  high  and  dangerous  rocks. 
A  row  of  stepping-stones  runs  out  into  the  lake,  and  if  any  one  steps 
on  the  stones  and  throws  water  so  as  to  wet  the  farthest  stone,  which 
is  called  the  Red  Altar,  “  it  is  but  a  chance  that  you  do  not  get  ram 
before  night,  even  when  it  is  hot  weather.”  In  these  cases  it  appears 


1 


V  THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  RAIN  77 

probable  that  as  in  Samoa,  the  Hone  is  regarded  as  more  or  less  divine 
This  appears  from  the  custom  sometimes  observed  of  dipping  a  cross 
in  the  Fountain  of  Barenton  to  procure  rain,  for  this  is  plainly  a 
C  ristian  substitute  for  the  old  pagan  way  of  throwing  water  on  the 
stone.  At  various  places  in  France  it  is,  or  used  till  lately  to  be  the 
practice  to  dip  the  image  of  a  saint  in  water  as  a  means  of  procuring 
lann  Thus,  beside  the  old  priory  of  Commagny  there  is  a  spring  of 
St  Gervais  whither  the  inhabitants  go  in  procession  to  obtain  rain 
or  ne  weather  according  to  the  needs  of  the  crops.  In  times  of  great 
drought  hey  throw  into  the  basin  of  the  fountain  an  ancient  stone 

fWC  °Atthrolllnu  that  Staadr  m  a  S°rt  °f  nlche  fr0m  which  the  fountain 
flows.  At  Collobneres  and  Carpentras  a  similar  practice  was  observed 

wi  the  linages  of  St.  Pons  and  St.  Gens  respectively.  In  several 

villages  of  Navarre  prayers  for  rain  used  to  be  offered  to  St.  Peter 

.  by  way  of  enforcing  them  the  villagers  carried  the  image  of  the 

saint  in  procession  to  the  river,  where  they  thrice  invited  him  to 

reconsider  his  resolution  and  to  grant  their  prayers  ;  then,  if  he  was 

still  obs  mate,  they  plunged  him  in  the  water,  despite  the  remonstrances 

of  the  cleigy  who  pleaded  with  as  much  truth  as  piety  that  a  simple 

caution  or  admonition  administered  to  the  image  would  produce  an 

equally  good  effect.  After  this  the  rain  was  sure  to  fall  within  twenty- 

our  hours.  Catholic  countries  do  not  enjoy  a  monopoly  of  making 

ram  by  ducking  holy  images  in  water.  In  Mingrelia,  when  the  crop! 

are  suffering  from  want  of  ram,  they  take  a  particularly  holy  image 

tb  c-,!1' “  water  day  till  a  shower  falls  ;  and  in  the  Far  East 
he  Shans  drench  the  images  of  Buddha  with  water  when  the  rice  is 
perishing  of  drought.  In  all  such  cases  the  practice  is  probably  at 
bottom  a  sympathetic  charm,  however  it  may  be  disguised  under 
tne  appearance  of  a  punishment  or  a  threat. 

L  otb<rr  peoples,  the  Greeks  and  Romans  sought  to  obtain  rain 

by  magic,  when  prayers  and  processions  had  proved  ineffectual.  For 
example,  in  Arcadia,  when  the  corn  and  trees  were  parched  with 

r°M§ht’  ,  tC  prl6St  °f  ZeUS  dlPPed  an  oak  branch  into  a  certain  spring 
on  Mount  Lycaeus.  Thus  troubled,  the  water  sent  up  a  misty  cloud 

from  which  ram  soon  fell  upon  the  land.  A  similar  mode  of  making 
ram  is  still  practised,  as  we  have  seen,  in  Halmahera  near  New  Guinea 
he  people  of  Crannon  in  Thessaly  had  a  bronze  chariot  which  they 

3' Vu /  ifmP  ^  desired  a  shower  they  shook  the  chariot 

^ofmb  t  h+reafe  L  Pybabl7  the  rattling  of  the  chariot  was  meant 
iO  imitate  thunder ;  we  have  already  seen  that  mock  thunder  and  light¬ 
ning  form  part  of  a  ram-charm  in  Russia  and  Japan.  The  legendary 
nalmoneus,  King  of  Elis,  made  mock  thunder  by  dragging  bronze 

imrlldS  hiehmd  ht S  cbanot’  or  driving  over  a  bronze  bridge,  while  he 
vis  lblaZmg+  °rf 68  !n  lmltatl0n  of  lightning.  It  was  his  impious 
wsh  to  mimic  the  thundering  car  of  Zeus  as  it  rolled  across  the  vault  of 

!,  aJfi";  tInd,eed  be  declarfl  that  he  was  actually  Zeus,  and  caused 

>utsh£ V°  bn  ^  t0  hlmSdf  aS  SUch'  Near  a  temPle  °f  Mars, 

;utside  the  walls  of  Rome,  there  was  kept  a  certain  stone  known  as  the 


78 


THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  THE  WEATHER 


CH. 


tapis  In  time  oi  drought  the  stone  «»  digged  into  Rome, 

**?£ 

3  3-  J  M  mak  J  the  sun  to  shine,  and  can 

can  make  ram,  so  he  fancies  ne  can  c  Ojebways  used 

hasten  or  « *  g «'-  "  ' £>5  So  toy  shot 

"  a  rnm  tn  be  struggling  Conversely  during  an  eclipse  of  the 
posed  him  to  be  strugg  f  used  tQ  b  lighted  brands  m  the 

moon  some  tri  es  ,{  ^  moon  were  to  be  extinguished,  all 

wont  to  brine  out  fire  from  their  huts  and  pray  the  great  luminary  to 
,  f  ^  n  r  j.i,p  -nraver  addressed  to  the  sun  shows  that  this 

ceremony  wase'reh?ious  rariiei  than  magical.  Purely  magical,  on  the 
“  “uL  was  the  ceremony  observed  on  similar  occasions  by  the 

r  ^eobn  Indians  Men  and  ^0men  tucked  up  their  robes,  as  they  do 

S  travdlinf  and'  then  leaning  on  staves,  as  if  they  were  heavy  laden 
thev  continued  to  walk  in  a  circle  till  the  eclipse  was  over.  Apparently 

»* 

“tbe  n-itivitv  of  the  suns  walking-stick,  because,  as  tne  luimnaiy 

.  n?S  °  the  skv  and  his  light  and  heat  diminished,  he  was 

supposed  to  need  a  staff  on  which  to  lean.  In  New  Caledonia  when  a 

wriard  desires  to  make  sunshine  he  takes  some  plants  and  corals  to  the 
wizard  desires  {ashions  them  into  a  bundle,  adding  two  locks  of 

S tut  from  a  Uving S  of  his  family,  also  two  teeth  or  an  entire 
hair  cut  irom  a  &  ancestor.  He  then  climbs  a  mountain 

SCSct, of  the  morning  sum  Hero  h,  depont, 

three  sorts  of  plants  on  a  flat  stone,  places  a  branch  of  dry  coral  besid  j 

them  and  hangs  the  bundle  of  charms  over  the  stone.  Next  mon  g 
them  ana  nang  at  the  moment  when 

K‘“««  — » «*  * 

with  the  dry  coral,  invokes  his  ancestors,  and  says  :  Sun  .  I  do  t  ^ 
tot  you  may  bo  burning  »“<>  “*  ”P  iiso 

.to,  with  •  hole  in  it.  At 

the  moment  when  the  sun  rises,  the  wizard  holds  the  stone  in  his  hand 
the  mor  .  .  b  d  repeatedly  into  the  hole,  while  he  says. 

“  ST, So  »n to  S hat  ho  Jy  o.t  up  to  aloud,  and  dry  , 
our  K  .„ tot  it  may  p.odt.oo  nothing."  The  Bank,  Wander,  mak. 


V 


THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  THE  SUN  79 

sunshine  by  means  of  a  mock  sun.  They  take  a  very  round  stone, 
called  a  vat  loa  or  sunstone,  wind  red  braid  about  it,  and  stick  it  with 
owls  feathers  to  xep resent  rays,  singing  the  proper  spell  in  a  low  voice. 

Then  they  hang  it  on  some  high  tree,  such  as  a  banyan  or  a  casuarina, 
in  a  sacred  place. 

The  offering  made  by  the  Brahman  in  the  morning  is  supposed  to 
produce  the  sun,  and  we  are  told  that  "  assuredly  it  would  not  rise 
were  he  not  to  make  that  offering.”  The  ancient  Mexicans  conceived 
the  sun  as  the  source  of  all  vital  force  ‘  hence  they  named  him 
Ipalnemohuani,  “  He  by  whom  men  live.”  But  if  he  bestowed  life  on 
the  world,  he  needed  also  to  receive  life  from  it.  And  as  the  heart  is  the 
seat  and  symbol  of  life,  bleeding  hearts  of  men  and  animals  were 
presented  to  the  sun  to  maintain  him  in  vigour  and  enable  him  to  run 
his  course  across  the  sky.  Thus  the  Mexican  sacrifices  to  the  sun  were 
magical  rather  than  religious,  being  designed,  not  so  much  to  please 
and  propitiate  him,  as  physically  to  renew  his  energies  of  heat,  light, 
and  motion.  The  constant  demand  for  human  victims  to  feed  the  solar 
fire  was  met  by  waging  war  every  year  on  the  neighbouring  tribes  and 
bringing  back  troops  of  captives  to  be  sacrificed  on  the  altar.  Thus  the 
ceaseless  wars  of  the  Mexicans  and  their  cruel  system  of  human  sacrifices, 
the  most  monstrous  on  record,  sprang  in  great  measure  from  a  mistaken 
theory  of  the  solar  system.  No  more  striking  illustration  could  be 
given  of  the  disastrous  consequences  that  may  flow  in  practice  from 
a  purely  speculative  error.  The  ancient  Greeks  believed  that  the  sun 
drove  in  a  chariot  across  the  sky  ;  hence  the  Rhodians,  who  worshipped 
the  sun  as  their  chief  deity,  annually  dedicated  a  chariot  and  four  horses 
to  him,  and  flung  them  into  the  sea  for  his  use.  Doubtless  they  thought 
that  after  a  year’s  work  his  old  horses  and  chariot  would  be  worn  out. 
From  a  like  motive,  probably,  the  idolatrous  kings  of  Judah  dedicated 
i  chariots  and  horses  to  the  sun,  and  the  Spartans,  Persians,  and 
Massagetae  sacrificed  horses  to  him.  The  Spartans  performed  the 
sacrifice  on  the  top  of  Mount  Taygetus,  the  beautiful  range  behind 
which  they  saw  the  great  luminary  set  every  night.  It  was  as  natural 
for  the  inhabitants  of  the  valley  of  Sparta  to  do  this  as  it  was  for  the 
islanders  of  Rhodes  to  throw  the  chariot  and  horses  into  the  sea,  into 
which  the  sun  seemed  to  them  to  sink  at  evening.  For  thus,  whether  on 
the  mountain  or  in  the  sea,  the  fresh  horses  stood  ready  for  the  weary 
god  where  they  would  be  most  welcome,  at  the  end  of  his  day’s  journey. 

As  some  people  think  they  can  light  up  the  sun  or  speed  him  on  his 
Way,  so  others  fancy  they  can  retard  or  stop  him.  In  a  pass  of  the 
Peruvian  Andes  stand  two  ruined  towers  on  opposite  hills.  Iron  hooks 
are  clamped  into  their  walls  for  the  purpose  of  stretching  a  net  from  one 
tower  to  the  other.  The  net  is  intended  to  catch  the  sun.  Stories  of 
men  who  have  caught  the  sun  in  a  noose  are  widely  spread.  When  the 
mn  is  going  southward  in  the  autumn,  and  sinking  lower  and  lower  in 
the  Arctic  sky,  the  Esquimaux  of  Iglulik  play  the  game  of  cat’s  cradle 
m  order  to  catch  him  in  the  meshes  of  the  string  and  so  prevent  his 
isappearance.  On  the  contrary,  when  the  sun  is  moving  northward 


8o 


THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  THE  WEATHER 


CH. 


in  the  spring,  they  play  the  game  of  cup-and-ball  to  hasten  his  return. 
When  an  Australian  blackfellow  wishes  to  stay  the  sun  from  going 
down  till  he  gets  home,  he  puts  a  sod  m  the  fork  of  a  tree,  exactly  acmg 
the  setting  sun.  On  the  other  hand,  to  make  it  go  down  faster,  the 
Australians  throw  sand  into  the  air  and  blow  with  their  mouths  towards 
the  sun,  perhaps  to  waft  the  lingering  orb  westward  and  bury  it  under 

the  sands  into  which  it  appears  to  sink  at  night.  ,,  fincv 

As  some  people  imagine  they  can  hasten  the  sun,  so  others  fancy 

they  can  jog  the  tardy  moon.  The  natives  of  New  Guinea  reckon 
months  bl  the  moon,  and  some  of  them  have  been  known  to  throw 
stones  and  spears  at  the  moon,  in  order  to  accelerate  its  progress  and 

so  to  hasten  the  return  of  their  friends,  who  were  a'^  fr“"  'Tthink 
twelve  months  working  on  a  tobacco  plantation.  The  Malays  think 
that  a  bright  glow  at  sunset  may  throw  a  weak  person  into  a  feve 
Hence  they  attempt  to  extinguish  the  glow  by  spitting  out  water  and 
throwing  ashes  at  it.  The  Shuswap  Indians  believe  that  they  can  bring 
on  cold  weather  by  burning  the  wood  of  a  tree  that  has  bee"  st™ck  b? 
lightning.  The  belief  may  be  based  on  the  observation  that  m  the 
country  cold  follows  a  thunder-storm.  _  Hence  m  spring,  when  these 
Indians  are  travelling  over  the  snow  on  high  ground,  they  burn  sp  in 
If  such  wood  in  the  fire  in  order  that  the  crust  of  the  snow  may  not 

mel$  4  The  Magical  Control  of  the  Wind.— Once  more,  the  savage 
thinks  he  can  make  the  wind  to  blow  or  to  be  still.  When  the  day  is 
hot  and  a  Yakut  has  a  long  way  to  go,  he  takes  a  stone  which  he  has 
chanced  to  find  in  an  animal  or  fish,  winds  a  horse-hair  several  times 
round  it,  and  ties  it  to  a  stick.  He  then  waves  the  stick  about,  uttering 
a  spell  Soon  a  cool  breeze  begins  to  blow.  In  order  to  procure  a  coo 
wind  for  nine  days  the  stone  should  first  be  dipped  in  the  blood  of  a 
bird  or  beast  and  then  presented  to  the  sun,  while  the  soiceier  m 
three  turns  contrary  to  the  course  of  the  luminary.  If  a  Hottentot 
desires  the  wind  to  drop,  he  takes  one  of  his  fattest  skins  and  hangs  it 
on  the  end  of  a  pole,  in  the  belief  that  by  blowing  the  skin  down  thd 
wind  will  lose  all  its  force  and  must  itself  fall.  Fuegian  wizards  throw- 
shells  against  the  wind  to  make  it  drop.  The  natives  of  the  island  .  of  j 
Bibili,  off  New  Guinea,  are  reputed  to  make  wind  by  blowing^  wit 
their  mouths.  In  stormy  weather  the  Bogadjim  people  say,  T 
Bibili  folk  are  at  it  again,  blowing  away.”  Another  way  of  making 
wind  which  is  practised  in  New  Guinea  is  to  strike  a  wind-stone 
lightly  with  a  stick  ;  to  strike  it  hard  would  bring  on  a  hurricane,  bo 
in  Scotland  witches  used  to  raise  the  wind  by  dipping  a  rag  in  water 
and  beating  it  thrice  on  a  stone,  saying  : 


“  I  knok  this  rag  upone  this  stane 

To  raise  the  wind  in  the  divellis  name, 


It  sail  not  lye  till  I  please  againe.” 


In  Greenland  a  woman  in  child-bed  and  for  some  time  after  delivep 
is  supposed  to  possess  the  power  of  laying  a  storm.  She  has  only  t( 


v  THE  MAGICAL  CONTROL  OF  THE.  WIND  81 

j  go  out  of  doors,  fill  her  mouth  with  air,  and  coming  back  into  the  house 
ow  it  out  again.  In  antiquity  there  was  a  family  at  Corinth  which 
enjoyed  the  reputation  of  being  able  to  still  the  raging  wind  •  but  we 
do  not  know  m  what  manner  its  members  exercised  a  useful  function 
which  probably  earned  for  them  a  more  solid  recompense  than  mere 
repute  among  the  seafaring  population  of  the  isthmus.  Even  in 
Christian  times,  under  the  reign  of  Constantine,  a  certain  Sopater 
suffered  death  at  Constantinople  on  a  charge  of  binding  the  winds  bv 
magic,  because  it  happened  that  the  corn-ships  of  Egypt  and  Syria  were 
detained  alar  off  by  calms  or  head-winds,  to  the  rage  and  disappoint- 
ment  of  the  hungry  Byzantine  rabble.  Finnish  wizards  used  to  sell 
wind  to  storm-stayed  mariners.  The  wind  was  enclosed  in  three  knots  • 

1  they  undid  the  first  knot,  a  moderate  wind  sprang  up  ;  if  the  second 
it  blew  half  a  gale  ;  if  the  third,  a  hurricane.  IndLuhe  EsthonTans 
whose  country  is  divided  from  Finland  only  by  an  arm  of  the  sea  still 
believe  m  the  magical  powers  of  their  northern  neighbours.  The  bitter 
winds  that  blow  in  spring  from  the  north  and  north-east,  bringing  ague 
and  rheumatic  inflammations  in  their  train,  are  set  down  by  the  simple 
Esthoman  peasantry  to  the  machinations  of  the  Finnish  wizards  and 
witches.  In  particular  they  regard  with  special  dread  three  days  in 
spring  to  which  they  give  the  name  of  Days  of  the  Cross  ;  one  of  them 

7^s  °n  t?le  Eve  of  Ascension  Day.  The  people  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Fellin  fear  to  go  out  on  these  days  lest  the  cruel  winds  from  Lappland 
should  smite  them  dead.  A  popular  Esthonian  song  runs  * 

i 

.  “  Wind  of  the  Cross  !  rushing  and  mighty  ! 

I  Heavy  the  blow  of  thy  wings  sweeping  past  ! 

Wild  wailing  wind  of  misfortune  and  sorrow, 

Wizards  of  Finland  ride  by  on  the  blast.”' 

!  11  is  said>  too>  that  sailors,  beating  up  against  the  wind  in  the 

Pulf  of  Finland,  sometimes  see  a  strange  sail  heave  in  sight  astern  and 
overhaul  them  hand  over  hand.  On  she  comes  with  a  cloud  of  canvas 
—all  her  studding-sails  out— right  in  the  teeth  of  the  wind,  forging  her 
vvay  through  the  foaming  billows,  dashing  back  the  spray  in  sheets  from 
aer  cutwater,  every  sail  swollen  to  bursting,  every  rope  strained  to 
'racking.  Then  the  sailors  know  that  she  hails  from  Finland. 

The  art  of  tying  up  the  wind  in  three  knots,  so  that  the  more  knots 
lire  loosed  the  stronger  will  blow  the  wind,  has  been  attributed  to  wizards 
n  Lappland  and  to  witches  in  Shetland,  Lewis,  and  the  Isle  of  Man. 
phetland  seamen  still  buy  winds  in  the  shape  of  knotted  handkerchiefs 
ir  threads  from  old  women  who  claim  to  rule  the  storms.  There  are 
aid  to  be  ancient  crones  in  Lerwick  now  who  live  by  selling  wind. 
Jlysses  received  the  winds  in  a  leathern  bag  from  Aeolus,  King  of  the 
vVmds  The  Motumotu  in  New  Guinea  think  that  storms  are  sent  by 
ai  labu  sorcerer ;  for  each  wind  he  has  a  bamboo  which  he  opens  at 
measure.  On  the  top  of  Mount  Agu  in  Togo,  a  district  of  West  Africa, 
esides  a  fetish  called  Bagba,  who  is  supposed  to  control  the  wind  and* 
j  e  rain.  His  priest  is  said  to  keep  the  winds  shut  up  in  great  pots. 

G 


82 


the  magical  control  of  the  weather 


CH. 


Often  the  stenny  wind  »  S 

intimidated,  driven  away,  or  .  the  Central  Esquimaux,  they 

have  lasted  long  and  food  is  scarce  with  the  Central  q 

endeavour  to  conjure  the  tempest  bymakmg^a  long  ^  ^  ^ 

armed  with  which  they  go  o  (  ig  enough)  !  ”  Once  when 

direction  of  the  wind,  crying,  ^  Qn  the  coast  and  food  was 

north-westerly  winds  had  p  ^prfnrmed  a  ceremony  to  make  a 
becoming  scarce,  the  ^Esquimau  P  gathered  round 

calm.  A  fire  was  kind led  on  the  shore  an  ^  fire  and  in  a 

it  and  chanted.  An  old  man  F  wind  to  come  under  the  fire 

coaxing  voice  “^ted^the supposed  to  have  arrived,  a  vessel 
and  warm  himself  When  nPPhad  contributed,  was  thrown 

of  water,  to  which  each  n  P  diately  a  flight  of  arrows  sped 

on  the  flames  by  an  old  man,  They"  thought  that  the 

towards  the  spot  where  the  fire had .been  ^ey  ^  ^ 

demon  would  not  stay  where  he  hadbeen  sc >  b  dty 

+*  .«*•  XiJEZZSZftZrSZ  ’-  •»' — 

captain  of  a  Luiopeai  -p  i  .  T88a  a  similar  ceremony 

— °”  Jt«JS^5<S!S  Sow,  A«a.  With  .hi 

was  performed  by  the  tq  Women  drove  the  demon 

intention  of  killing  the  spirit  of  the  wind  .  U  omen 

their  him  wid  their 

in  the  air  ;  and  the  me  ,  g  &  gtong  the  moment  that  steam 

“SuSi  smouldering  embers,  on  which  a  tub  of  water 

had  just  been  thrown.  ascribe  the  rush  of  a  whirl- 

The  Lengua  Indian.  < >f ticks  at  it  to  frighten  it 

W"d  “  «”S  b  SS  “w»  Vhdr  hits.  ,h.  Payaguas  of  South 
away.  Wnentnewmu  u  -  against  the  wind,  menacing 

America  snatch  up  firebrands  and  run  agamri  the  ,  ^ 

„  With  the  hl.»g  brands,  wb nfc  »>b»  „„  thr,aW  by 

fists  to  frighten  the  storm.  Ah  women  and  children 

*  ”“,S‘rnioSir,”.  SClto  Dating  a  tempest 
scream  their  loudest  t  ^  Sumatra  have  been  seen  to  rush 

the  mhabitants  of  a  Batak  8^  and  lance.  The  rajah  placed 

r°m  their  houses  ar  d  shouts  and  yells  they  hewed  and 

himself  at  their  heaa  woman  was  observed  to  be  speci- 

backed  at  the  .»«»«, tte.  An  oM worn  ^  ^  « 

demons  of  the  storm.  ^  Austria  the  mg  ^  ^  natiyes  t„  be 

move  rapidly  across ;  a  de  ^  y(®ng  ran  after  one 

spirits  passing  a  g-  jt  wdh  boomerangs.  He  was  away 


VI 


MAGICIANS  AS  KINGS 


83 


must  die.  Of  the  Bedouins  of  Eastern  Africa  it  is  said  that  "  no  whirl¬ 
wind  ever  sweeps  across  the  path  without  being  pursued  by  a  dozen 
savages  with  drawn  creeses,  who  stab  into  the  centre  of  the  dustv 

co  unin  m  order  to  drive  away  the  evil  spirit  that  is  believed  to  be 
riding  on  the  blast. 

>  In  the  light  of  these  examples  a  story  told  by  Herodotus,  which 
11s  modern  critics  have  treated  as  a  fable,  is  perfectly  credible.  He 
says,  without  however  vouching  for  the  truth  of  the  tale,  that  once 
m  the  land  of  the  Psylli,  the  modern  Tripoli,  the  wind  blowing  from 
the  Sahara  had  dried  up  all  the  water-tanks.  So  the  people  took 
counsel  and  marched  in  a  body  to  make  war  on  the  south  wind.  But 
when  they  entered  the  desert  the  simoom  swept  down  on  them  and 
buried  them  to  a  man.  The  story  may  well  have  been  told  by  one 
who  watched  them  disappearing,  in  battle  array,  with  drums  and 
cymbals  beating,  into  the  red  cloud  of  whirling  sand. 


CHAPTER  VI 

MAGICIANS  AS  KINGS 

The  foregoing  evidence  may  satisfy  us  that  in  many  lands  and  many 

races  magic  has  claimed  to  control  the  great  forces  of  nature  for  the 

good  of  man.  If  that  has  been  so,  the  practitioners  of  the  art  must 

necessarily  be  personages  of  importance  and  influence  in  any  society 

which  puts  faith  in  their  extravagant  pretensions,  and  it  would  be 

no  matter  for  surprise  if,  by  virtue  of  the  reputation  which  they  enjoy 

and  of  the  awe  which  they  inspire,  some  of  them  should  attain  to  the 

, highest  position  of  authority  over  their  credulous  fellows.  In  point 

at  fact  magicians  appear  to  have  often  developed  into  chiefs  and 
kings. 

Let  us  begin  by  looking  at  the  lowest  race  of  men  as  to  whom 
we  possess  comparatively  full  and  accurate  information,  the  aborigines 
ot  Australia.  _  These  savages  are  ruled  neither  by  chiefs  nor  kings. 
50  far  as  their  tribes  can  be  said  to  have  a  political  constitution,  it 
s  a  democracy  or  rather  an  oligarchy  of  old  and  influential  men,  who 
fneet  m  council  and  decide  on  all  measures  of  importance  to  the 
practical  exclusion  of  the  younger  men.  Their  deliberative  assembly 
Answers  to  the  senate  of  later  times  :  if  we  had  to  coin  a  word  for  such 
1  government  of  elders  we  might  call  it  a  gerontocracy.  The  elders 
vho  m  aboriginal  Australia  thus  meet  and  direct  the  affairs  of  their 
jnbe  aPPear  to  be  for  the  most  part  the  headmen  of  their  respective 
otem  clans.  Now  in  Central  Australia,  where  the  desert  nature  of 
e  country  and  the  almost  complete  isolation  from  foreign  influences 
*ave  retarded  progress  and  preserved  the  natives  on  the  whole  in 
eir  most  primitive  state,  the  headmen  of  the  various  totem  clans 
<re  c  aige  with  the  important  task  of  performing  magical  ceremonies 


84 


MAGICIANS  AS  KINGS 


CH. 


for  the  multiplication  of  the  totems,  and  as  the  great  majority  of  the 
totems  are  edible  animals  or  plants,  it  follows  that  these  men  are 
commonly  expected  to  provide  the  people  with  food  by  means  of 
magic  Others  have  to  make  the  rain  to  fall  or  to  render  other  services 
to  the  community.  In  short,  among  the  tribes  of  Central  Australia 
the  headmen  are  public  magicians.  Further,  their  most  important 
function  is  to  take  charge  of  the  sacred  storehouse  usually  a  cleft  m 
the  rocks  or  a  hole  in  the  ground,  where  are  kept  the  holy  stones  and 
sticks  ( churinga )  with  which  the  souls  of  all  the  people,  both  living 
and  dead,  are  apparently  supposed  to  be  in  a  manner  bound  up.  Thus 
while  the  headmen  have  certainly  to  perform  what  we  should  call  . 
civil  duties,  such  as  to  inflict  punishment  for  breaches  of  tribal  custom, 

their  principal  functions  are  sacred  or  magical. 

When  we  pass  from  Australia  to  New  Guinea  we  find  that,  though 
the  natives  stand  at  a  far  higher  level  of  culture  than  the  Australian 
aborigines  the  constitution  of  society  among  them  is  still  essentially 
democratic  or  oligarchic,  and  chieftainship  exists  only  in  embryo. 
Thus  Sir  William  MacGregor  tells  us  that  m  British  New  Guinea  no 
one  has  ever  arisen  wise  enough,  bold  enough,  and  strong  enough  to 
become  the  despot  even  of  a  single  district.  “  The  nearest  approach 
to  this  has  been  the  very  distant  one  of  some  person  becoming  a 
renowned  wizard  ;  but  that  has  only  resulted  in  levying  a  certain 

amount  of  blackmail.  _  _  . 

According  to  a  native  account,  the  origin  of  the  power  of  Melanesian 

chiefs  lies  entirely  in  the  belief  that  they  have  communication  with 
mighty  ghosts,  and  wield  that  supernatural  power  whereby  they  can 
bring  the  influence  of  the  ghosts  to  bear.  If  a  chief  imposed  a  fine, 
it  was  paid  because  the  people  universally  dreaded  his  ghostly  power, 
and  firmly  believed  that  he  could  inflict  calamity  and  sickness  upon 
such  as  resisted  him.  As  soon  as  any  considerable  number  of  his 
people  began  to  disbelieve  in  his  influence  with  the  ghosts,  his  power 
to  levy  fines  was  shaken.  Again,  Dr.  George  Brown  tells  us  that  m 
New  Britain  “  a  ruling  chief  was  always  supposed  to  exercise  priestly 
functions  that  is,  he  professed  to  be  in  constant  communication  with  the 
tebarans  (spirits),  and  through  their  influence  he  was  enabled  to  bring 
rain  or  sunshine,  fair  winds  or  foul  ones,  sickness  or  health,  success  or 
disaster  in  war,  and  generally  to  procure  any  blessing  or  cuise  for 
which  the  applicant  was  willing  to  pay  a  sufficient  price. 

Still  rising  in  the  scale  of  culture  we  come  to  Africa,  where  both 
the  chieftainship  and  the  kingship  are  fully  developed;  and  here 
the  evidence  for  the  evolution  of  the  chief  out  of  the  magician,  and 
especially  out  of  the  rainmaker,  is  comparatively  plentiful.  Thus 
among  the  Wambugwe,  a  Bantu  people  of  East  Africa,  the  original 
form  of  government  was  a  family  republic,  but  the  enormous  power 
of  the  sorcerers,  transmitted  by  inheritance,  soon  raised  them  to  the 
rank  of  petty  lords  or  chiefs.  Of  the  three  chiefs  living  in  the  country 
m  i8c)zj  two  were  much  dreaded  as  magicians,  and  the  wealth  of  cattle 
they  possessed  came  to  them  almost  wholly  in  the  shape  of  presents 


1 


VI 


magicians  as  kings 


85 


1  bestowed  for  their  services  in  that  capacity.  Their  principal  art  was 

East  0!fr“klng- ,  !hlChiefs  of  the  Wataturu,  another  people  of 

rwd  + '  t16  naK  t0  be  nothlng  but  sorcerers  destitute  of  any 
ect  political  influence.  Again,  among  the  Wagogo  of  East  Africa 

rata  maakiL°Weif  K  f***’  T  toW’  is  derived  f™m  their  art  of 
f“ome  §one  whotn  "  ^  he  ™St  P—  * 

Again,  among  the  tribes  of  the  Upper  Nile  the  medicine-men  are 
'  generally  the  chiefs.  Their  authority  rests  above  all  upon  their 
supposed  power  of  making  rain,  for  "  rain  is  the  one  thing  which  matters 
to  the  people  in  those  districts,  as  if  it  does  not  come  down  at  the 
ng  t  time  it  means  untold  hardships  for  the  community.  It  is  there- 

IrmvaTe3  tnW+nder  ^  m°re  cunninS  than  their  fellows  should 
arrogate  to  themselves  the  power  of  producing  it,  or  that  having 

gained  such  a  reputation,  they  should  trade  on  the  credulity  of  their 
simpler  neighbours.  Hence  “  most  of  the  chiefs  of  these  tribes  are 
i  ram-makers,  and  enjoy  a  popularity  in  proportion  to  their  powers 
to  give  ram  to  their  people  at  the  proper  season.  .  .  .  Rain-making 
c  lefs  always  build  their  villages  on  the  slopes  of  a  fairly  high  hilf 
as  they  no  doubt  know  that  the  hills  attract  the  clouds,  and  that  they 
are,  therefore,  fairly  safe  m  their  weather  forecasts.”  Each  of  these 
ram-makers  has  a  number  of  rain-stones,  such  as  rock-crystal,  aven- 
turme,  and  amethyst,  which  he  keeps  in  a  pot.  When  he  wishes  to 
produce  ram  he  plunges  the  stones  in  water,  and  taking  in  his  hand 
a  peeled  cane,  which  is  split  at  the  top,  he  beckons  with  it  to  the 
Jouds  to  come  or  waves  them  away  in  the  way  they  should  go,  mutter¬ 
ing  an  incantation  the  while.  Or  he  pours  water  and  the  entrails  of 

1  !f  S°ilt  mt~a  hollow  in  a  stone  and  then  sprinkles  the  water 
■owards  the  sky.  Though  the  chief  acquires  wealth  by  the  exercise 

)f  his  supposed  magical  powers,  he  often,  perhaps  generally,  comes 

md  k!inent  nnr  ’  f°r  !u  tlme  °f  drou8ht  the  angry  people  assemble 
V  t  m’  bellevmg  that  it  is  he  who  prevents  the  rain  from  falling, 
fet  the  office  is  usually  hereditary  and  passes  from  father  to  son. 
Vmong  the  tribes  which  cherish  these  beliefs  and  observe  these  customs 
ire  the  Latuka,  Ban,  Laluba,  and  Lokoiya. 

In  Central  Africa,  again,  the  Lendu  tribe,  to  the  west  of  Lake  Albert 
irmly  believe  that  certain  people  possess  the  power  of  making  rain.’ 
mong  em  t  e  lain-makei  either  is  a  chief  or  almost  invariably 
•ecomcs  one.  The  Banyoro  also  have  a  great  respect  for  the  dis- 
'enseis  of  rain,  whom  they  load  with  a  profusion  of  gifts.  The  great 
■ispenser,  e  who  has  absolute  and  uncontrollable  power  over  the 

hot’  iv.  t,6  ’  ^)ld,  be  can  depute  his  power  to  other  persons,  so 

.  e  enefit  may  be  distributed  and  the  heavenly  water  laid  on 
ver  the  various  parts  of  the  kingdom. 

In  Western  as  well  as  in  Eastern  and  Central  Africa  we  meet  with 
ie  same  union  of  chiefly  with  magical  functions.  Thus  in  the  Fan 
y®  th®,strl(:t.  distinction  between  chief  and  medicine-man  does  not 
!  t‘  1Jle  chief  1S  also  a  mechcme-man  and  a  smith  to  boot;  for 


86 


MAGICIANS  AS  KINGS 


CH. 


the  Fans  esteem  the  smith’s  craft  sacred,  and  none  but  chiefs  may 

“^As^tofte  relation  between  the  offices  of  chief  and  rain-maker  in 
South  Africa  a  well-informed  writer  observes  :  “  In  very  oid  days  the 
chief  was  the  great  Rain-maker  of  the  tribe.  Some  chiefs  allowed  no 
one  else  to  compete  with  them,  lest  a  successful  Rain-maker  should  I 
be  chosen  as  chief.  There  was  also  another  reason  :  the  Ram-ma  e 
was  sure  to  become  a  rich  man  if  he  gained  a  great  reputation,  and  it 
would  manifestly  never  do  for  the  chief  to  allow  any  one  to  be  too 
rich  The  Rain-maker  exerts  tremendous  control  over  the  peop  e, 
and  so  it  would  be  most  important  to  keep  this  function  connecte 
with  royalty.  Tradition  always  places  the  power  of  making  rain  a 
&e  fundamental  glory  of  ancient  chiefs  and  heroes  and  Adeems 
probable  that  it  may  have  been  the  origin  of  chieftams  P- 
who  made  the  rain  would  naturally  become  the  chief.  In  the  same 
wav  Chaka  [the  famous  Zulu  despot]  used  to  declare  that  he  was  t  e 
only  diviner  in  the  country,  for  if  he  allowed  rivals  his  life  would  be 
insecure.”  Similarly  speaking  of  the  South  African  tribes  ln  /enera , 
Dr  Moffat  says  that  “  the  raimaaker  is  in  the  estimation  of  tl*  people 
no  mean  personage,  possessing  an  influence  over  the  minds  ol  he 
people  superior  even  to  that  of  the  king,  who  is  likewise  compelled 

to  vield  to  the  dictates  of  this  arch-official. 

The  foregoing  evidence  renders  it  probable  that  m  Africa  the 
kine  has  often  been  developed  out  of  the  public  magician  and  espec  - 
ally  out  of  the  rain-maker.  The  unbounded  fear  which  the  magician 
inspires  and  the  wealth  which  he  amasses  m  the  exercise  of  his  piofes- 
sffin  may  both  be  supposed  to  have  contributed  to  his  promotion 
Rut  if  the  career  of  a  magician  and  especially  of  a  rain-maker  offers 
great  rewards  To  thl  successful  practitioner  of  the  art,  it  is  beset  wffh 
nianv  pitfalls  into  which  the  unskilful  or  unlucky  artist  may  fall. 
The  Sedition  of  the  public  sorcerer  is  indeed  a  very  precarious  one 
for  where  the  people  firmly  believe  that  he  has  ^  Jpow  H 
make  the  rain  to  fall,  the  sun  to  shine,  and  the  fluffs  ol  the  call 
to  grow  they  naturally  impute  drought  and  dearth  to  Ins  culpable 
negligence  or  wilful  obstinacy,  and  they  punish  him  accordingly 
Hence  in  Africa  the  chief  who  fails  to  procure  ram  is  often  exiled  or 
killed  Thus  in  some  parts  of  West  Africa,  when  prayers  and  offerings 
presented  to  the  king  have  failed  to  procure  ram,  his  subjects  bind 
him  with  ropes  and  take  him  by  force  to  the  grave  his  ^fathers 
that  he  may  obtain  from  them  the  needed  ram.  The  Banjars  m  West 
Africa  ascribe  to  their  king  the  power  of  causing  ram  or  fine  weather. 
So  long  as  the  weather  is  fine  they  load  him  with  presents  of  grain 
and  cattle  But  if  long  drought  or  ram  threatens  to  spoil  the  crops, 
they  insult  and  beat  him  till  the  weather  changes.  When  the  harves 
fails  or  the  surf  on  the  coast  is  too  heavy  to  allow  of  fishing,  the  peopl 
of  Loango  accuse  their  king  of  a  "  bad  heart  and  dep°=e  im. 
the  Grain  Coast  the  high  priest  or  fetish  king,  who  bears ■Thet  1 
Bodio  is  responsible  for  the  health  of  the  community,  the  fertility 


VI 


MAGICIANS  AS  •  KINGS  87 

the  earth,  and.  the  abundance  of  fish  in  the  sea  and  rivers  ;  and  if  the 
country  suffers  in  any  of  these  respects  the  Bodio  is  deposed  from  his 
office.  .  In  Ussukuma,  a  great  district  on  the  southern  bank  of  the 
Victoria  Nyanza,  “  the  rain  and  locust  question  is  part  and  parcel  of 
the  Sultan’s  government.  He,  too,  must  know  how  to  make  rain 
and  drive  away  the  locusts.  If  he  and  his  medicine-men  are  unable 
to  accomplish  this,  his  whole  existence  is  at  stake  in  times  of  distress. 
On  a  certain  occasion,  when  the  rain  so  greatly  desired  by  the  people 
did  not  come,  the  Sultan  was  simply  driven  out  (in  Ututwa,  near 
Nassa).  The  people,  in  fact,  hold  that  rulers  must  have  power  over 
Nature  and  her  phenomena.”  Again,  we  are  told  of  the  natives  of 
the  Nyanza  region  generally  that  “  they  are  persuaded  that  rain  only 
falls  as  a  result  of  magic,  and  the  important  duty  of  causing  it  to 
descend  devolves  on  the  chief  of  the  tribe.  If  rain  does  not  come  at 
the  proper  time,  everybody  complains.  More  than  one  petty  king 
has  been  banished  his  country  because  of  drought.”  Among  the 
Latuka  of  the  Upper  Nile,  when  the  crops  are  withering,  and  all  the 
efforts  of  the  chief  to  draw  down  rain  have  proved  fruitless,  the  people 
commonly  attack  him  by  night,  rob  him  of  all  he  possesses,  and  drive 
him  away.  But  often  they  kill  him. 

In  many  other  parts  of  the  world  kings  have  been  expected  to 
regulate  the  course  of  nature  for  the  good  of  their  people  and  have 
been  punished  if  they  failed  to  do  so.  It  appears  that  the  Scythians, 
when  food  was  scarce,  used  to  put  their  king  in  bonds.  In  ancient 
Egypt  the  sacred  kings  were  blamed  for  the  failure  of  the  crops,  but 
the  sacred  beasts  were  also  held  responsible  for  the  course  of  nature. 
When  pestilence  and  other  calamities  had  fallen  on  the  land,  in  con¬ 
sequence  of  a  long  and  severe  drought,  the  priests  took  the  animals 
by  night  and  threatened  them,  but  if  the  evil  did  not  abate  they  slew 
the  beasts.  On  the  coral  island  of  Niue  or  Savage  Island,  in  the  South 
Pacific,  there  formerly  reigned  a  line  of  kings.  But  as  the  kings  were 
also  high  priests,  and  were  supposed  to  make  the  food  grow,  the  people 
became  angry  with  them  in  times  of  scarcity  and  killed  them  ;  till  at 
last,  as  one  after  another  was  killed,  no  one  would  be  king,  and  the 
monarchy  came  to  an  end.  Ancient  Chinese  writers  inform  us  that 
1  if1  Corea  the  blame  was  laid  on  the  king  whenever  too  much  or  too 
little  rain  fell  and  the  crops  did  not  ripen.  Some  said  that  he  must  be 
deposed,  others  that  he  must  be  slain. 

Among  the  American  Indians  the  furthest  advance  towards  civilisa¬ 
tion  was  made  under  the  monarchical  and  theocratic  governments  of 
\  Mexico  and  Peru  ;  but  we  know  too  little  of  the  early  history  of  these 
j  countries  to  say  whether  the  predecessors  of  their  deified  kings  were 
medicine-men  or  not.  Perhaps  a  trace  of  such  a  succession  may  be 
:  detected  in  the  oath  which  the  Mexican  kings,  when  they  mounted 
the  throne,  swore  that  they  would  make  the  sun  to  shine,  the  clouds 
to  give  rain,  the  rivers  to  flow,  and  the  earth  to  bring  forth  fruits 
m  abundance.  Certainly,  in  aboriginal  America  the  sorcerer  or 
medicine-man,  surrounded  by  a  halo  of  mystery  and  an  atmosphere  of 


88 


MAGICIANS  AS  KINGS 


CH. 


awe  was  a  personage  of  great  influence  and  importance,  and  he  may 
well  have  developed  into  a  chief  or  king  in  many  tribes,  though  positive 
evidence  of  such  a  development  appears  to  be  lacking.  Thus  Cat  in 
tells  us  that  in  North  America  the  medicine-men  are  valued  as 
dignitaries  in  the  tribe,  and  the  greatest  respect  is  paid  to  them  by  the 
whole  community  ;  not  only  for  their  skill  m  their  materia  medica 
but  more  especially  for  their  tact  in  magic  and  mysteries,  m  which 
they  all  deal  to  a  very  great  extent.  ...  In  all  tribes  their  doctors 
are  conjurers— are  magicians— are  sooth-sayers,  and  I  had  like  to  have 
said  high-priests,  inasmuch  as  they  superintend  and  conduct  all  their 
religious  ceremonies;  they  are  looked  upon  by  all  as  oracles  of  the 
nation.  In  all  councils  of  war  and  peace,  they  have  a  seat  with  the 
chiefs,  are  regularly  consulted  before  any  public  step  is^  taken  an 
the  greatest  deference  and  respect  is  paid  to  their  opinions.  _  Similarly 
in  California  “  the  shaman  was,  and  still  is,  perhaps  the  most  important 
individual  among  the  Maidu.  In  the  absence  of  any  definite  system 
of  government,  the  word  of  a  shaman  has  great  weight :  as  a  class  they 
are  regarded  with  much  awe,  and  as  a  rule  are  obeyed  much  more  than 

the  chief.” 

In  South  America  also  the  magicians  or  medicme-men  seem  to  have 
been  on  the  highroad  to  chieftainship  or  kingship.  One  of  the  earliest 
settlers  on  the  coast  of  Brazil,  the  Frenchman  Thevet,  reports  that  the 
Indians  “hold  these  pages  (or  medicine-men)  in  such  honour  and 
reverence  that  they  adore,  or  rather  idolise  them.  You  may  see  the 
common  folk  go  to  meet  them,  prostrate  themselves,  and  pray  to 
them,  saying,  ‘  Grant  that  I  be  not  ill,  that  I  do  not  die,  neither  I  nor 
mv  children/  or  some  such  request.  And  he  answers,  You  shall  not 
die  you  shall  not  be  ill/  and  such  like  replies.  But  sometimes  if  it 
happens  that  these  pages  do  not  tell  the  truth,  and  things  turn  out 
otherwise  than  they  predicted,  the  people  make  no  scruple  of  killing 
them  as  unworthy  of  the  title  and  dignity  of  pages.  .  Among  the 
Lengua  Indians  of  the  Gran  Chaco  every  clan  has  its  cazique  or  chief, 
but  he  possesses  little  authority.  In  virtue  of  his  office  he  has  to  make 
many  presents,  so  he  seldom  grows  rich  and  is  generally  more  shabbily 
clad  than  any  of  his  subjects.  “  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  magician  is  i 
the  man  who  has  most  powrer  in  his  hands,  and  he  is  accustomed  to 
receive  presents  instead  of  to  give  them.”  It  is  the  magician’s  duty  to 
bring  down  misfortune  and  plagues  on  the  enemies  of  his  tribe,  and  to 
guard  his  own  people  against  hostile  magicy  For  these  services  he  is 
well  paid,  and  by  them  he  acquires  a  position  of  great  influence  and 

authority.  .  ,  .  .  1tt 

Throughout  the  Malay  region  the  ra]ah  or  king  is  commonly 

regarded  with  superstitious  veneration  as  the  possessor  of  supernatural 
powers,  and  there  are  grounds  for  thinking  that  he  too,  like  apparently 
so  many  African  chiefs,  has  been  developed  out  of  a  simple  magician. 
At  the  present  day  the  Malays  firmly  believe  that  the  king  possesses  a 
personal  influence  over  the  works  of  nature,  such  as  the  growth  of  the 
crops  and  the  bearing  of  fruit-trees.  The  same  prolific  virtue  is 


VI 


magicians  as  kings 


89 


in  Pthn  f1  to  d/wthoUgh  ln  a  lesser  degree,  in  his  delegates,  and  even 

h ,  persons  of  Europeans  who  chance  to  have  charge  of  districts 

Thus  m  Selangor,  one  of  the  native  states  of  the  Malay  Peninsula  the 
success  or  failure  of  the  nee  crops  is  often  attributed  to  a  change  of 
district  officers  The  Toorateyas  of  Southern  Celebes  hold  thaf  the 
prosperity  of  the  rice  depends  on  the  behaviour  of  their  princes,  and 
hat  bad  government,  by  which  they  mean  a  government  which  does 
not  conform  to  ancient  custom,  will  result  in  a  failure  of  the  crops. 

i?  ■  no  1  S  °f  Sarawak  believed  that  their  famous  English  ruler 
Rajah  Brooke,  was  endowed  with  a  certain  magical  virtue  which  if 
properly  applied,  could  render  the  rice-crops  abundant.  Hence  when 
he  visited  a  tribe,  they  used  to  bring  him  the  seed  which  they  intended 
to  sow  next  year,  and  he  fertilised  it  by  shaking  over  it  the  women’s 
necklaces,  which  had  been  previously  dipped  in  a  special  mixture. 

nd  when  he  entered  a  village,  the  women  would  wash  and  bathe  his 
feet,  first  with  water,  and  then  with  the  milk  of  a  young  coco-nut 
and  lastly  with  water  again,  and  all  this  water  which  had  touched  his 
person  they  preserved  for  the  purpose  of  distributing  it  on  their  farms 
believing  that  it  ensured  an  abundant  harvest.  Tribes  which  were  too 

h™t0  'T*  UsedJt0  send  hlm  a  sma11  P^ce  of  white  cloth 
and  a  little  gold  or  silver,  and  when  these  things  had  been  impregnated 

y  his  generative  virtue  they  buried  them  in  their  fields,  and  confidently 

expected  a  heavy  crop.  Once  when  a  European  remarked  that  the 

,,  ,  ™ps  of  the  Samban  tribe  were  thin,  the  chief  immediately  replied 

C°U  a  u°l be  °therwise-  since  Rajah  Brooke  had  never 
visited  them,  and  he  begged  that  Mr.  Brooke  might  be  induced  to  visit 
his  tribe  and  remove  the  sterility  of  their  land. 

virtlehh1  w  wn  kingS  f 0SSfSS  magical  or  supernatural  powers  by 
virtue  of  which  they  can  fertilise  the  earth  and  confer  other  benefits 

dleir.sublects  w°nld  seem  to  have  been  shared  by  the  ancestors  of 

of  Pc  eifAryan  raC6S  fr°m  India  t0  IreIand’  and  *  has  left  clear  traces 
:  1  itself  in  our  own  country  down  to  modern  times.  Thus  the  ancient 

Hindoo  law-book  called  The  Laws  of  Manu  describes  as  follows  the 
fleets  of  a  good  king  s  reign  :  “  In  that  country  where  the  king  avoids 
akmg  the  property  of  mortal  sinners,  men  are  born  in  due  time  and 
are  ong-lived.  And  the  crops  of  the  husbandmen  spring  up  each  as 
bo,T”  S°TWIVrand  the 'children  die  not,  and  no  misshaped  offspring  is 
or 'divin  ?v,0mTC  Greece  kingS  and  chiefs  were  spoken  of  as  sacred 
and  it  wL’+nthelrn??fS!S’It0°’-Were  dlVlne  and  their  chariots  sacred  ; 
To  b rinT  fo  irg  n  ^  tb\relgn  of  a  g00d  kinS  caused  the  black  earth 
tLfllf  f?  *  '!’heat  Md  barIey’  the  trees  t0  be  loaded  with  fruit, 
when  W  m  mul?%  and  the  sea  to  yield  fish.  In  the  Middle  Ages, 
bron.lp  aidemar/'T  ng,°f  Denmark’  travelled  in  Germany,  mothers 
han/ht  th,tlr  !nfants  and  husbandmen  their  seed  for  him  to  lay  his 
\°n’  ,thmkmS  that  children  would  both  thrive  the  better  for  the 
frwi  t0UC\?nd  f°r  a  llke  reason  farmers  asked  him  to  throw  the  seed 
L  prenV  was  the  bdlef  of  the  ancient  Irish  that  when  their  kings 
Ved  the  customs  of  their  ancestors,  the  seasons  were  mild,  the 


go 


MAGICIANS  AS  KINGS 


CH. 


crops  plentiful,  the  cattle  fruitful,  the  waters  abounded  with  fish  and 
the  fruit  trees  had  to  be  propped  up  on  account  of  the  weight  of  their 
produce.  A  canon  attributed  to  St.  Patrick  enumerates  among  the 
blessings  that  attend  the  reign  of  a  just  king  “  fine  weather  calm  seas, 
crops  abundant,  and  trees  laden  with  fruit.”  On  the  other  hand, 
dearth,  dryness  of  cows,  blight  of  fruit,  and  scarcity  of  corn  were 

regarded  as  infallible  proofs  that  the  reigning  king  was  bad. 

Perhaps  the  last  relic  of  such  superstitions  which  lingered  about 
our  English  kings  was  the  notion  that  they  could  heal  scrofula  by  their 
touch.  The  disease  was  accordingly  known  as  the  King  s  Evil. 

Elizabeth  often  exercised  this  miraculous  gift  of  healing.  On  Mid¬ 
summer  Day  1633,  Charles  the  First  cured  a  hundred  patients  at  one 
swoop  in  the  chapel  royal  at  Holyrood.  But  it  was  under  his  son 
Charles  the  Second  that  the  practice  seems  to  have  attained  its  highest 
vomie  It  is  said  that  in  the  course  of  his  reign  Charles  the  Second 
touched  near  a  hundred  thousand  persons  for  scrofula.  The  press  to 
eet  near  him  was  sometimes  terrific.  On  one  occasion  six  or  seven  of 
those  who  came  to  be  healed  were  trampled  to  death.  The  cool-headed 
William  the  Third  contemptuously  refused  to  lend  himself  to  the  hocus- 
pocus  •  and  when  his  palace  was  besieged  by  the  usual  unsavoury 
crowd’  he  ordered  them  to  be  turned  away  with  a  dole  On  the  only 
occasion  when  he  was  importuned  into  laying  his  hand  on  a  patient, 
he  said  to  him,  “  God  give  you  better  health  and  more  sense.  I  ow- 
ever  the  practice  was  continued,  as  might  have  been  expected,  by  the 
dull  bigot  James  the  Second  and  his  dull  daughter  Queen  Anne. 

The  kings  of  France  also  claimed  to  possess  the  same  gift  of  healing  I 
by  touch,  which  they  are  said  to  have  derived  from  Clovis  °r  from 
St.  Louis,  while  our  English  kings  inherited  it  from  Edward  the  Con¬ 
fessor.  Similarly  the  savage  chiefs  of  Tonga  were  believed  to  heal 
scrofula  and  cases  of  indurated  liver  by  the  touch  of  their  feet  ;  an 
the  cure  was  strictly  homoeopathic,  for  the  disease  as  well  as  the  cure  , 
was  thought  to  be  caused  by  contact  with  the  royal  person  or  with 

anything  that  belonged  to  it.  .  .  .  .  ,  . 

On  the  whole,  then,  we  seem  to  be  justified  m  inferring  that  in 
many  parts  of  the  world  the  king  is  the  lineal  successor  of  the  old 
magician  or  medicine-man.  When  once  a  special  class  of  sorcerers  has 
been  segregated  from  the  community  and  entrusted  by  it  with  the 
discharge  of  duties  on  which  the  public  safety  and  welfare  are  believed 
to  depend,  these  men  gradually  rise  to  wealth  and  power,  till  their 
leaders  blossom  out  into  sacred  kings.  But  the  great  social  revolution 
which  thus  begins  with  democracy  and  ends  in  despotism  is  attended 
bv  an  intellectual  revolution  which  affects  both  the  conception  and  the 
functions  of  royalty.  For  as  time  goes  on,  the  fallacy  of  magic  becomes 
more  and  more  apparent  to  the  acuter  minds  and  is  slowly  displaced 
bv  religion  :  in  other  words,  the  magician  gives  way  to  the  priest,  who 
renouncing  the  attempt  to  control  directly  the  processes  of  nature  for 
the  good  of  man,  seeks  to  attain  the  same  end  indirectly  by  appealing 
t0  the  gods  to  do  for  him  what  he  no  longer  fancies  he  can  do  for  himseit. 


vn  INCARNATE  HUMAN  GODS  gi 

Hence  the  king,  starting  as  a  magician,  tends  gradually  to  exchange 

AndPwhCneeth  h  T  r  thK  P1'ieStly  funCti0nS  of  Prayer  and  orifice. 
And  while  the  distinction  between  the  human  and  the  divine  is  still 

WnHhCt  J  dra,wn’  lt,ls  ofrten  inlaSined  that  men  may  themselves  attain 
to  godhead,  not  merely  after  their  death,  but  in  their  lifetime,  througli 

the  temporary  or  permanent  possession  of  their  whole  nature  by  a  great 
and  powerful  spirit  No  class  of  the  community  has  benefited  so  much 

form  §SThy  d  r  the  Possible- “carnation  of  a  god  in  human 

form  The  doctrine  of  that  incarnation,  and  with  it  the  theory  of  the 

lvimty  of  kings  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  will  form  the  subject  of 
the  following  chapter.  1 


CHAPTER  VII 

/ 

INCARNATE  HUMAN  GODS 

The  instances  which  in  the  preceding  chapters  I  have  drawn  from  the 
beliefs  and  practices  of  rude  peoples  all  over  the  world,  may  suffice  to 
prove  that  the  savage  fails  to  recognise  those  limitations  to  his  power 
over  nature  which  seem  so  obvious  to  us.  In  a  society  where  every 
man  is  supposed  to  be  endowed  more  or  less  with  powers  which  we 
should  call  supernatural,  it  is  plain  that  the  distinction  between  gods 
and  men  is  somewhat  blurred,  or  rather  has  scarcely  emerged  The 
conception  of  gods  as  superhuman  beings  endowed  with  powers  to 
which  man  possesses  nothing  comparable  in  degree  and  hardly  even  in 
kind,  has  been  slowly  evolved  in  the  course  of  history.  By  primitive 
peoples  the  supernatural  agents  are  not  regarded  as  greatly  if  at  all 
superior  to  man  ;  for  they  may  be  frightened  and  coerced  by  him  into 
doing  his  will.  At  this  stage  of  thought  the  world  is  viewed  as  a  great 
democracy ;  all  beings  in  it,  whether  natural  or  supernatural  are 
supposed  to  stand  on  a  footing  of  tolerable  equality.  But  with  the 
growth  of  his  knowledge  man  learns  to  realise  more  clearly  the  vastness 
of  nature  and  his  own  littleness  and  feebleness  in  presence  of  it.  The 
recognition  of  his  helplessness  does  not,  however,  carry  with  it  a 
corresponding  belief  in  the  impotence  of  those  supernatural  beings  with 
which  his  imagination  peoples  the  universe.  On  the  contrary  it 
-nhances  his  conception  of  their  power.  For  the  idea  of  the  world"  as  a 
system  of  impersonal  forces  acting  in  accordance  with  fixed  and  invari¬ 
able  laws  has  not  yet  fully  dawned  or  darkened  upon  him.  The  germ 
of  the  idea  he  certainly  has,  and  he  acts  upon  it,  not  only  in  magic  art 
iut  in  much  of  the  business  of  daily  life.  But  the  idea  remains  un- 
leveloped,  and  so  far  as  he  attempts  to  explain  the  world  he  lives  in 
ne  pictures  it  as  the  manifestation  of  conscious  will  and  personal  agency’ 

:  t  then  he  feels  himself  to  be  so  frail  and  slight,  how  vast  and  powerful 
nust  he  deem  the  beings  who  control  the  gigantic  machinery  of  nature  ! 
"us  as  his  old  sense  of  equality  with  the  gods  slowly  vanishes  he 
esigns  at  the  same  time  the  hope  of  directing  the  course  of  nature  by 


92 


INCARNATE  HUMAN  GODS 


CH. 


his  own  unaided  resources,  that  is,  by  magic,  and  looks  more  and  more 
to  the  gods  as  the  sole  repositories  of  those  supernatural  powers  w 
he  once  claimed  to  share  with  them.  With  the  advance  of  knowledge, 
therefore  prayer  and  sacrifice  assume'  the  leading  place  m  religious  j 
ritual  •  and  magic,  which  once  ranked  with  them  as  a  legitimate  equal, 
is  gradually  relegated  to  the  background  and  sinks  to  the  level  of  a  I 
bla6ck  art  ht  is  now  regarded  as  an  encroachment,  at  once  vam  and 
impious  on  the  domain  of  the  gods,  and  as  such  encounters  the  steady 
opposition  of  the  priests,  whose  reputation  and  mftamce ^ 
with  those  of  their  gods.  Hence,  when  at  a  late  period  tte  J Sacrifice 
between  religion  and  superstition  has  emerged  we  find  that  sacnfice 

and  prayer  are  the  resource  of  the  pious  and  enlightened  por  ion  I 

community  while  magic  is  the  refuge  of  the  superstitious  and  ignoran 
But  whenjstill  later,  the  conception  of  the  elemental  forces  as  persona 
agents  is  giving  way  to  the  recognition  of  natural  law  ,  then  mag  , 
based  as  ft  implicitly  is  on  the  idea  of  a  necessary  and  invariable 
sequence  of  cause  and  effect,  independent  of  personal  will,  reaPPfcar/j 
from  the  obscuritv  and  discredit  into  which  it  had  fallen,  and  \ 
investigating  the  causal  sequences  in  nature,  directly  prepares  the  way 

for  science.  Alchemy  leads  up  to  chemistry. 

="The  notion  of  a  man-god,  or  of  a  human  being  endowed  with  divine 
or  supernatural  powers,  belongs  essentially  to  that  earlier  period  o 
religious  history  in  which  gods  and  men  are  still  viewed  as  beings  of 
much  the  same  order,  and  before  they  are  divided  by  *e  impassable 
gulf  which,  to  later  thought,  opens  out  between  them.  Strang  , 
therefore,  as  may  seem  to  us  the  idea  of  a  god  incarnate  in  human  fo  , 
it  has  nothing  very  startling  for  early  man,  who  sees  in  a  man-god  or  a 
god-man  only  a  higher  degree  of  the  same  supernatural  powers  which 
he  abates  in  perfect  good  faith  to  himself.  Nor  does  he  draw  any 
very  sharp  distinction  between  a  god  and  a  powerful  sorcerer.  H 
gods  are  often  merely  invisible  magicians  who  behind  the  veil  of  natarel 
work  the  same  sort  of  charms  and  incantations  which  the  huma 
magician  works  in  a  visible  and  bodily  form  among  his  fellows.  And 
as  the  gods  are  commonly  believed  to  exhibit  themselves  m  the  likeness 
of  mento  their  worshippers,  it  is  easy  for  the  magician,  with  his  supposed 
miraculous  powers,  to  acquire  the  reputation  of  being  an  incarnate  d  y. 
Thus  beginning  as  little  more  than  a  simple  conjurer,  the  medicine -ma 
or  magician  tefids  to  blossom  out  into  a  full-blown  god  and  king ,  in  one. 
Only  in  speaking  of  him  as  a  god  we  must  beware  of  importing  into  the 
savage  conception  of  deity  those  very  abstract  and  c0“Pl« ldeas 
we  attach  to  the  term.  Our  ideas  on  this  profound  subject  a 
fruit  of  a  long  intellectual  and  moral  evolution,  and  they  are  so  far  ro 
being  shared  by  the  savage  that  he  cannot  even  understand  them  wh 
they  are  explained  to  him.  Much  of  the  controversy  which  has  raged 
as  to  the  religion  of  the  lower  races  has  sprung  merely  from  a  mutua 
misunderstanding.  The  savage  does  not  understand  the  thoughts^f 
the  civilised  man,  and  few  civilised  men  understand  the  though 
savage.  When  the  savage  uses  Ins  word  tor  god,  he  has  m  lus 


VII 


INCARNATE  HUMAN  GODS 


93 


being  of  k  certain  sort :  when  the  civilised  man  uses  his  word  for  god 

, “f  111  b‘S  ™lnd  a  belnS  of  a  vei7  different  sort ;  and  if,  as  commonly 
happens,  the  two  men  are  equally  unable  to  place  themselves  at  the 
.  other  s  point  of  view,  nothing  but  confusion  and  mistakes  can  result 

“r  d!fC,ussl0"s-  , If  we  avihsed  men  insist  on  limiting  the  name 
°fA°d  t0  that  particular  conception  of  the  divine  nature  which  we 

(?odlt  all  laR%f0rmeid’nhalWe  mUSt  C°nfeSS  that  the  savaSe  has  no 
g  at  all.  But  we  shall  adhere  more  closely  to  the  facts  of  history  if 

we  allow  most  of  the  higher  savages  at  least  to  possess  a  rudimentary 

notion  of  certain  supernatural  beings  who  may  fittingly  be  called  gods 

though  not  m  the  full  sense  in  which  we  use  the  worf  That  fudb 

mentary  notion  represents  in  all  probability  the  germ  out  of  which  the 

civilised  peoples  have  gradually  evolved  their  own  high  conceptions  of 

deity ;  and  if  we  could  trace  the  whole  course  of  religious  development 

teTnfte  at  the  Cham,which  links  idea  of  the  Godhead  with 
that  oi  the  savage  is  one  and  unbroken. 

With  these  explanations  and  cautions  I  will  now  adduce  some 
examples  of  gods  who  have  been  believed  by  their  worshippers  to  be 
ncainate  m  living  human  beings,  whether  men  or  women.  The  persons 
m  whom  a  deity  is  thought  to  reveal  himself  are  by  no  means  always 
kings  or  descendants  of  kings  ;  the  supposed  incarnation  may  take 
p  ace  even  m  men  of  the  humblest  rank.  In  India,  for  example  one 
human  god  started  in  life  as  a  cotton-bleacher  and  another  as  thl  son 
of  a  carpenter.  I  shall  therefore  not  draw  my  examples  exclusively 
from  royal  personages,  as  I  wish  to  illustrate  the  general  principle  of  the 
deification  of  living  men,  in  other  words,  the  incarnation  of  a^eitv  in 
human  form.  Such  incarnate  gods  are  common  in  rude  society  The 
incarnation  may  be  temporary  or  permanent.  In  the  former  case  the 
ncarnatwn—commonly  known  as  inspiration  or  possession— reveals 
iself  in  supernatural  knowledge  rather  than  in  supernatural  power  In 
other  words,  its  usual  manifestations  are  divination  and  prophecy  rather 
:han  miracles  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  incarnation  is  not  merely 
emporary,  when  the  divine  spirit  has  permanently  taken  up  its  abode 
n  a  numan  body,  the  god-man  is  usually  expected  to  vindicate  his 
LTat+^ Joy  working  miracles.  Only  we  have  to  remember  that  by 

fatural  law  Not  “lesare  not  considered  as  breaches  I 

latural  law  Not  conceiving  the  existence  of  natural  law,  primitive 

nan  cannot  conceive  a  breach  of  it.  A  miracle  is  to  him  merely  In 

■nusually  striking  manifestation  of  a  common  power  y 

|.  A®  beIlef  in  temPorary  incarnation  or  inspiration  is  world-wide 
-ertain  persons  are  supposed  to  be  possessed  from  time  to  time  by  a 
pint  oi  deity  ;  while  the  possession  lasts,  their  own  personality  lieJin 
|beyance,  the  presence  of  the  spirit  is  revealed  by  convulsive  shfverings 

>oks  In'of  wNh6  man  f  WNe  b°dy’  by  WiId  Sestures  and  excited 
Xs’  ab.  °f  ,whlch  are  referred,  not  to  the  man  himself,  but  to  the 

ttera W  lcb  laS  enteref  Into  hlm  >'  and  in  this  abnormal  state  all  his 
im  ?rndCeS  art  accepted  as  the  voice  of  the  god  or  spirit  dwelling  in 
lm  and  sPeakmg  through  him.  Thus,  for  example,  in  the  Sandwich 


94 


INCARNATE  HUMAN  GODS 


CH. 


Islands  the  king,  personating  the  god,  uttered  the  responses  of  the 
oracle  from  his  concealment  in  a  frame  of  wicker-work.  But  m  e 
southern  islands  of  the  Pacific  the  god  “  frequently  entered  the  priest, 
who  inflated  as  it  were  with  the  divinity,  ceased  to  act  or  speak  as  a 
voluntary  agent,  but  moved  and  spoke  as  entirely  under  supernatural 
influence^  In  this  respect  there  was  a  striking  resemblance  between 
the  rude  oracles  of  the  Polynesians,  and  those  of  the  celebrated  nations 
of  ancient  Greece.  As  soon  as  the  god  was  supposed  to  have  ente  ed 
the  priest,  the  latter  became  violently  agitated,  and  worked  himself 
up  to  the  highest  pitch  of  apparent  frenzy,  the  muscles  of  the  limbs 
seemed  convulsed,  the  body  swelled,  the  countenance  became  tern  c 
the  features  distorted,  and  the  eyes  wild  and  strained.  In  this  state 
he  often  rolled  on  the  earth,  foaming  at  the  mouth,  as  if  labouring 
under  the  influence  of  the  divinity  by  whom  he  was  possessed  an  , 
in  shrill  cries,  and  violent  and  often  indistinct  sounds,  revealed  the 
will  of  the  god  The  priests,  who  were  attending,  and  versed  in  the 
mysteries  received,  and  reported  to  the  people,  the  declarations  which 
had  been  thus  revived.  When  the  priest  had  uttered  the  response 
of  the  oracle,  the  violent  paroxysm  gradually  subsided,  and  comparative  I 
composure  ensued.  The  god  did  not,  however,  always  leave  him  as 
soon  as  the  communication  had  been  made.  Sometimes  the  same 
taura  or  priest,  continued  for  two  or  three  days  possessed  by  the  spirit 
01  deity  ;  a  piece  of  a  native  cloth,  of  a  peculiar  kind,  worn  round  one 
arm,  was  an  indication  of  inspiration,  or  of  the  indwelling  of  the  god 
with  the  individual  who  wore  it.  The  acts  of  the  man  during  t 
period  were  considered  as  those  of  the  god,  and  hence  the  greatest 
attention  was  paid  to  his  expressions,  and  the  whole  of  his  deportment. 

When  uruhia,  (under  the  inspiration  of  the  spirit  )  the  priest  was 
always  considered  as  sacred  as  the  god,  and  was  called  during  this  , 
period,  atua,  god,  though  at  other  times  only  denominated  taura  or 

PnBut  examples  of  such  temporary  inspiration  are  so  common  in 
every  part  of  the  world  and  are  now  so  familiar  through  books  on 
ethnology  that  it  is  needless  to  multiply  illustrations  of  the  general 
principle.  It  may  be  well,  however,  to  refer  to  two  particulai  modes  i 
of  producing  temporary  inspiration,  because  they  are  perhaps  ess  I 
known  than  some  others,  and  because  we  shall  have  occasion  to  refer 
to  them  later  on.  One  of  these  modes  of  producing  inspiration  is  by 
sucking  the  fresh  blood  of  a  sacrificed  victim.  In  the  temple  of  Apo  o 
Diradiotes  at  Argos,  a  lamb  was  sacrificed  by  night  once  a  mont  , 
a  woman,  who  had  to  observe  a  rule  of  chastity,  tasted  the  bloo  o 
the  lamb,  and  thus  being  inspired  by  the  god  she  prophesied  01  divin  . 
At  Aegira  in  Achaia  the  priestess  of  Earth  drank  the  fresh  blood 
bull  before  she  descended  into  the  cave  to  prophesy.  Similarly  among 
the  Kuruvikkarans,  a  class  of  bird-catchers  and  beggars  in  Southern 
India  the  goddess  Kali  is  believed  to  descend  upon  the  priest,  and  he 
gives '  oracular  replies  after  sucking  the  blood  which  streams  ro 
the  cut  throat  of  a  goat.  At  a  festival  of  the  Alfoors  of  Minahassa, 


t  ' 
! 


VII 


INCARNATE  HUMAN  GODS 


95 


m  Northern  Celebes,  after  a  pig  has  been  killed,  the  priest  rushes 

Mood'5  ^Thenh  thrnStS  hlS,  head  int°  the  carcase’  and  drinks  of  the 
blood.  Then  he  is  dragged  away  from  it  by  force  and  set  on  a  chair 

w  lereupon  he  begins  to  prophesy  how  the  rice-crop  will  turn  out  that 

year.  A  second  time  he  runs  at  the  carcase  and  drinks  of  the  blood 

a  sfc°nd  time  he  is  forced  into  the  chair  and  continues  his  predictions’ 

of  prophecy  6  18  a  SPirit  ^  h™  Wh’Ch  P0ssesses  the 

Q,T^e  0the,r  mode  of  producing  temporary  inspiration,  to  which  I 
a  heie  lefer,  consists  in  the  use  of  a  sacred  tree  or  plant.  Thus  in 
the  Hindoo  Koosh  a  fire  is  kindled  with  twigs  of  the  sacred  cedar 
and  the  Dainyal  or  sibyl,  with  a  cloth  over  her  head,  inhales  the  thick 

to*the ground^6  Sol^h  1S.Seized,with  convulsions  and  falls  senseless 
the  ground.  Soon  she  rises  and  raises  a  shrill  chant,  which  is  caught 

up  and  loudly  repeated  by  her  audience.  So  Apollo’s  prophetess  ate 

the  sacied  laurel  and  was  fumigated  with  it  before  she  prophesied 

e  Bacchanals  ate  ivy,  and  their  inspired  fury  was  by  some  believed 

TIm,nrk,U+ut0  the  exc.ltm&  and  mtoxicating  properties  of  the  plant.  In 
ganda  the  priest,  m  order  to  be  inspired  by  his  god  smokes  a  nine 

of  tobacco  fiercely  till  he  works  himself  into  a  frenzy  •  the  loud  exerted 
tones  m  which  he  then  talks  are  recognised  as  the’ voice  of the g01 
speaking  through  him.  In  Madura,  an  island  off  the  north  coast  of 
Java,  each  spirit  has  its  regular  medium,  who  is  oftener  a  woman  than 

a"T-  T°  prepare  herseU  for  the  reception  of  the  spirit  she  inhales 
tne  fumes  of  incense,  sitting  with  her  head  over  a  smoking  censer 
Gradually  she  falls  into  a  sort  of  trance  accompanied  by  shrieks 
grimaces,  and  violent  spasms.  The  spirit  is  now  supposed  to  have 
entered  into  her,  and  when  she  grows  calmer  her  words  are  regarded 

as  oracular,  being  the  utterances  of  the  indwelling  spirit  whfle  her 
own  soul  is  temporarily  absent.  s  p  ,  e  ner 

The  person  temporarily  inspired  is  believed  to  acquire,  not  merely 
Iivine  knowledge,  but  also,  at  least  occasionally,  divine  poweT  In 
-ambodia,  when  an  epidemic  breaks  out,  the  inhabitants  of  several 
ages  unite  and  go  with  a  band  of  music  at  their  head  to  look  for 
-he  man  whom  the  local  god  is  supposed  to  have  chosen  for  his  tem- 
ooraiy  incarnation  When  found,  the  man  is  conducted  to  the  altar 
e  god,  where  the  mystery  of  incarnation  takes  place.  Then  the 
nan  becomes  an  object  of  veneration  to  his  fellows,  who  implore  him 
n  protect  the  village  against  the  plague.  A  certain  image  of  Apollo 
vhich  stood  in  a  sacred  cave  at  Hylae  near  Magnesia,  was  thought  to 
part  superhuman  strength.  Sacred  men,  inspired  by  it  leaped  down 
.recipice5,  tore  up  huge  trees  by  the  roots,  and  carried  them  on  Cr 

acks  along  the  narrowest  defiles.  The  feats  performed  by  inspired 
Wishes  belong  to  the  same  class.  y  P 

,fh^r  ha!e  ®een  that  the  savage,  failing  to  discern  the  limits 
t  h  s  ability  to  control  nature,  ascribes  to  himself  and  to  all  men  certain 

nwers  which  we  should  now  call  supernatural.  Further,  we  have 
een  that,  over  and  above  this  general  supernaturalism,  some  persons 


0 


INCARNATE  HUMAN  GODS 


CH. 


■ire  supposed  to  be  inspired  for  short  periods  by  a  divine  spirit  and  thus 
temporarily  to  enjoy  the  knowledge  and  power  of  the  indwelling  deity. 
From  beliefs  like  these  it  is  an  easy  step  to  the  conviction  that  certain 
men  are  permanently  possessed  by  a  deity,  or  m  some  other  undefined 
wav  are  endued  with  so  high  a  degree  of  supernatural  power  as  to  be 
ranked  as  gods  and  to  receive  the  homage  of  prayer  and  sacrifice. 
Sometimes  ?these  human  gods  are  restricted  to  purely  supernatural 
or  spiritual  functions.  Sometimes  they  exercise  supreme  poliUcal 
power  in  addition.  In  the  latter  case  they  are  kings  as  well  as  gods, 
^nd  the  government  is  a  theocracy.  Thus  in  the  Marquesas  or  Wash¬ 
ington  Islands  there  was  a  class  of  men  who  were  deified  in  their 
lifetime  ~  They  were  supposed  to  wield  a  supernatural  power  over  the 
elements  •  they  could  give  abundant  harvests  or  smite  the  ground 
with  bareness  ;  and  they  could  inflict  disease  or  deatE  Human 
sacrifices  were  offered  to  them  to  avert  their  wrath.  There  T^ed  in 
many  of  them,  at  the  most  one  or  two  m  each  island^  y 

x*r  elusion  Their  powers  were  sometimes,  but  not  always, 
hereditary  T  missionarybms  described  one  of  these  human  gods 
from  personal  observation.  The  god  was  a  very  old  man  who  lived 
in  a  large  house  within  an  enclosure.  In  the  house  was  a  kind  of  altar 
and  on^  the  beams  of  the  house  and  on  the  trees  round  it  weie  hung 
human  skeletons,  head  down.  No  one  entered  the  enclosure  except 
the  persons  dedicated  to  the  service  of  the  god  ;  only  on  days  w  en 
human  victims  were  sacrificed  might  ordinary  people  penetrate  into 
the  precinct.  This  human  god  received  more  sacrifices  than  all 
other  cods  '  often  he  would  sit  on  a  sort  of  scaffold  in  front  of  his 
house  and  call  for  two  or  three  human  victims  at  a  time.  They  were, 
always  brought,  for  the  terror  he  inspired  was  extreme.  He  a  I 
invoked  all  over  the  island,  and  offerings  were  sent  to  hun  from  every 
side.  Again,  of  the  South  Sea  Islands  in  general  we  are  told  that  each 
island  had  a  man  who  represented  or  personified  the  divmi  y.  uc 
men  were  called  gods,  and  their  substance  was  confounded  with  t  I 
of  the  deity.  The  man-god  was  sometimes  the  king  himself  ,  oftene 

he  was  a  priest  or  subordinate  chief. 

The  ancient  Egyptians,  far  from  restricting  their  adoration  to  ca-S 

and  dogs  and  such  small  deer,  very  liberally  extended  it  to  men.  One 
of  these  human  deities  resided  at  the  village  of  Anabis,  mid  burnt 
sacrifices  were  offered  to  him  on  the  altars  ;  after  which,  says  PoiPhyry’ 
he  would  eat  his  dinner  just  as  if  he  were  an  ordinary  mortal.  In 
classical  antiquity  the  Sicilian  philosopher  Empedocles  gave  himself 
out to  be  not  merely  a  wizard  but  a  god.  Addressing  his  fellow- 

citizens  in  verse  he  said  : 

“  O  friends,  in  tins  great  city  that  climbs  the  yellow  slope 
Of  Agrigentum’s  citadel,  who  make  good  works  your  scope, 

Who  offer  to  the  stranger  a  haven  quiet  and  fair, 

■ill  hail !  Among  you  honoured  I  walk  with  lofty  air. 

With  garlands,  blooming  garlands  you  crown  my  noble  brow, 

A  vnnvtnl  man  no  longer,  a  deathless  godhead  now. 


INCARNATE  HUMAN  GODS 

Where  e'er  I  go,  the  people  crowd  round  and  worship  pay. 
And  thousands  follow  seeking  to  learn  the  better  way. 

Some  crave  prophetic  visions,  some  smit  with  anguish  sore 
Would  fain  hear  words  of  comfort  and  suffer  pain  no  more 


He  asserted  that  he  could  teach  his  disciples  how  to  make  the  wind 
to  blow  or  be  still,  the  rain  to  fall  and  the  sun  to  shine,  how  to  banish 
sickness  and  old  age  and  to  raise  the  dead.  When  Demetrius  Poliorcetes 
restored  the  Athenian  democracy  in  307  b.c.,  the  Athenians  decreed 
divine  honours  to  him  and  his  father  Antigonus,  both  of  them  being 
then  alive,  under  the  title  of  the  Saviour  Gods.  Altars  were  set  up 
to  the  Saviours,  and  a  priest  appointed  to  attend  to  their  worship. 
The  people  went  forth  to  meet  their  deliverer  with  hymns  and  dances 
with  garlands  and  incense  and  libations  ;  they  lined  the  streets  and 
sang  that  he  was  the  only  true  god,  for  the  other  gods  slept,  or  dwelt 
tar  away,  or  were  not.  In  the  words  of  a  contemporary  poet  which 
weie  chanted  in  public  and  sung  in  private 


"  Of  all  the  gods  the  greatest  and  the 
dearest 

To  the  city  are  come. 

For  Demeter  and  Demetrius 

Together  time  has  brought. 

She  comes  to  hold  the  Maiden’s  awful 
rites, 

And  he  joyous  and  fair  and  laughing, 

As  befits  a  god. 

A  glorious  sight,  with  all  his  friends 
about  him, 


He  in  their  midst, 

They  like  to  stars,  and  he  the  sun. 

Son  of  Poseidon  the  mighty,  Aphrodite' i 
son, 

A  ll  hail  ! 

T he  other  gods  dwell  far  away, 

Or  have  no  ears, 

Or  are  not,  or  pay  us  no  heed. 

But  thee  we  present  see, 

N 0  god  of  wood  or  stone,  but  godhead  true. 
Therefore  to  thee  we  pray.” 


The  ancient  Germans  believed  that  there  was  something  holy  in 

women,  and  accordingly  consulted  them  as  oracles.  Their  sacred 

women,  we  are  told,  looked  on  the  eddying  rivers  and  listened  to  the 

murmur  or  the  roar  of  the  water,  and  from  the  sight  and  sound  foretold 

what  would  come  to  pass.  But  often  the  veneration  of  the  men  went 

urther,  and  they  worshipped  women  as  true  and  living  goddesses 

For  example,  in  the  reign  of  Vespasian  a  certain  Veleda,  of  the  tribe 

of  the  Bructeri,  was  commonly  held  to  be  a  deity,  and  in  that  character 

reigned  over  her  people,  her  sway  being  acknowledged  far  and  wide. 

he  lived  in  a  tower  on  the  river  Lippe,  a  tributary  of  the  Rhine.  When 

the  people  of  Cologne  sent  to  make  a  treaty  with  her,  the  ambassadors 

were  not  admitted  to  her  presence  ;  the  negotiations  were  conducted 

through  a  minister,  who  acted  as  the  mouthpiece  of  her  divinity  and 

reported  her  oracular  utterances.  The  example  shows  how  easily 

imong  our  rude  forefathers  the  ideas  of  divinity  and  royalty  coalesced. 

Lt  is  said  that  among  the  Getae  down  to  the  beginning  of  our  era  there 

,^as  always  a  man  who  personified  a  god  and  was  called  God  by  the 

people.  He  dwelt  on  a  sacred  mountain  and  acted  as  adviser  to 
tie  king. 

7.  According  to  the  early  Portuguese  historian,  Dos  Santos,  the 
nmbas,  or  Muzimbas,  a  people  of  South-eastern  Africa,  “  do  not 

H 


98 


INCARNATE  HUMAN  GODS 


CH. 


,  .1  I.  nr  recognise  any  god,  but  instead  they  venerate  and 

SSWli  h  “S“A.«  .ha.  the  *****  had 
driven  him  "  Thi.  tat  wa, in  ZS  to 

i msmssssf^ 

asked  not  to  M  »  was  {ormeriy  bound  to  render  an 

rr  r  “Sr  r  srr  S 

three  moitai  non  ,  es  and  the  drone  0f  a  monotonous  song,  the 
SaWtiy  sweating's  aSiHty  wh‘ch 

hsJEtf  323  STSSSSr  Tg 

S?Es5rHSE 

questions  of  war  and  sta  p  y-  withhold  rain,  and  cause 

5»  wrf,  «r»"r  Sr  «b,,,  *  «. *» 

f\mlne-.  -,Af  STTnla  a  large  region  to  the  west  of  Lake  Tanganyika, 
“arrogates  to  himself  divine  honours  and  power  and  pretends  to 
abstain  from  food  for  days  without  feeling  its  necessity  ;  and,  indee  , 
S  S  at  .  hi  i»  altogether  fcgd-t  “  “d  «£ 

ifgsrJtt-rispKK 

,Ur,5£Smo°ir,rn8“h  Sled  by  SS  ••  =  *ta"81'<11“" 

a  eod  and  he  is  called  Sambee  and  Pango,  which  mean  god.  They 
befieve  that  he  can  let  them  have  rain  when  he  likes  ;  and  once  a  y  , 


1 


[he 

1 


VII 


INCARNATE  HUMAN  GODS 


99 


yy 

bnegDoefCrmbetro  gWrhaLCthitiStohtehemm''  ^  th^  th*  pe0ple  come 

on  his  throne,  shoots  an  arrow  into^he  air  wS°i  ^  k'ng’,  StandinS 
on  rain.  Much  the  same  is  said  of  th a  v;  *  ^  at  fuPPosed  to  bnng 

few  years  ago,  when  his  SDiritnal  ■  k  ng  °f  ^om  )asa-  Down  to  a 

SeTingtf  BeS  w^hTcTef5 

S,b?«B  ffg 3SeK'  "P0"  •  *od  himself,  wh^ 

.*>Un  to .XraTh.rIZ, IT.JX 
told  the  English  officers  of  the  Niger  Eroedition  "  r'T  °  JJdah 
*r  his  o.„  image  sail  he"  ",td  “ 

s.chl!";s^“;s,rro,2  sasi's- 

im'bvihe”"4"  Wl°”  "®n  more  viaims  perished  by  the  exSntionm 

aside  the  title  ,-,f  v  US  nllmerous  good  works.  Accordingly  he  laid 
aside  the  t  tie  of  km g  and  aimed  at  making  himself  a  -od  vv;Vn  In 

sifsssisssst  **?  4-  "dtt 

from  the  world,  Badonsachen  tJithdrew  FromLs  palaS^ntn  retired 

ssv :  x;  xi  ix,  ,he  4  ■“  ™r 

learned  monkH?  JhTch  he  '  kp  +heW  confere^es  with  the  most 

-edh  »r 'a SgiXfc  X  £££ 

toolito'  demonstrate5  ?h?X<XXXhX,°'  ""O" 

ess  is?  - 

ground.”  There  is  a  snerial  nees-  tbeir  elbows  resting  on  the 

md  attributes  and  it  ^  de^0ted  to  his  sacred  Person 

kven  the  natives  have  dTffi  lt6  ^  by  ^  Wh°  SPeak  to  or  of  him. 

The  hairs  of  the  n7e  m  mastenn?  this  peculiar  vocabulary 

>odv  indeed  eV^  ^  ^  S°leS  °f  his  feet’  the  breath  of  Ms 

vard  have  nartTeT  Sm§  6  deta,d  °f  his  person’  both  outward  and  in¬ 
special  word  i  d  ar  fanlf-  "'ben  be  eats  or  drinks,  sleeps  or  walks 
ovS  Tnd  ,  ,nch1C  ed  that  these  aCtS  are  beinS  performed  by  the 
ther  pVson  whafeve°r  ^hnn0t  P°SSibly  te  applied  to  the  acts  o{ 

y  -  an>  creature  of  higher  rank  or  greater  dignity  than  a  monarch 


100 


INCARNATE  HUMAN  GODS 


CH. 


: 


can  be  described  ;  and  the  missionaries,  when  they  speak  of  God,  are 

h„  been  ..  prolific  4  hmnmr 

as  Lidia  f  nowhere  lias  the  divine  grace  been  poured  out  m  a  more 

S  V  ’  -.n  ri^Qcpc  of  society  from,  kings  down  to  milkmen, 

liberal  measure  on  all  classes  ot  y  b  -i  Hills  of 

Thus  amongst  the  Todas,  a  pastoral  people  of  the  N  eilgherry  nms 
Southern  India,  the  dairy  is  a  sanctuary,  and  the  milkman  who  atten  s 
to  it  haTbeen  described  as  a  god.  On  being  asked  whether  the ^  Todas 
salute  the  sun,  one  of  these  divine  milkmen  replied,  Those  poor 

fellows  do  so,  but  I,”  tapping  his  chest,  “  I,  a  f 
„1llte  the  sun  ?  ”  Every  one,  even  his  own  father,  prostrates  himsett 

bctom  rt  m atman.  J  no  on.  wonld  dam  to  rote,  htm  anp  htng 

No  human  being,  except  another  milkman,  of  a  god 

Pives  oracles  to  all  who  consult  him,  speaking  with  the  voice  ot  a  god 

Further,  in  India  “  every  king  is  regarded  as  llttle  J*™* dhat^even 

Ein  J  king  must  not  he  d.sptsod  iron,  »  g  ‘  “ 

mortal ;  for  he  is  a  great  deity  m  human  form.  There  is  said t .have 
been  a  sect  in  Orissa  some  years  ago  who  worshipped  the  late  yueen 
victoria  in  her  lifetime  as  their  chief  divinity.  And  to  this  clay  in 
Mia  aVhvhrg  persons  remarkable  for  great  strength  or  valour  or  for 
supposed  miraculous  powers  run  the  risk  of  being  worshipped  as  gods 
Thus!  a  sect  in  the  Punjaub  worshipped 

Nikkal  Sen  This  Nikkal  Sen  was  no  other  than  the  redo 
General  Nicholson,  and  nothing  that  the  general  could  do  or  say 
damped  the  ardom  of  his  adorers.  The  more  he  punished  them,  the 
greater  grew  the  religious  awe  with  which  they  worshipped  him.  A 
ff ».  many  year,  ago 

person  of  a  Hindoo  gentleman  who  rejoiced  in  the  euphonious  name  o 

Swami  Bhaskaranandaji  Saraswati,  and  looked  uncommonly^hke  th 

late  Cardinal  Manning,  only  more  ingenuous  His client 
kindlv  human  interest,  and  he  took  what  is  described  as  an  mnoce 
pleasure  in  the  divine  honours  paid  him  by  his  confiding  worshippers. 

P  At  Chinch vad,  a  small  town  about  ten  miles  from  Poona  in  Western  1 
India  there  lives  a  family  of  whom  one  in  each  generation  is  believed  j 
bva ’large  proportion  of  the  Mahrattas  to  be  an  incarnation  of  the 
elephant-headed  god  Gunputty.  That  celebrated  deity  was  fi^t  made 
flesh  about  the  year  1640  in  the  person  of  a  Brahman  of  Poona  by  nam 
Erfbn  G-'yn.  who  sought  to  work  on,  Ms  solvation  by  aW.= 
mortification,  and  prayer.  His  piety  had  its  reward.  The  god  himsefi 
anneared  to  him  in  a  vision  of  the  night  and  promised  that  p 
of  his,  that  is,  of  Gunputty’s  holy  spirit  should  abide  wl*  a  ^ 

with  his  seed  after  him  even  to  the  seventh  generation.  d 

promise  was  fulfilled.  Seven  successive  incarnations,  transmittal 
from  father  to  son,  manifested  the  light  of  Gunputty  to  a  dark  world 
The  last  of  the  direct  line,  a  heavy-looking  god  with  very  weak  ey  , 
rflprl  in  the  year  1810  But  the  cause  of  truth  was  too  sacred,  and  th  J 
Se  of  tfie'church  property  too  considerable,  to  allow  the  Brahmans 


vn  INCARNATE  HUMAN  GODS  ioi 

to  contemplate  with  equanimity  the  unspeakable  loss  that  would  be 
sustained  by  a  world  which  knew  not  Gunputty.  Accordingly  thev 
sought  and  found  a  holy  vessel  in  whom  the  divine  spirit  of  the  master 
had  revealed  itself  anew,  and  the  revelation  has  been  happily  continued 
m  an  unbroken  succession  of  vessels  from  that  time  to  this.  But  a 
mysterious  law  of  spiritual  economy,  whose  operation  in  the  history  of 
religion  we  may  deplore  though  we  cannot  alter,  has  decreed  that  the 
miracles  wrought  by  the  god-man  in  these  degenerate  days  cannot 
compare  with  those  which  were  wrought  by  his  predecessors  in  days 
gone  by  ;  and  it  is  even  reported  that  the  only  sign  vouchsafed  by  him 
to  the  present  generation  of  vipers  is  the  miracle  of  feeding  the  multitude 
whom  he  annually  entertains  to  dinner  at  Chinchvad. 

A  Hindoo  sect,  which  has  many  representatives  in  Bombay  and 
Central  India,  holds  that  its  spiritual  chiefs  or  Maharajas,  as  they  are 
called  are  representatives  or  even  actual  incarnations  on  earth  of  the 
god  Krishna.  And  as  Krishna  looks  down  from  heaven  with  most 
favour  on  such  as  minister  to  the  wants  of  his  successors  and  vicars  on 
eaith,  a  peculiar  rite  called  Self-devotion  has  been  instituted,  whereby 
his  faithful  worshippers  make  over  their  bodies,  their  souls  and 
what  is  perhaps  still  more  important,  their  worldly  substance  to  his 
adorable  incarnations  ;  and  women  are  taught  to  believe  that  the 
highest  bliss  for  themselves  and  their  families  is  to  be  attained  by 
yielding  themselves  to  the  embraces  of  those  beings  in  whom  the 

divine  nature  mysteriously  coexists  with  the  form  and  even  the  appetites 
of  true  humanity. 

Christianity  itself  has  not  uniformly  escaped  the  taint  of  these  un¬ 
happy  delusions  ;  indeed  it  has  often  been  sullied  by  the  extravagances 
of  vain  pretenders  to  a  divinity  equal  to  or  even  surpassing  that  of  its 
great  Founder.  In  the  second  century  Montanus  the  Phrygian  claimed 
to  be  the  incarnate  Trinity,  uniting  in  his  single  person  God  the 
rather,  God  the  Son,  and  God  the  Holy  Ghost.  Nor  is  this  an  isolated 
case,  the  exorbitant  pretension  of  a  single  ill-balanced  mind.  From 
the  earliest  times  down  to  the  present  day  many  sects  have  believed 
that  Christ,  nay  God  himself,  is  incarnate  in  every  fully  initiated 
Christian,  and  they  have  carried  this  belief  to  its  logical  conclusion  by 
adoring  each  other.  Tertullian  records,  that  this  was  done  by  his 
e  low -Christians  at  Carthage  in  the  second  century  ;  the  disciples  of 
St  Columba  worshipped  him  as  an  embodiment  of  Christ ;  and  in  the 
eighth  century  Elipandus  of  Toledo  spoke  of  Christ  as  “  a  god  among 
gods,  meaning  that  all  believers  were  gods  just  as  truly  as  Jesus 
himself.  The  adoration  of  each  other  was  customary  among  the 
Ibigenses,  and  is  noticed  hundreds  of  times  in  the  records  of  the 
Inquisition  at  Toulouse  in  the  early  part  of  the  fourteenth  century. 

In  the  thirteenth  century  there  arose  a  sect  called  the  Brethren 
and  Sisters  of  the  Free  Spirit,  who  held  that  by  long  and  assiduous 
contemplation  any  man  might  be  united  to  the  deity  in  an  ineffable 
manner  and  become  one  with  the  source  and  parent  of  all  things,  and 
at  he  who  had  thus  ascended  to  God  and  been  absorbed  in  his  beatific 


INCARNATE  HUMAN  GODS 


CH. 


102 

essence  actually  formed  part  of  the  Godhead,  was  the  Son  of  God  in 
the  same  sense  and  manner  with  Christ  himself,  and  enjoyed  thereby 
a  glorious  immunity  from  the  trammels  of  all  laws  human  and  divine. 
Inwardly  transported  by  this  blissful  persuasion,  though  outwardly 
presenting  in  their  aspect  and  manners  a  shocking  air  of  lunacy  and 
distraction,  the  sectaries  roamed  from  place  to  place,  attired  m  the  mos 
fantastic  apparel  and  begging  their  bread  with  wild  shouts  and  clamour, 
spurning  indignantly  every  kind  of  honest  labour  and  industry  as  an 
obstacle  to  divine  contemplation  and  to  the  ascent  of  the  soul  towards 
the  Father  of  spirits.  In  all  their  excursions  they  were  followed  by 
women  with  whom  they  lived  on  terms  of  the  closest  farm  lan  V. 
Those  of  them  who  conceived  they  had  made  the  greatest  piohciency 
in  the  higher  spiritual  life  dispensed  with  the  use  of  clothes  altogether 
in  their  assemblies,  looking  upon  decency  and  modesty  as  marks  o 
inward  corruption,  characteristics  of  a  soul  that  still  grovelled  under 
the  dominion  of  the  flesh  and  had  not  yet  been  elevated  into  communion 
with  the  divine  spirit,  its  centre  and  source.  Sometimes  their  progress 
towards  this  mystic  communion  was  accelerated  by  the  Inquisition, 
and  they  expired  in  the  flames,  not  merely  with  unclouded  serenity, 
but  with  the  most  triumphant  feelings  of  cheerfulness  and  joy. 

About  the  year  1830  there  appeared,  in  one  of  the  States  ot  the 
American  Union  bordering  on  Kentucky,  an  impostor  who  declaie 
that  he  was  the  Son  of  God,  the  Saviour  of  mankind,  and  that  he  had 
reappeared  on  earth  to  recall  the  impious,  the  unbelieving  and  sinners 
to  their  duty.  He  protested  that  if  they  did  not  mend  their  ways 
within  a  certain  time,  he  would  give  the  signal,  and  in  a  moment  the 
world  would  crumble  to  ruins.  These  extravagant  pretensions  were 
received  with  favour  even  by  persons  of  wealth  and  position  m  society. 
At  last  a  German  humbly  besought  the  new  Messiah  to  announce  the 
dreadful  catastrophe  to  his  fellow-countrymen  in  the  German  language, 
as  they  did  not  understand  English,  and  it  seemed  a  pity  that  they 
should  be  damned  merely  on  that  account.  The  would-be  Saviour  m 
reply  confessed  with  great  candour  that  he  did  not  know  German. 
“  What  !  ”  retorted  the  German,  “  you  the  Son  of  God,  and  don  t 
speak  all  languages,  and  don’t  even  know  German  ?  Come  come  ; 
you  are  a  knave,  a  hypocrite,  and  a  madman.  Bedlam  is  the  place  for 
you.”  The  spectators  laughed,  and  went  away  ashamed  of  their 

Cre<Sometimes,  at  the  death  of  the  human  incarnation,  the  divine 
spirit  transmigrates  into  another  man.  The  Buddhist  Tartars  believe 
in  a  great  number  of  living  Buddhas,  who  officiate  as  Grand  Lamas  at 
the  head  of  the  most  important  monasteries.  When  one  of  these 
Grand  Lamas  dies  his  disciples  do  not  sorrow,  for  they  know  that  he 
will  soon  reappear,  being  born  in  the  form  of  an  infant.  Their  oniy^ 
anxiety  is  to  discover  the  place  of  his  birth.  If  at  this  time  they  see  a 
rainbow  they  take  it  as  a  sign  sent  them  by  the  departed  Lama  to  guide 
them  to  his  cradle.  Sometimes  the  divine  infant  himself  reveals  his 
identity.  “  I  am  the  Grand  Lama,”  he  says,  "  the  living  Buddha  oi 


VII 


incarnate  human  gods 


103 

such  and  such  a  temple.  Take  me  to  my  old  monastery.  I  am  its 
immortal  head  In  whatever  way  the  birthplace  of  the"  Buddha  is 
revea  ed  whether  by  the  Buddha’s  own  avowal  or  by  the  sign  in  the 
s  7,  ents  are  struck  and  the  joyful  pilgrims,  often  headed  by  the  king 
or  one  of  the  most  illustrious  of  the  royal  family,  set  forth  to  findlnd 
ling  home  the  infant  god.  Generally  he  is  born  in  Tibet  the  holv 
and  and  to  reach  him  the  caravan  has  often  to  traverse’  the  most 

worship  £mrtSBeWenhat  ‘Tf  find  the  child  they  fal1  down  and 
woislnp  him.  Before,  however,  he  is  acknowledged  as  the  Grand 

ama  whom  they  seek  he  must  satisfy  them  of  his  identity  He  is 

asked  the  name  of  the  monastery  of  which  he  claims  to  be  the  head 

die  habite  of  Twer  Tr^  Hv6  “  U  ;  he  must  also  describe 

tlie  Habits  of  the  deceased  Grand  Lama  and  the  manner  of  his  death 

Then  various  articles,  as  prayer-books,  tea-pots,  and  cups,  are  placed 

life^Hhl'  dld  he  haS+!°  P°mt  °Ut  th°Se  US6d  by  himself  in  his  previous 

s  conducted  ?n  1°  w*  \ ““take  his  claims  are  admitted  and  he 
IS  conducted  m  triumph  to  the  monastery.  At  the  head  of  nil  thp 

Lamas  is  the  Dalai  Lama  of  Lhasa,  the  Rome  of  Tibet  He  is  refrded 

as  a  lvmg  god,  and  at  death  his  divine  and  immortal  spirit  is  born 

th? Da h lfTChlld--  Acc°rdln§  to  some  accounts  the  mode  of  discovering 
e  Dalai  Lama  is  similar  to  the  method,  already  described  of  discover¬ 
ing  an  ordinary  Grand  Lama.  Other  accounts  speak  of  an  election  bv 
drawing  lots  from  a  golden  jar.  Wherever  he  is  born,  the  trees  and 

of  wot  pUt.f°rth  leaves  :  at  hls  bidding  flowers  bloom  and  springs 
of  water  rise  ;  and  his  presence  diffuses  heavenly  blessings.  g 

-But  he  is  by  no  means  the  only  man  who  poses  as  a  god  in  these 
kepUn  the  ^  ^  t^e1incarnate  Sods  in  the  Chinese  empire  is 

Iibet  is  blessed  with  thirty  of  them.  Northern  Mongolia  rejoices  hi 

hftTs^en"  Th°eUtrhrn  M°ng0lia  basks  in  the  sunshine  of  no  less  than 
tty  se\en.  The  Chinese  government,  with  a  paternal  solicitude  for 

the  welfare  of  its  subjects,  forbids  the  gods  on  the  register  to  be  reborn 

anywhere  but  m  Tibet.  They  fear  lest  the  birth  of  a  god  in  Mongolia 

should  have  serious  political  consequences  by  stirring  the  dormant 

pa  no  ism  and  warlike  spirit  of  the  Mongols,  who  might  rally  round 

at  the  nolT  ?rTe  ^7  °f  r0yal  Uneage  and  seek  win  for  him 
the  point  of  the  sword,  a  temporal  as  well  as  a  spiritual  kingdom 

privategods  of6  rUbhC  7  liCenS6d  g°dS  there  are  a  great  many  httle 
and  bieei0dtSh’7rr  ^cfsf!d  Petitioners  of  divinity,  who  work  miracles 
rm  their  people  in  holes  and  corners  ;  and  of  late  vears  the 

Chinese  government  has  winked  at  the  rebirth  of  these  pettifogging 
deities  outside  of  Tibet.  However,  once  they  are  born!  the  gS 

and  if  anvof  th^6  "k*!11  as  wed  as  on  the  regular  practitioners, 
a  distant  n°  n  !m  misb?haves  ,he  ls  Promptly  degraded,  banished  to 
the  flesh!  m°naStery’  and  StnctIy  forbidden  ever  to  be  born  again  in 

From  our  survey  of  the  religious  position  occupied  by  the  king  in 


INCARNATE  HUMAN  GODS 


CH. 


104 

rude  societies  we  may  infer  that  the  ^  empire^  like 

powers  put  forward  by  the of  in- 
those  of  Egypt,  Mexico,  and  Peru,  wa  grovelling  adulation  ;  it 

hated  vanity  or  the  empty  expre  o  apotheosis  of 

ssrsi*  tes 

«  xx  £s  I- — is 

messenger  sent  from  their  fat  er  in  which  an  jnca 

rest  with  him  in  heaven.  Iheiefore  the  usua  ^  a  ^  ^  me  t0 
announced  his  approaching  end  were  thes  .  Y 1  father>s  will 

lan™  of°  the  Colombian  Andes,  the  Spanish  “^^XwehSng 
to  find,  in  contrast  to  the  savage 

jungles  below,  a  people  enjoying  a  §  hich  Humboldt  has 

agriculture,  and  living  under  a  go-veinm  These  were  the 

Shat  Muyscas,  or  Mozcas,  ****** 

ssr-  rxs  s  zzsxi*  x  - 

"tXBXXtS.X  u»  -  s*rrd  ;■  Si* 

fourth  dynasty  “S  *t“d  U,  1  XiX  1»0  >«P>“ 

-  %S$i2ZSt  XSX.X»XX.«.,«d» 

biaThP  kings  of  Egypt  were  deified  in  their  lifetime,  sacrifices  were 


VII  INCARNATE  HUMAN  GODS  105 

more  than  all  the  gods.”  “  It  has  never  been  doubted  that  the  king 
claimed  actual  divinity  ;  he  was  the  ‘  great  god/  the  ‘  golden  Horns/ 
and  son  of  Ra.  He  claimed  authority  not  only  over  Egypt,  but  over 
‘  all  lands  and  nations/  ‘  the  whole  world  in  its  length  and  its  breadth, 
the  east  and  the  west/  *  the  entire  compass  of  the  great  circuit  of  the 
sun,  the  sky  and  what  is  in  it,  the  earth  and  all  that  is  upon  it/ 
every  creature  that  walks  upon  two  or  upon  four  legs,  all  that  fly  or 
flutter,  the  whole  woild  offers  her  productions  to  him/  Whatever  in 
fact  might  be  asserted  of  the  Sun-god,  was  dogmatically  predicable 
of  the  king  of  Egypt.  His  titles  were  directly  derived  from  those  of 
the  Sun-god.”  “  In  the  course  of  his  existence,”  we  are  told,  “  the 
king  of  Egypt  exhausted  all  the  possible  conceptions  of  divinity  which 
Egyptians  had  framed  for  themselves.  A  superhuman  god  by 
his  birth  and  by  his  royal  office,  he  became  the  deified  man  after  his 

death.  Thus  all  that  was  known  of  the  divine  was  summed  up  in 
him.” 

We  have  now  completed  our  sketch,  for  it  is  no  more  than  a  sketch, 
of  the  evolution  of  that  sacred  kingship  which  attained  its  highest 
form,  its  most  absolute  expression,  in  the  monarchies  of  Peru  and 
Egypt.  Historically,  the  institution  appears  to  have  originated  in 
the  order  of  public  magicians  or  medicine-men  *  logically  it  rests  on 
a  mistaken  deduction  from  the  association  of  ideas.  Men  mistook 
the  order  of  their  ideas  for  the  order  of  nature,  and  hence  imagined 
that  the  control  which  they  have,  or  seem  to  have,  over  their  thoughts, 
permitted  them  to  exercise  a  corresponding  control  over  things.  The 
men  who  for  one  reason  or  another,  because  of  the  strength  or  the 
weakness  of  their  natural  parts,  were  supposed  to  possess  these  magical 
powers  in  the  highest  degree,  were  gradually  marked  off  from  their 
fellows  and  became  a  separate  class,  who  were  destined  to  exercise  a 
most  far-reaching  influence  on  the  political,  religious,  and  intellectual 
evolution  of  mankind.  Social  progress,  as  we  know,  consists  mainly 
in  a  successive  differentiation  of  functions,  or,  in  simpler  language,  a 
division  of  labour.  The  work  which  in  primitive  society  is  done  by 
all  alike  and  by  all  equally  ill,  or  nearly  so,  is  gradually  distributed 
among  different  classes  of  workers  and  executed  more  and  more  per¬ 
fectly  ;  and  so  far  as  the  products,  material  or  immaterial,  of  this 
specialised  labour  are  shared  by  all,  the  whole  community  benefits  by 
the  increasing  specialisation.  Now  magicians  or  medicine-men  appear 
to  constitute  the  oldest  artificial  or  professional  class  in  the  evolution 
of  society.  For  sorcerers  are  found  in  every  savage  tribe  known  to 
us ;  and  among  the  lowest  savages,  such  as  the  Australian  aborigines, 
they  are  the  only  professional  class  that  exists.  As  time  goes  on,  and 
the  piocess  of  differentiation  continues,  the  order  of  medicine-men  is 
itself  subdivided  into  such  classes  as  the  healers  of  disease,  the  makers 
of  rain,  and  so  forth  ;  while  the  most  powerful  member  of  the  order 
wins  for  himself  a  position  as  chief  and  gradually  develops  into  a  sacred 
kmg,  his  old  magical  functions  falling  more  and  more  into  the  back¬ 
ground  and  being  exchanged  for  priestly  or  even  divine  duties,  in 


io6  DEPARTMENTAL  KINGS  OF  NATURE  ch. 

proportion  as  magic  is  slowly  ousted  by  religion.  Still  later,  a  partition 
is  effected  between  the  civil  and  the  religious  aspect  of  the  kingship, 
the  temporal  power  being  committed  to  one  man  and  the  spiritual  to 
another.  Meanwhile  the  magicians,  who  may  be  repressed  but  cannot 
be  extirpated  by  the  predominance  of  religion,  still  addict  themselves 
to  their  old  occult  arts  in  preference  to  the  newer  ritual  of  sacrifice 
and  prayer  *  and  in  time  the  more  sagacious  of  their  numbei  perceive 
the  fallacy  of  magic  and  hit  upon  a  more  effectual  mode  of  manipulating 
the  forces  of  nature  for  the  good  of  man  )  in  shoit,  they  abandon 
sorcery  for  science.  I  am  far  from  affirming  that  the  course  of  develop¬ 
ment  has  everywhere  rigidly  followed  these  lines  :  it  has  doubtless 
varied  greatly  in  different  societies.  I  merely  mean  to  indicate  in  the 
broadest  outline  what  I  conceive  to  have  been  its  general  trend.  Re¬ 
garded  from  the  industrial  point  of  view  the  evolution  has  been  from 
uniformity  to  diversity  of  function  i  regarded  fiom  the  political  point 
of  view,  it  has  been  from  democracy  to  despotism.  With  the  later 
history  of  monarchy,  especially  with  the  decay  of  despotism  and  its 
displacement  by  forms  of  government  better  adapted  to  the  higher 
needs  of  humanity,  we  are  not  concerned  in  this  enquiry  :  our  theme 
is  the  growth,  not  the  decay,  of  a  great  and,  in  its  time,  beneficent 

institution. 

CPIAPTER  VIII 


DEPARTMENTAL  KINGS  OF  NATURE 

The  preceding  investigation  has  proved  that  the  same  union  of  sacred 
functions  with  a  royal  title  which  meets  us  in  the  King  of  the  Wood  at 
Nemi,  the  Sacrificial  King  at  Rome,  and  the  magistrate  called  the 
King  at  Athens,  occurs  frequently  outside  the  limits  of  classical 
antiquity  and  is  a  common  feature  of  societies  at  all  stages  from 
barbarism  to  civilisation.  Further,  it  appears  that  the  royal  priest 
is  often  a  king,  not  only  in  name  but  in  fact,  swaying  the  sceptre  as 
well  as  the  crosier.  All  this  confirms  the  traditional  view  of  the  origin 
of  the  titular  and  priestly  kings  in  the  republics  of  ancient  Greece  and 
Italy.  At  least  by  showing  that  the  combination  of  spiritual  and 
temporal  power,  of  which  Graeco-Italian  tradition  preserved  the 
memory,  has  actually  existed  in  many  places,  we  have  obviated  any 
suspicion  of  improbability  that  might  have  attached  to  the  tiadition. 
Therefore  we  may  now  fairly  ask,  May  not  the  King  of  the  Wood  have 
had  an  origin  like  that  which  a  probable  tradition  assigns  to  the 
Sacrificial  King  of  Rome  and  the  titular  King  of  Athens  ?  In  other 
words,  may  not  his  predecessors  in  office  have  been  a  line  of  kings 
whom  a  republican  revolution  stripped  of  their  political  power,  leaving 
them  only  their  religious  functions  and  the  shadow  of  a  crown  ?  There 
are  at  least  two  reasons  for  answering  this  question  in  the  negative.. 
One  reason  is  drawn  from  the  abode  of  the  priest  of  Nemi  ;  the  other 
from  his  title,  the  King  of  the  Wood.  If  his  predecessors  had  been 


VIII 


DEPARTMENTAL  KINGS  OF  NATURE 


107 

kings  ordinary  sense,  he  would  surely  have  been  found  residing 

like  the  fallen  kings  of  Rome  and  Athens,  in  the  city  of  which  the  sceptre 

Joiner  ButTri  ™S  Ay  “USt,have  bee»  Aricia,  for  thereto 

by  theTake  shore  1 Z™  T  T  ™  °S  ^  Ws  forest  sanctaary 
^  “  Iake  sbore'  , If  he  reigned,  it  was  not  in  the  city,  but  in  the 

greenwood.  Again  his  title,  King  of  the  Wood,  hardly  allows  us  to 

More°ld  *  lat,h®  had  ev.er  been  a  king  in  the  common  sense  of  the  word 
More  likely  he  was  a  king  of  nature,  and  of  a  special  side  of  natoe 

namely,  the  woods  from  which  he  took  his  title.  If  we  could  find 

instances  of  what  we  may  call  departmental  kings  of  nature  that  is  of 

persons  supposed  to  rule  over  particular  elements  or  aspects’of  nature 

they  would  probably  present  a  closer  analogy  to  the  King  of  the  Wood 

than  the  divine  kings  we  have  been  hitherto  considering,  whose  control 

of  nature  is  general  rather  than  special.  Instances  of  such  depart 
mental  kings  are  not  wanting.  P  1 

v  °n  A'11  at  Bomrna  near  the  mouth  of  the  Congo  dwells  Namvulu 
Vumu,  King  of  the  Rain  and  Storm.  Of  some  of  the  tribes  oTthe 
Upper  Nile  we  are  told  that  they  have  no  kings  in  the  common  sense 
the  only  persons  whom  they  acknowledge  as  such  are  the  Kings  of  the 
am,  Mata  Kodou,  who  are  credited  with  the  power  of  giving  rain 
a  the  proper  time,  that  is,  in  the  rainy  season.  Before  the  rains  begin 
to  fall  at  the  end  of  March  the  country  is  a  parched  and  arid  desert  • 
nd  the  cattle,  which  form  the  people’s  chief  wealth,  perish  for  lack  of 

himself  toth^Ki  p  March,draws  on-  each  householder  betakes 

himself  to  the  King  of  the  Ram  and  offers  him  a  cow  that  he  may  make 

e  blessed  waters  of  heaven  to  drip  on  the  brown  and  withered  pastures. 

■  ”°th  °Wer  • a  S’  th?  PeoPle  assemble  and  demand  that  the  king  shall 

h  I  hlll  a”V-  tnu  lf  r  Sky  StiU  continues  cloudless,  they  rip  up 
-  y,  in  which  he  is  believed  to  keep  the  storms.  Amongst  the 

Among  tribes  on  the  outskirts  of  Abyssinia  a  similar  office  exists 

the  Alffii  beA  “  desfTed  by  an  observer:  “The  priesthood  of 

*e  fie  if  hi 15  f  fy  K,6  Barea  and  Kunama’  is  a  remarkable 
one  he  is  believed  to  be  able  to  make  rain.  This  office  formerly 

"eS  amThf  A  If®  f’f  A  aPpearsto  be  stiiI  common  to  the  Nubl 
irf  '  ..  1  Alfm  01  tile  Barea,  who  is  also  consulted  by  tire  northern 

Kunarna,  lives  near  Tembadere  on  a  mountain  alone  with  his  family 
The  peop  e  bring  him  tribute  in  the  form  of  clothes  and  fruits  and 
cul  ivate  for  him  a  large  field  of  his  own.  He  is  a  kind  of  king  fnd  ht 
office  passes  by  inheritance  to  his  brother  or  sister’s  son.  He  is  sup- 

disappoffiffi fhf6  d°T  rai"  and  t0  drive  aWay  the  Iocusts’  But  if  ^ 
laid  Ihe  Alf  Pe+°P  j  ®xPectatlon  and  a  great  drought  arises  in  the 

to  cast  the  fi  ls  7oned  to  death,  and  his  nearest  relations  are  obliged 
thef  ffi  An  0ne  at  hlm-  When  We  Passed  through  the  country 

makinfhad  „  ^  Tf  A?  hdd  by  “  °ld  man  ;  but  1  heard  that  rain- 
his  officeh”d  P  ^  °°  dangerous  for  h™  and  that  he  had  renounced 


io8 


DEPARTMENTAL  KINGS  OF  NATURE 


CH. 


In  the  backwoods  of  Cambodia  live  two  mysterious  sovereigns 
known  i  the  King  of  the  Fire  and  the  King  of  the  Water.  Then  fame 
is  spread  all  over  the  south  of  the  great  Indo-Chinese  peninsula  ,  but 
only  a  faint  echo  of  it  has  reached  the  West.  Down  to  a  few  years  ago 
no  European,  so  far  as  is  known,  had  ever  seen  either  of  them  and 
their  very  existence  might  have  passed  for  a  fable,  were  it  no 
lately  communications  were  regularly  maintained  between  them  and 
the  King  of  Cambodia,  who  year  by  year  exchanged  presents  with  therm 
Their  royal  functions  are  of  a  purely  mystic  or  spiritual  order  they 
have  no  political  authority  ;  they  are  simple  peasants,  living  by  t 
sweat  of  their  brow  and  the  offerings  of  the  faithful.  According  to  one 
account  they  live  in  absolute  solitude,  never  meeting  ^each  other  and 
never  seeing  a  human  face.  They  inhabit  successively  seven  towers 
perched  upon  seven  mountains,  and  every  year  they  pass  from  n 
tower  to  another.  People  come  furtively  and  cast  within  their  reach 
what  is  needful  for  their  subsistence.  The  kingship  lasts .seven l  yea ^s 
the  time  necessary  to  inhabit  all  the  towers  successively  ,  but  many  die 
before  their  time  is  out.  The  offices  are  hereditary  in  one  or  (according 
to  others)  two  royal  families,  who  enjoy  high  consideration  have 
revenues  assigned  to  them,  and  are  exempt  from  the  necessity  of  tilling 
the  ground.  Uut  naturally  the  dignity  is  not  coveted  and  when  a 
vacancy  occurs,  all  eligible  men  (they  must  be  strong  and  have  children) 
flee  and  hide  themselves.  Another  account,  admitting  the  iducta 
of  the  hereditary  candidates  to  accept  the  crown,  does  not  countenance 
the  report  of  their  hermit-like  seclusion  in  the  seven  towers  For  it 
represents  the  people  as  prostrating  themselves  before  the unystic i  ngs 
whenever  they  appear  in  public,  it  being  thought  that  a  terrible 
hurricane  would  burst  over  the  country  if  this  mark  of  homage  we 
omitted.  Like  many  other  sacred  kings,  of  whom  we  shall  read  m  t 
sequel  the  Kings  of  Fire  and  Water  are  not  allowed  to  die  a  natural 
death,’ for  that  would  lower  their  reputation.  Accordingly  when  one  of 
them  is  seriously  ill,  the  elders  hold  a  consultation  and  if  they  think  lie 
cannot  recover  they  stab  him  to  death.  His  body  is  burned  and  the 
ashes  are  piously  collected  and  publicly  honoured  for  five  yeais.  Pa 
of  them  is  given  to  the  widow,  and  she  keeps  them  m  an  urn,  ^hic  1  s 
must  carry  on  her  back  when  she  goes  to  weep  on  her  husband  s  grave. 

We  are  told  that  the  Fire  King,  the  more  important  of  the  two 
whose  supernatural  powers  have  never  been  questioned,  officiates  a 
marriages,  festivals,  and  sacrifices  m  honour  of  the  Y<?«  or  spu  it. 
these  occasions  a  special  place  is  set  apart  for  him  ;  and  the  path  by 
which  he  approaches  is  spread  with  white  cotton  cloths.  A  reason  for 
confining  the  royal  dignity  to  the  same  family  is  that  this  family  is  m 
possession  of  certain  famous  talismans  which  would  lose  their  virtue  o . 
disappear  if  they  passed  out  of  the  family.  These  talismans  are  three  . 
the  fruit  of  a  creeper  called  Cui,  gathered  ages  ago  at  the  time  of  the  last 
deluge,  but  still  fresh  and  green  ;  a  rattan,  also  very  old  but  bearing 
flowers  that  never  fade  ;  and  lastly,  a  sword  containing  a  1  an  or  spirit 
who  guards  it  constantly  and  works  miracles  with  it.  The  spirit  is  sal 


IX 


TREE-SPIRITS 


109 


to  be  that  of  a  slave,  whose  blood  chanced  to  fall  upon  the  blade  while 
it  was  being  forged,  and  who  died  a  voluntary  death  to  expiate  his 
involuntary  offence.  By  means  of  the  two  former  talismans  the  Water 
King  can  raise  a  flood  that  would  drown  the  whole  earth.  If  the  Fire 
King  draws  the  magic  sword  a  few  inches  from  its  sheath,  the  sun  is 
hidden  and  men  and  beasts  fall  into  a  profound  sleep  ;  were  he  to  draw 
it  quite  out  of  the  scabbard,  the  world  would  come  to  an  end.  To  this 
wondrous  brand  sacrifices  of  buffaloes,  pigs,  fowls,  and  ducks  are  offered 
lor  ram.  It  is  kept  swathed  in  cotton  and  silk  ;  and  amongst  the 

annual  piesents  sent  by  the  King  of  Cambodia  were  rich  stuffs  to  wrap 
the  sacred  sword.  y 


Contrary  to  the  common  usage  of  the  country,  which  is  to  bury  the 
dead,  the  bodies  of  both  these  mystic  monarchs  are  burnt,  but  their 
nails  and  some  of  their  teeth  and  bones  are  religiously  preserved  as 
amulets.  It  is  while  the  corpse  is  being  consumed  on  the  pyre  that  the 
kinsmen  of  the  deceased  magician  flee  to  the  forest  and  hide  themselves 
for  fear  of  being  elevated  to  the  invidious  dignity  which  he  has  just 
vacated.  The  people  go  and  search  for  them,  and  the  first  whose 
lurking  place  they  discover  is  made  King  of  Fire  or  Water. 

These,  then,  are  examples  of  what  I  have  called  departmental  kings 
of  nature.  But  it  is  a  far  cry  to  Italy  from  the  forests  of  Cambodia 
and  the  sources  of  the  Nile.  And  though  Kings  of  Rain,  Water,  and 
hire  have  been  found,  we  have  still  to  discover  a  King  of  the  Wood  to 

match  the  Arician  priest  who  bore  that  title.  Perhaps  we  shall  find 
him  nearer  home. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  WORSHIP  OF  TREES 

§  I.  Tree-spirits.  In  the  religious  history  of  the  Aryan  race  in  Europe 
the  worship  of  trees  has  played  an  important  part.  Nothing  could  be 
more  natural.  For  at  the  dawn  of  history  Europe  was  covered  with 
immense  primaeval  forests,  in  which  the  scattered  clearings  must  have 
appeared  like  islets  in  an  ocean  of  green.  Down  to  the  first  century 
before  our  era  the  Hercynian  forest  stretched  eastward  from  the  Rhine 
for  a  distance  at  once  vast  and  unknown;  Germans  whom  Caesar 
questioned  had  travelled  for  two  months  through  it  without  reaching 
the  end.  Four  centuries  later  it  was  visited  by  the  Emperor  Julian, 
and  the  solitude,  the  gloom,  the  silence  of  the  forest  appear  to  have 
made  a  deep  impression  on  his  sensitive  nature.  He  declared  that  he 
knew  nothing  like  it  in  the  Roman  empire.  In  our  own  country  the 
wealds  of  Kent,  Surrey,  and  Sussex  are  remnants  of  the  great  forest  of 
Anderida,  which  once  clothed  the  whole  of  the  south-eastern  portion  of 
the  island.  Westward  it  seems  to  have  stretched  till  it  joined  another 
forest  that  extended  from  Hampshire  to  Devon.  In  the  reign  of 
Henry  II.  the  citizens  of  London  still  hunted  the  wild  bull  and  the  boar 
m  the  woods  of  Hampstead.  Even  under  the  later  Plantagenets  the 


no 


CII. 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  TREES 

royal  forests  were  sixty-eight  in  number.  In  the  forest  of  Arden  it  was 
said  that  down  to  modern  times  a  squirrel  might  leap  from  tree  to  tree 
for  nearly  the  whole  length  of  Warwickshire.  The  excavation  of  ancient 
pile-villages  in  the  valley  of  the  Po  has  shown  that  long  before  the  rise 
and  probably  the  foundation  of  Rome  the  north  of  Italy  was  covered 
with  dense  woods  of  elms,  chestnuts,  and  especially  of  oaks.  Archaeo¬ 
logy  is  here  confirmed  by  history  \  for  classical  writers  contain  many 
references  to  Italian  forests  which  have  now  disappeared.  As  late  as 
the  fourth  century  before  our  era  Rome  was  divided  from  central 
Etruria  by  the  dreaded  Ciminian  forest,  which  Livy  compares  to  the 
woods  of  Germany.  No  merchant,  if  we  may  trust  the  Roman  historian, 
had  ever  penetrated  its  pathless  solitudes  !  and  it  was  deemed  a  most 
daring  feat  when  a  Roman  general,  after  sending  two  scouts  to  explore 
its  intricacies,  led  his  army  into  the  forest  and,  making  his  way  to  a 
ridge  of  the  wooded  mountains,  looked  down  on  the  rich  Etrurian  fields 
spread  out  below.  In  Greece  beautiful  woods  of  pine,  oak,  and  other 
trees  still  linger  on  the  slopes  of  the  high  Arcadian  mountains,  still  adorn 
with  their  verdure  the  deep  gorge  through  which  the  Ladon  hurries  to 
join  the  sacred  Alpheus,  and  were  still,  down  to  a  few  years  ago, 
mirrored  in  the  dark  blue  waters  of  the  lonely  lake  of  Pheneus  ;  but 
they  are  mere  fragments  of  the  forests  which  clothed  great  tracts  in 
antiquity,  and  which  at  a  more  remote  epoch  may  have  spanned  the 
Greek  peninsula  from  sea  to  sea. 

From  an  examination  of  the  Teutonic  words  for  “  temple  ”  Grimm 
has  made  it  probable  that  amongst  the  Germans  the  oldest  sanctuaries 
were  natural  woods.  However  that  may  be,  tree-worship  is  well 
attested  for  all  the  great  European  families  of  the  Aryan  stock. 
Amongst  the  Celts  the  oak-worship  of  the  Druids  is  familiar  to  every 
one,  and  their  old  word  for  a  sanctuary  seems  to  be  identical  in  origin 
and  meaning  with  the  Latin  nemus,  a  grove  or  woodland  glade,  which 
still  survives  in  the  name  of  Nemi.  Sacred  groves  were  common  among 
the  ancient  Germans,  and  tree-worship  is  hardly  extinct  amongst  .their 
descendants  at  the  present  day.  How  serious  that  worship  was  in 
former  times  may  be  gathered  from  the  ferocious  penalty  appointed  by 
the  old  German  laws  for  such  as  dared  to  peel  the  bark  of  a  standing 
tree.  The  culprit’s  navel  was  to  be  cut  out  and  nailed  to  the  part  of 
the  tree  which  he  had  peeled,  and  he  was  to  be  driven  round  and  round 
the  tree  till  all  his  guts  were  wound  about  its  trunk.  The  intention 
of  the  punishment  clearly  was  to  replace  the  dead  bark  by  a  living 
substitute  taken  from  the  culprit ;  it  was  a  life  for  a  life,  the  life  of  a 
man  for  the  life  of  a  tree.  At  Upsala,  the  old  religious  capital  of 
Sweden,  there  was  a  sacred  grove  in  which  every  tree  was  regarded  as 
divine.  The  heathen  Slavs  worshipped  trees  and  groves.  The 
Lithuanians  were  not  converted  to  Christianity  till  towards  the  close 
of  the  fourteenth  century,  and  amongst  them  at  the  date  of  their 
conversion  the  worship  of  trees  was  prominent.  Some  of  them  revered 
remarkable  oaks  and  other  great  shady  trees,  from  which  they  received 
oracular  responses.  Some  maintained  holy  groves  about  their  villages 


IX 


TREE-SPIRITS  IXI 

or  houses,  where  even  to  break  a  twig  would  have  been  a  sin.  Thev 
thought  that  he  who  cut  a  bough  in  such  a  grove  either  died  suddenly  or 
was  crippled  m  one  of  his  limbs.  Proofs  of  the  prevalence  of  tree- 
worship  m  ancient  Greece  and  Italy  are  abundant.  In  the  sanctuary 
o  Aesculapius  at  Cos,  for  example,  it  was  forbidden  to  cut  down  the 
cypress-tiees  under  a  penalty  of  a  thousand  drachms.  But  nowhere 
perhaps,  m  the  ancient  world  was  this  antique  form  of  religion  better 
preserved  than  in  the  heart  of  the  great  metropolis  itself.  In  the 
horum,  the  busy  centre  of  Roman  life,  the  sacred  fig-tree  of  Romulus 
was  worshipped  down  to  the  days  of  the  empire,  and  the  withering  of  its 
trunk  was  enough  to  spread  consternation  through  the  city.  Again 
on  the  slope  of  the  Palatine  Hill  grew  a  cornel-tree  which  was  esteemed 
one  of  the  most  sacred  objects  in  Rome.  Whenever  the  tree  appeared 
to  a  passer-by  to  be  drooping,  he  set  up  a  hue  and  cry  which  was  echoed 
by  the  people  m  the  street,  and  soon  a  crowd  might  be  seen  running 
helter-skelter  from  all  sides  with  buckets  of  water,  as  if  (says  Plutarch) 
they  were  hastening  to  put  out  a  fire. 

Among  the  tribes  of  the  Finnish-Ugrian  stock  in  Europe  the  heathen 
worship  was  performed  for  the  most  part  in  sacred  gloves,  which  were 
always  enclosed  with  a  fence.  Such  a  grove  often  consisted  merely  of 
a  glade  or  clearing  with  a  few  trees  dotted  about,  upon  which  in  former 
times  the  skins  of  the  sacrificial  victims  were  hung.  The  central  point 
of  the  grove  at  least  among  the  tribes  of  the  Volga,  was  the  sacred  tree 
beside  which  everything  else  sank  into  insignificance.  Before  it  the 
worshippers  assembled  and  the  priest  offered  his  prayers,  at  its  roots 
t  le  victim  was  sacrificed,  and  its  boughs  sometimes  served  as  a  pulpit. 
No  wood  might  be  hewn  and  no  branch  broken  in  the  grove  and 
women  were  generally  forbidden  to  enter  it. 

But  it  is  necessary  to  examine  in  some  detail  the  notions  on  which 
the  worship  of  trees  and  plants  is  based.  To  the  savage  the  world 
m  general  is  animate,  and  trees  and  plants  are  no  exception  to  the 
rule.  He  thinks  that  they  have  souls  like  his  own,  and  he  treats  them 

•  They  Say,,J  writ‘es  the  ancient  vegetarian  Porphyry 
that  primitive  men  led  an  unhappy  life,  for  their  superstition  did 
not  stop  at  animals  but  extended  even  to  plants.  For  why  should 
the  slaughter  of  an  ox  or  a  sheep  be  a  greater  wrong  than  the  felling 
ol  a  fir  or  an  oak,  seeing  that  a  soul  is  implanted  in  these  trees  also  ?  ” 
lmilarly,  the  Hidatsa  Indians  of  North  America  believe  that  every 
natural  object  has  its  spirit,  or  to  speak  more  properly,  its  shade 
1°  these  shades  some  consideration  or  respect  is  due,  but  not  equally 
to  all.  For  example,  the  shade  of  the  cottonwood,  the  greatest  tree 
m  the  valley,  of  the  Upper  Missouri,  is  supposed  to  possess  an  in¬ 
telligence  which,  if  properly  approached,  may  help  the  Indians  in 
certain  undertakings  ;  but  the  shades  of  shrubs  and  grasses  are  of 
fit  .  account.  When  the  Missouri,  swollen  by  a  freshet  in  spring, 
carries  away  part  of  its  banks  and  sweeps  some  tall  tree  into  its  current, ' 
it  is  said  that  the  spirit  of  the  tree  cries,  while  the  roots  still  cling 
to  the  land  and  until  the  trunk  falls  with  a  splash  into  the  stream. 


112 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  TREES 


CH. 


Formerly  the  Indians  considered  it  wrong  to  fell  one  of  these  giants, 
and  when  large  logs  were  needed  they  made  use  only  of  trees  wh 
had  fallen  of  themselves.  Till  lately  some  of  the  more  credulous  old 
men  declared  that  many  of  the  misfortunes  of  their  people  were  caused 
by  this  modern  disregard  for  the  rights  of  the  living  cottonwood.  The 
Iroouois  believed  that  each  species  of  tree,  shrub,  plant,  and  herb  had 
its  own  spirit,  and  to  these  spirits  it  was  their  custom  to  return  than  s. 

The  Wanika  of  Eastern  Africa  fancy  that  every  tree,  and  especially 
coco-nut  tree,  has  its  spirit ;  "the  destruction  of  a  cocoa-n 
tree  is  regarded  as  equivalent  to  matricide  because  that  tree  gives 
rhpm  life  and  nourishment,  as  a  mother  does  her  child.  biamese 
monks,  believing  that  there  are  souls  everywhere, 

anvthine  whatever  is  forcibly  to  dispossess  a  soul,  will  not  break  a 
branch  of  a  tree,  “  as  they  will  not  break  the  arm  of  an  mmxient 
nerson  ”  These  monks,  of  course,  are  Buddhists.  But  Bud 
animism  is  not  a  philosophical  theory.  It  is  simply  a  common  savage 
Zma  incorporated  in  the  system  of  an  historical  religion.  To 
suppose  with  Benfey  and  others,  that  the  theories  ot  animism  and 
transmigration  current  among  rude  peoples  of  Asia  are  derived  ro 
Rnrklhism  is  to  reverse  the  facts. 

Sometimes  it  is  only  particular  sorts  of  trees  that  are  supposed 
to  be  tenanted  by  spirits.  At  Grbalj  in  Dalmatia  it  is  said  that  among 
treat  beeches  oaks  and  other  trees  there  are  some  that  are  endowed 
wTth  shades  oV  souls,  and  whoever  fells  one  of  them  must  die  on  the  . 
soot  or  at  least  live  an  invalid  for  the  rest  of  his  days.  I  a  woo 
man  fears  that  a  tree  which  he  has  felled  is  one  of  this  sort,  he  must 
rut  off  the  head  of  a  live  hen  on  the  stump  of  the  tree  with  the  very 
same  axe  with  which  he  cut  down  the  tree.  This  will  protect  him 
from  all  harm  even  if  the  tree  be  one  of  the  animated  kind.  The  silk 
cotton  trees  which  rear  their  enormous  trunks  to  a  stupendous  heig  , 
for  out-topping  all  the  other  trees  of  the  forest,  are  regarded  with 
reverence  throughout  West  Africa,  from  the  Senegal  to  the  Niger, 
and  are  believed  to  be  the  abode  of  a  god  or  spirit.  Among  the  Ewe- 
speaking  peoples  of  the  Slave  Coast  the  indwelling  god  of  this  gia 
of  the  forest  toes  by  the  name  of  Huntin.  Trees  in  which  he  specially 
dwells— for  it  is  not  every  silk-cotton  tree  that  he  thus  honours-are 
surrounded  by  a  girdle  of  palm-leaves  ;  and  sacrifices  of  fow  s,  i 
occasionally  of  human  beings,  are  fastened  to  the  trunk  or  laid  again 
the  foot  of  the  tree.  A  tree  distinguished  by  a  girdle  of  palm-leaves 
mav  not  be  cut  down  or  injured  m  any  way  ;  and  even  silk-cotton 
trees  which  are  not  supposed  to  be  animated  by  Huntin  may  not  b 
felled  unless  the  woodman  first  offers  a  sacrifice ,oi  fowls 
tn  nurce  himself  of  the  proposed  sacrilege.  To  omit  the  sacrmce  is 
an  offence  which  may  be  punished  with  death.  Among  the  Kangra 
mouSns  She  P^jai/a  girl  used  to  be  annually  sacrificed  to  an 
old  cedar-tree,  the  families  of  the  village  taking  it  in  turn  to  supply 
the  victim  The  tree  was  cut  down  not  very  many  years  ago. 

If  t!“s  are  animate,  they  are  necessarily  sensitive  and  the  cutting  j 


IX 


TREE-SPIRITS 


ii3 


iS°^hbeT?  a  deIiCate  SUrgiCal  °Peration>  which  must  be 
performed  with  as  tender  a  regard  as  possible  for  the  feelings  of  the 

sufferers,  who  otherwise  may  turn  and  rend  the  careless  or  bungling 

operator.  When  an  oak  is  being  felled  "  it  gives  a  kind  of  shriekef 

1  gioanes,  that  may  be  heard  a  mile  off,  as  if  it  were  the  genius  of 
the  oake  lamenting.  E  Wyld,  Esq.,  hath  heard  it  severall  times.” 
h  6  Ojebways  very  seldom  cut  down  green  or  living  trees,  from  the 
idea  that  it  puts  them  to  pain,  and  some  of  their  medicine-men  profess 
to  have  heard  the  wailing  of  the  trees  under  the  axe.”  Trees  that 

h nrneHlld  Cnel°f  ?aia  or  indignation  when  they  are  hacked  or 

burned  occur  very  often  m  Chinese  books,  even  in  Standard  Histories. 

Old  peasants  m  some  parts  of  Austria  still  believe  that  forest-trees 
are  animate,  and  will  not  allow  an  incision  to  be  made  in  the  bark 
without  special  cause  ;  they  have  heard  from  their  fathers  that  the 
tree  feels  the  cut  not  less  than  a  wounded  man  his  hurt.  In  felling 
a  tree  they  beg  its  pardon.  It  is  said  that  in  the  Upper  Palatinate 
a  so  old  woodmen  still  secretly  ask  a  fine,  sound  tree  to  forgive  them 
before  they  cut  it  down  So  in  Jarkino  the  woodman  craves  pardon 
f  the  tree  he  fells.  Before  the  Ilocanes  of  Luzon  cut  down  trees  in 
the  virgin  forest  or  on  the  mountains,  they  recite  some  verses  to  the 
o  lowing  effect  :  Be  not  uneasy,  my  friend,  though  we  fell  what 
have  been  ordered  to  fell.”  This  they  do  in  order  not  to  draw 
down  on  themselves  the  hatred  of  the  spirits  who  live  in  the  trees 
and  who  are  apt  to  avenge  themselves  by  visiting  with  grievous  sick- 

?hTwwa\mJUrVhem  wantonly-  The  Basoga  of  Central  Africa 
think  that,  when  a  tree  is  cut  down,  the  angry  spirit  which  inhabits 

it  may  cause  the  death  of  the  chief  and  his  family.  To  prevent  this 
isaster  they  consult  a  medicine-man  before  they  fell  a  tree  If  the 
man  of  skill  gives  leave  to  proceed,  the  woodman  first  offers  a  fowl 

an+wng°at  tc\the  tree  the*  as  soon  as  he  has  given  the  first  blow 
with  the  axe,  he  applies  his  mouth  to  the  cut  and  sucks  some  of  the 
sap.  In  this  way  he  forms  a  brotherhood  with  the  tree,  just  as  two 
men  become  blood-brothers  by  sucking  each  other’s  blood.  After 
that  he  can  cut  down  his  tree-brother  with  impunity. 

But  the  spirits  of  vegetation  are  not  always  treated  with  deference 
and  respect.  If  fair  words  and  kind  treatment  do  not  move  them 
so-onger  measures  are  sometimes  resorted  to.  The  durian-tree  of 
the  East  Indies,  whose  smooth  stem  often  shoots  up  to  a  height  of 
eighty  or  ninety  feet  without  sending  out  a  branch,  bears  a  fruit  of 
e  most  delicious  flavour  and  the  most  disgusting  stench.  The 
Malays  cultivate  the  tree  for  the  sake  of  its  fruit,  and  have  been  known 
to  resort  to  a  peculiar  ceremony  for  the  purpose  of  stimulating  its 
fertility.  Near  Jugra  m  Selangor  there  is  a  small  grove  of  durian-trees, 
nd  on  a  specially  chosen  day  the  villagers  used  to  assemble  in  it. 
thereupon  one  of  the  local  sorcerers  would  take  a  hatchet  and  deliver 
everal  shrewd  blows  on  the  trunk  of  the  most  barren  of  the  trees 

^W5y^n°wbearfruitornot?  «  you  do  not,  I  shall  fell  . 
you.  io  this  the  tree  replied  through  the  mouth  of  another  man 


1 14 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  TREES 


CH. 


who  had  climbed  a  mangostin-tree  hard  by  (the  durian-tree  being 
unclimbable),  “  Yes,  I  will  now  bear  fruit ;  I  beg  you  not  to  fell  me 
So  in  Japan  to  make  trees  bear  fruit  two  men  go  into .an  orchard 
One  of  them  climbs  up  a  tree  and  the  other  stands  at  the  foot  with 
an  axe.  The  man  with  the  axe  asks  the  tree  whether  it  will  yield  a 
good  crop  next  year  and  threatens  to  cut  it  down  if  it  does  not.  To 
this  the  man  among  the  branches  replies  on  behalf  of  the  tree  that 
it  will  bear  abundantly.  Odd  as  this  mode  of  horticulture  may  seem 
to  us  it  has  its  exact  parallels  in  Europe.  On  Christmas  Eve  many 
a  South  Slavonian  and  Bulgarian  peasant  swings  an  axe  threateningly 
against  a  barren  fruit-tree,  while  another  man  standing  by  intercedes 
for  the  menaced  tree,  saying,  “  Do  not  cut  it  down  ;  it  will  soon  bear 
fruit  ”  Thrice  the  axe  is  swung,  and  thrice  the  impending,  blow  is 
arrested  at  the  entreaty  of  the  intercessor.  After  that  the  frightened 

tree  will  certainly  bear  fruit  next  year.  #  .  .  « 

The  conception  of  trees  and  plants  as  animated  beings  natura.  y 

results  in  treating  them  as  male  and  female,  who  can  be  married  to 
each  other  in  a  real,  and  not  merely  a  figurative  or  poetical,  sense  of  the 
word.  The  notion  is  not  purely  fanciful,  for  plants  like  animals  have 
their  sexes  and  reproduce  their  kind  by  the  union  of  the  male  an 
female  elements.  But  whereas  in  all  the  higher  animals  the  organs 
of  the  two  sexes  are  regularly  separated  between  different  individuals, 
in  most  plants  they  exist  together  in  every  individual  of  the  species. 
This  rule  however,  is  by  no  means  universal,  and  m  many  species  the 
male  plant  is  distinct  from  the  female.  The  distinction  appears  to 
have  been  observed  by  some  savages,  for  we  are  told  that  the  Maoris 
“  are  acquainted  with  the  sex  of  trees,  etc.,  and  have  distinct  names 
for  the  male  and  female  of  some  trees.”  The  ancients  knew  the 
difference  between  the  male  and  the  female  date-palm,  and  fertilise 
them  artificially  by  shaking  the  pollen  of  the  male  tree  over  the  flowers 
of  the  female.  The  fertilisation  took  place  in  spring.  Among  the 
heathen  of  Harran  the  month  during  which  the  palms  were  fertilised 
bore  the  name  of  the  Date  Month,  and  at  this  time  they  celebrated 
the  marriage  festival  of  all  the  gods  and  goddesses.  Different  from 
this  true  and  fruitful  marriage  of  the  palm  are  the  false  and  barren 
marriages  of  plants  which  play  a  part  in  Hindoo  superstition.  For 
example,  if  a  Hindoo  has  planted  a  grove  of  mangos,  neither  he  nor  his 
wife  may  taste  of  the  fruit  until  he  has  formally  married  one  of  the 
trees  as  a  bridegroom,  to  a  tree  of  a  different  sort,  commonly  a  tama¬ 
rind-tree,  which  grows  near  it  in  the  grove.  If  there  is  no  tamarind 
to  act  as  bride,  a  jasmine  will  serve  the  turn.  The  expenses  of  such 
a  marriage  are  often  considerable,  for  the  more  Brahmans  are  feasted 
at  it  the  greater  the  glory  of  the  owner  of  the  grove.  A  family  has 
been  known  to  sell  its  golden  and  silver  trinkets  and  to  borrow  all  the 
money  they  could  in  order  to  marry  a  mango-tree  to  a  jasmine  with 
due  pomp  and  ceremony.  On  Christmas  Eve  German  peasants  use 
to  tie  fruit-trees  together  with  straw  ropes  to  make  them  bear  truit, 
saying  that  the  trees  were  thus  married. 


IX 


TREE-SPIRITS 


115 

treated*  Uke^ pregnant  'women' 6  NoToTsTmav  be  bI°®,SOm’  thef  are 

no  light  or  fire  may  be  carried  past  tLm  at  nShf-  1  near  them  : 

Sraudots  are  Served 

tz 

noises  nearXfield,* foS 

would  miscarry,  and  the  crop  would  be  all  straw  and  no  grain  ’ 

»p.,k  .X  revlSt'i  S'»o*f  z 

cut  down  or  burned.  If  the  settlers  require  them  to  hew  down  the  trees 

4,W^^!^KfS!*.s2 

v£srr «  ;hs 

spreading  tai  vfiaStdid  mte  fc’S^TC1”’  T" 

Sui  £il 

sid  ?„»:=  sieSii  stc  Trivi! 

own,  the  village  and  all  its  inhabitants  would  inevitably  perish 
cnstemarp  ,«  imrtmerial  Toitiees  0„ii2  inS 

bodv  f I  °  S  ren'-’t  len  ^ie  sou^  °f  the  deceased  and  thus  to  save  his 
body  from  corruption  ;  and  as  the  evergreen  cvDress  and  J7 

V“all,y  ,h»J  olh"  ,r~’ ,h"  i=  i" 
SL”E“r  id«“f  ih'  are  it  irdiSi'iinii 

£  deiiv  t  1  T'  °‘  *heir  “rst  “color  and  that  i,  E 
-  destiny.  Sometimes  there  is  a  sacred  grove  near  a  village  wIwp 

;5^breTtheegro5d  *7°*  and  ^  °n  the  Sp0t  Their  fahen  branches 
g  d,  and  no  one  may  remove  them  unless  he  has  first 


n6 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  TREES 


CH. 


,  ,,  +u»  spirit  of  the  tree  and  offered  him  a  sacrifice.  Among 

becauysePeveryThieng  there  is  supposed  to  be  tenanted  by  the  souls  of 

the  Hi  most  if  not  all,  of  these  cases  the  spirit  is  viewed  as  incorporate 
in  the  tree  •’  it  animates  the  tree  and  must  suffer  and  die  with  it.  But 
according6  to' another  and  probably  later  opinion  the  tree  ,s  not  the 
h,ft  merely  the  abode  of  the  tree-spirit,  which  can  quit  it  and 
turn  to  it  at  pleasure.  The  inhabitants  of  Siaoo,  an  East  Indian 
H  bplieve  in  certain  sylvan  spirits  who  dwell  in  forests  or  m  great 
solitary  trees.  At  full  moon  the  spirit  comes  forth  from  his  lurkmg- 
nlace  and  roams  about.  He  has  a  big  head,  very  long  arms  and  legs, 

P  .  c  i  'hnrlv  Tn  order  to  propitiate  the  wood-spirits  people 

Z '  ‘  SSS  o  M  fowl"  U  »  lorth  to  Ih,  place  which 

they8 are  supposed  to  haunt.  The  people  of  Nias  think  that,  when  a 
See  dTes  its  liberated  spirit  becomes  a  demon,  which  can  kill  a  coco-nu 
lm  bv  merely  lighting  on  its  branches,  and  can  cause  the  cleat 
all  the  children^ in  a  house  by  perching  on  one  of  the  posts  that  support 
f  Further  they  are  of  opinion  that  certain  trees  are  at  all  times 
inhabited  by  roving  demons  who,  if  the  trees  were  damaged,  would  be 
"e to  go about  on  errands  of  mischief.  Hence  the  people  respect 

trees  and  are  careful  not  to  cut  them  down. 

Not  a  few  ceremonies  observed  at  cutting  down  haunted  trees  are 

fell  an  ashorin  tree,  but  knows  that  he  cannot  do  it  so  long  as  the  spirit 
“ft  the  tree  places  a  little  palm-oil  on  the  ground  as  a  ba  t, 
and  then  when  the ’unsuspecting  spirit  has  quitted  the  tree  to  parta  e 
of  this  daintv  hastens  to  cut  down  its  late  abode.  When  the  Toboo  g 
koos  of  Cdetes  are  about  to  clear  a  piece  of  forest  in  order  to  plant  rice 
they  build  a  tiny  house  and  furnish  it  with  tiny  clothes  and  some  oo 
and Void Then  they  call  together  all  the  spirits  of  the  wood  offer 
them  the  little  house  with  its  contents,  and  beseech  them  to  qun e 
snot  After  that  they  may  safely  cut  down  the  wood  without  fear- 
»»»d  .h.m  Jv«s  fn  »  doing.  Beta  <h,  T.mor,  gMs 
tnTe  of  Celebes,  fell  a  tall  tree  they  lay  a  quid  of  betel  at  its  foot, 
and  invite  the  spirit  who  dwells  in  the  tree  to  change  his  lo  gmg, 
moreover,  they  set  a  little  ladder  against  the  trunk  to  enable  him 
to  descend  with  safety  and  comfort.  The  Mandelings  of  Sum 
endeavour  to  lay  the  blame  of  all  such  misdeeds  at  the  d°°r  °f  * 
■Dutch  authorities.  Thus  when  a  man  is  cutting  a  load  thi  a 
forest  and  has  to  fell  a  tall  tree  which  blocks  the  way,  he  will  not  begin 
to  Sv  “s  axe  until  he  has  said  :  “  Spirit  who  lodgest  in  this  tree  take 
it  not  ill  that  I  cut  down  thy  dwelling,  for  it  is  done  at  no  wish  of  nnne 
but  by  older  of  the  ControUer.”  And  when  he  wishes  to  clear  a  piece 


IX  BENEFICENT  POWERS  OF  TREE-SPIRITS  117 

°f  fof^t-land  for  cultivation,  it  is  necessary  that  he  should  come  to  a 
satisfactory  understanding  with  the  woodland  spirits  who  live  there 
before  he  lays  low  their  leafy  dwellings.  For  this  purpose  he  goes  to 

e  middle  of  the  plot  of  ground,  stoops  down,  and  pretends  to  pick  up 
a  letter.  Then  unfolding  a  bit  of  paper  he  reads  aloud  an  imaginary 
letter  from  the  Dutch  Government,  in  which  he  is  strictly  enjoined  to 
set  about  clearing  the  land  without  delay.  Having  done  so,  he  says  : 

You  hear  that,  spirits.  I  must  begin  clearing  at  once,  or  I  shall  be 
hanged. 

Even  when  a  tree  has  been  felled,  sawn  into  planks,  and  used  to 
build  a  house,  it  is  possible  that  the  woodland  spirit  may  still  be  lurk¬ 
ing  m  the  timber,  and  accordingly  some  people  seek  to  propitiate  him 
before  or  after  they  occupy  the  new  house.  Hence,  when  a  new  dwelling 
is  ready  the  Toradjas  of  Celebes  kill  a  goat,  a  pig,  or  a  buffalo,  and  smear 
all  the  woodwork  with  its  blood.  If  the  building  is  a  lobo  or  spirit- 
house,  a  fowl  or  a  dog  is  killed  on  the  ridge  of  the  roof,  and  its  blood 
allowed  to  flow  down  on  both  sides.  The  ruder  Tonapoo  in  such  a  case 
sacrifice  a  human  being  on  the  roof.  This  sacrifice  on  the  roof  of  a 
lobo  or  temple  serves  the  same  purpose  as  the  smearing  of  blood  on  the 
woodwork  of  an  ordinary  house.  The  intention  is  to  propitiate  the 
forest-spirits  who  may  still  be  in  the  timber  ;  they  are  thus  put  in  good 
humour  and  will  do  the  inmates  of  the  house  no  harm.  For  a  like 
reason  people  in  Celebes  and  the  Moluccas  are  much  afraid  of  planting 
a  post  upside  down  at  the  building  of  a  house  ;  for  the  forest-spirit, 
who  might  still  be  in  the  timber,  would  very  naturally  resent  the 
indignity  and  visit  the  inmates  with  sickness.  The  Kayans  of  Borneo 
are  of  opinion  that  tree-spirits  stand  very  stiffly  on  the  point  of  honour 
and  visit  men  with  their  displeasure  for  any  injury  done  to  them.  Hence 
after  building  a  house,  whereby  they  have,  been  forced  to  ill-treat  many 
trees,  these  people  observe  a  period  of  penance  for  a  year,  during  which 

they  must  abstain  from  many  things,  such  as  the  killing  of  bears,  tiger- 
cats,  and  serpents. 

§  2.  Beneficent  Powers  of  Tree-Spirits. — When  a  tree  comes  to  be 
viewed,  no  longer  as  the  body  of  the  tree-spirit,  but  simply  as  its  abode 
which  it  can  quit  at  pleasure,  an  important  advance  has  been  made 
m  religious  thought.  Animism  is  passing  into  polytheism.  In  other 
words,  instead  of  regarding  each  tree  as  a  living  and  conscious  being, 
man  now  sees  in  it  merely  a  lifeless,  inert  mass,  tenanted  for  a  longer 
or  shorter  time  by  a  supernatural  being  who,  as  he  can  pass  freely  from 
tree  to  tree,  thereby  enjoys  a  certain  right  of  possession  or  lordship 
over  the  trees,  and,  ceasing  to  be  a  tree-soul,  becomes  a  forest  god. 

As  soon  as  the  tree-spirit  is  thus  in  a  measure  disengaged  from  each 
particular  tree,  he  begins  to  change  his  shape  and  assume  the  body  of 
a  man,  in  virtue  of  a  general  tendency  of  early  thought  to  clothe  all 
abstract  spiritual  beings  in  concrete  human  form.  Hence  in  classical 
art  the  sylvan  deities  are  depicted  in  human  shape,  their  woodland 
character  being  denoted  by  a  branch  or  some  equally  obvious  symbol. 
But  this  change  of  shape  does  not  affect  the  essential  character  of  the 


n8 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  TREES 


CH. 


tree-spirit.  The  powers  which  he  exercised  as  a  tree-soul  incorporate 
in  a  tree  he  still  continues  to  wield  as  a  god  of  trees.  This  I  shall  now 
attempt  to  prove  in  detail.  I  shall  show,  first,  that  trees  considered 
as  animate  beings  are  credited  with  the  power  of  making  the  rain  to 
fallt  the  sun  to  shine,  flocks  and  herds  to  multiply,  and  women  to  bring 
forth  easily  ;  and,  second,  that  the  very  same  powers  are  attributed  to 
tree-gods  conceived  as  anthropomorphic  beings  or  as  actually  incarnate 

in  1  r' i rst  then,  trees  or  tree-spirits  are  believed  to  give  ram  and  sun¬ 
shine.  When  the  missionary  Jerome  of  Prague  was  persuading  e 
heathen  Lithuanians  to  fell  their  sacred  groves,  a  multitude  of  women 
besought  the  Prince  of  Lithuania  to  stop  him,  saying  that  with  the 
woods  he  was  destroying  the  house  of  god  from  which  theY  hai?  ^en 
wont  to  get  rain  and  sunshine.  The  Mundaris  m  Assam  think 
if  a  tree  in  the  sacred  grove  is  felled  the  sylvan  gods  evince  their  is- 
pleasure  by  withholding  rain.  In  order  to  procure  ram  the  inhabitants 
of  Monyoja  village  in  the  Sagaing  district  of  Upper  Burma,  chose  the 
largest  tamarind-tree  near  the  village  and  named  it  the  haunt  of  the 
spirit  ( nat )  who  controls  the  rain.  Then  they  offered  bread,  coco¬ 
nuts  plantains,  and  fowls  to  the  guardian  spirit  of  the  village  and 
to  thePspirit  who  gives  rain,  and  they  prayed,  “  O  Lord  nat  have  pity 
on  us  poor  mortals,  and  stay  not  the  rain.  Inasmuch  as  our  offering 
is  given  ungrudgingly,  let  the  rain  fall  day  and  night.  _  Afterwards 
libations  were  made  in  honour  of  the  spirit  of  the  tamarmd-tree  ;  an 
still  later  three  elderly  women,  dressed  in  fine  clothes  and  weanng 

necklaces  and  earrings,  sang  the  Rain  Song.  YT,,n,i 

Again,  tree-spirits  make  the  crops  to  grow.  Amongst  the  Mundaris 

every  village  has  its  sacred  grove,  and  “the  grove  deities  are  hel 
responsible  for  the  crops,  and  are  especially  honoured  at  all  the  great 
agricultural  festivals.”  The  negroes  of  the  Gold  Coast  are  m  the  habi 
of  sacrificing  at  the  foot  of  certain  tall  trees,  and  they  think  that  if  one 
of  these  were  felled  all  the  fruits  of  the  earth  would  perish  The 
Gallas  dance  in  couples  round  sacred  trees,  praying  for  a  good  • 

Everv  couple  consists  of  a  man  and  woman,  who  are  linked  together  by 
a  stick  of  which  each  holds  one  end.  Under  their  arms  they  carry 
green  corn  or  grass.  Swedish  peasants  stick  a  leafy  branch  in  each 
furrow  of  their  corn-fields,  believing  that  this  will  ensure  an  abundant 
crop  The  same  idea  comes  out  in  the  German  and  French  custo 
of  the  Harvest-May.  This  is  a  large  branch  or  a  whole  tree  which  is 
decked  with  ears  of  corn,  brought  home  on  the  last  waggon  from 
harvest-field,  and  fastened  on  the  roof  of  the  farmhouse  or  of  the  barn 
where  it  remains  for  a  year.  Mannhardt  has  proved  that  this  branch  , 
or  tree  embodies  the  tree-spirit  conceived  as  the  spirit  of  vegetation 
in  general,  whose  vivifying  and  fructifying  influence  is  thus  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  corn  in  particular.  Hence  in  Swabia  the  Harvest^  y  , 
is  fastened  amongst  the  last  stalks  of  corn  left  standing  on  the  field 
in  other  places  it  is  planted  on  the  corn-field  and  the  last  sheaf  cut  is 

attached  to  its  trunk. 


IX 


BENEFICENT  POWERS  OF  TREE-SPIRITS  n9 

Again,,  the  tree-spirit  makes  the  herds  to  multiply  and  blesses 
women  with  offspring.  In  Northern  India  the  Emblica  officinalis  is 
a  sacred  tree.  On  the  eleventh  of  the  month  Phalgun  (February) 
libations  are  poured  at  the  foot  of  the  tree,  a  red  or  yellow  string  is 
bound  about  the  trunk,  and  prayers  are  offered  to  it  for  the  fruitfulness 
of  women,  animals,  and  crops.  Again,  in  Northern  India  the  coco-nut 
is  esteemed  one  of  the  most  sacred  fruits,  and  is  called  Sriphala,  or 
the  fruit  of  Sri  the  goddess  of  prosperity.  It  is  the  symbol  of  fertility 
and  all  through  Upper  India  is  kept  in  shrines  and  presented  by  the 
pnests  to  women  who  desire  to  become  mothers.  In  the  town  of  Qua 
near  Old  Calabar,  there  used  to  grow  a  palm-tree  which  ensured  con¬ 
ception  to  any  barren  woman  who  ate  a  nut  from  its  branches.  In 
Europe  the  May-tree  or  May-pole  is  apparently  supposed  to  possess 
similar  powers  over  both  women  and  cattle.  Thus  in  some  parts  of 
Germany  on  the  first  of  May  the  peasants  set  up  May-trees  or  May- 
bushes  ^  th(;  doors  of  stables  and  byres,  one  for  each  horse  and  cow  • 
this  is  thought  to  make  the  cows  yield  much  milk.  Of  the  Irish  we 
are  told  that  they  fancy  a  green  bough  of  a  tree,  fastened  on  May-day 
against  the  house,  will  produce  plenty  of  milk  that  summer/’ 

On  the  second  of  July  some  of  the  Wends  used  to  set  up  an  oak- 
tree  in  the  middle  of  the  village  with  an  iron  cock  fastened  to  its  top  • 
then  they  danced  round  it,  and  drove  the  cattle  round  it  to  make  them 
thrive.  The  Circassians  regard  the  pear-tree  as  the  protector  of  cattle 
bo  they  cut  down,  a  young  pear-tree  in  the  forest,  branch  it,  and  carry 
it  home,  where  it  is  adored  as  a  divinity.  Almost  every  house  has  one 
such  pear-tree.  In  autumn,  on  the  day  of  the  festival,  the  tree  is 
carried  into  the  house  with  great  ceremony  to  the  sound  of  music  and 
amid  the  joyous  cries  of  all  the  inmates,  who  compliment  it  on  its 
fortunate  arrival.  It  is  covered  with  candles,  and  a  cheese  is  fastened 
to  its  top.  Round  about  it  they  eat,  drink,  and  sing.  Then  they  bid 
the  tree  good-bye  and  take  it  back  to  the  courtyard,  where  it  remains 

lor  the  rest  of  the  year,  set  up  against  the  wall,  without  receiving  any 
mark  of  respect.  J 

In  the  Tuhoe  tribe  of  Maoris  "  the  power  of  making  women  fruitful 
is  ascribed  to  trees.  These  trees  are  associated  with  the  navel-strings 
ol  definite  mythical  ancestors,  as  indeed  the  navel-strings  of  all  children 
used  to  be  hung  upon  them  down  to  quite  recent  times.  A  barren 
woman  had  to  embrace  such  a  tree  with  her  arms,  and  she  received  a 
male  or  a  female  child  according  as  she  embraced  the  east  or  the 
west  side.”  The  common  European  custom  of  placing  a  green  bush 
on  May  Day  before  or  on  the  house  of  a  beloved  maiden  probably 
originated  in  the  belief  of  the  fertilising  power  of  the  tree-spirit.  In 
some  parts  . of  Bavaria  such  bushes  are  set  up  also  at  the  houses  of 
newly-married  pairs,  and  the  practice  is  only  omitted  if  the  wife  is 
near  her  confinement ;  for  in  that  case  they  say  that  the  husband  has 
set  up  a  May-bush  for  himself.”  Among  the  South  Slavonians  a 
an  en  woman,  who  desires  to  have  a  child,  places  a  new  chemise  upon 
a  fruitful  tree  on  the  eve  of  St.  George’s  Day.  Next  morning  before 


120  RELICS  OF  TREE-WORSHIP  IN  MODERN  EUROPE  ch. 


ir*c,  * *«<* 

16 f'"  ,  ijjg  tree  on  which  the  garment  has  passed  the  mg  l  . 

Amorng  the  Kara-Kirghiz  barren  women  roll  themselves  on  the  ground 

la «A  solitary  applo-lree  i»  ord„  “SSr.l,  Is  ia.E 

Dower  of  granting  to  women  an  easy  delivery  at  c  Sweden 


CHAPTER  X 


RELICS  OF  TREE-WORSHIP  IN  MODERN  EUROPE 


Frow  the  foregoing  review  of  the  beneficent  qualities  commonly 
F  a  i  treesnirits  it  is  easy  to  understand  why  customs  like  the 
May  tree  or  Maypole  have  prevailed  so  widely  and  figured  so  promin¬ 
ently  in  the  popular  festivals  of  European  peasants.  In  spring  or 
e!  summer  or  even  on  Midsummer  Day,  it  was  and  still  is  m  many 
narts  of  Europe  the  custom  to  go  out  to  the  woods,  cut  down  a  tree 
^  j  it  into  the  village,  where  it  is  set  up  armd  general  rejoicing  , 

or  fte  pL%  cut  branches  in  the  woods,  and  fasten  them  on  every 
house  PThe  intention  of  these  customs  is  to  bring  home  to  the  village, 
d  to  each  house  the  blessings  which  the  tree-spirit  has  in  its  power 
to  bestow  Hence  the  custom  in  some  places  of  planting  a  May-tree 
before  ev^ry  house,  or  of  carrying  the  callage  M ay-tree 
door  that  every  household  may  receive  its  share  of  the  blessing  uut 
J the  mass  of  evidence  on  this  subject  a  few  examples  may  be  selected 
Sir  Henrv  Piers  in  his  Description  of  Westmeath ,  writing  m  i 
says  ‘  On  May-eye,  every  family  sets  up  before  their  door  a  green 
bush'  strewed  over  with  yellow  flowers,  which  the  meadows  yield 
plentifully  In  countries  where  timber  is  plentiful,  they  erec 
slender  trees  which  stand  high,  and  they  continue  almost  the  whole 
year  ;  so  as  a  stranger  would  go  nigh  to  imagine  that  they  were  ad  sign^ 
of  ale-sellers  and  that  all  houses  were  ale-houses.  In  Northampton 
shire  a  young  tree  ten  or  twelve  feet  high  used  to  be  planted  bemr 


121 


x  RELICS  OF  TREE-WORSHIP  IN  MODERN  EUROPE 

each  house  on  May  Day  so  as  to  appear  growing  ;  flowers  were  thrown 
over  it  and  strewn  about  the  door.  “  Among  ancient  customs  still 
retained  by  the  Cornish,  may  be  reckoned  that  of  decking  their  doors 
ana  porches  on  the  first  of  May  with  green  boughs  of  sycamore  and 
hawthorn,  and  of  planting  trees,  or  rather  stumps  of  trees,  before  their 
houses.  In  the  north  of  England  it  was  formerly  the  custom  for 
young  people  to  rise  a  little  after  midnight  on  the  morning  of  the  first 
of  May,  and  go  out  with  music  and  the  blowing  of  horns  into  the  woods 
where  they  broke  branches  and  adorned  them  with  nosegays  and 
crowns  of  flowers.  This  done,  they  returned  about  sunrise  and 
fastened  the  flower-decked  branches  over  the  doors  and  windows  of 
their  houses.  At  Abingdon  in  Berkshire  young  people  formerly  went 

about  m  groups  on  May  morning,  singing  a  carol  of  which  the  following 
are  two  of  the  verses  : 


“  We’ve  been  rambling  all  the  night, 
And  sometime  of  this  day  ; 

And  now  returning  back  again, 
We  bring  a  garland  gay. 


A  garland  gay  we  bring  you  here  ; 

And  at  your  door  we  stand  ; 

It  is  a  sprout  well  budded  out, 

The  work  of  our  Lord’s  hand.” 


At  the  towns  of  Saffron  Walden  and  Debden  in  Essex  on  the  first 
of  May  little  girls  go  about  in  parties  from  door  to  door  singing  a  song 
almost  identical  with  the  above  and  carrying  garlands  ;  a  doll  dressed 
m  white  is  usually  placed  in  the  middle  of  each  garland.  Similar 
customs  have  been  and  indeed  are  still  observed  in  various  parts  of 
England.  The  garlands  are  generally  in  the  form  of  hoops  intersecting 
each  other  at  right  angles.  It  appears  that  a  hoop  wreathed  with 
rowan  and  marsh  marigold,  and  bearing  suspended  within  it  two  balls, 
is  still  carried  on  May  Day  by  villagers  in  some  parts  of  Ireland.  The 
balls,  which  are  sometimes  covered  with  gold  and  silver  paper,  are  said 
to  have  originally  represented  the  sun  and  moon. 

In  some  villages  of  the  Vosges  Mountains  on  the  first  Sunday  of 
May  young  girls  go  in  bands  from  house  to  house,  singing  a  song  in 
praise  of  May,  in  which  mention  is  made  of  the  “  bread  and  meal  that 
come  m  May.”  .  If  money  is  given  them,  they  fasten  a  green  bough  to 
the  door  ;  if  it  is  refused,  they  wish  the  family  many  children  and  no 
bread  to  feed  them.  In  the  French  department  of  Mayenne,  boys  who 
01  e  the  name  of  Maillotms  used  to  go  about  from  farm  to  farm  on  the 
first  of  May  singing  carols,  for  which  they  received  money  or  a  drink  ; 
^  planted  a  small  tree  or  a  branch  of  a  tree.  Near  Saverne  in 
Alsace  bands  of  people  go  about  carrying  May-trees.  Amongst  them 
is  a  man  dressed  in  a  white  shirt  with  his  face  blackened  ;  in  front  of 
him  is  carried  a  large  May-tree,  but  each  member  of  the  band  also 
carries  a  smaller  one.  One  of  the  company  bears  a  huge  basket,  in 
which  he  collects  eggs,  bacon,  and  so  forth. 

On  the  Thursday  before  Whitsunday  the  Russian  villagers  “  go  out 
into  the  woods,  sing  songs,  weave  garlands,  and  cut  down  a  young 
birch-tree,  which  they  dress  up  in  woman’s  clothes,  or  adorn  with  many- 
coloured  shreds  and  ribbons.  After  that  comes  a  feast,  at  the  end  of 


RELICS  OF  TREE-WORSHIP  IN  MODERN  EUROPE 


CH. 


122 

which  they  take  the  dressed-up  birch-tree,  carry  it  home  to  their  village 
with  iovful  dance  and  song,  and  set  it  up  in  one  of  the  houses,  where  it 
remains  as  an  honoured  guest  till  Whitsunday.  <  On  the  two  inter  veiling 
davs  thev  pay  visits  to  the  house  where  their  guest  is  ,  but  on  the 
third  day  Whitsunday,  they  take  her  to  a  stream  and  fling  her  into  1  s 
waters”  throwing  their  garlands  after  her.  In  this  Russian  custom 
the  dressing  of  the  birch  in  woman’s  clothes  shows  how  clearly  the  tree  is 
personified  ;  and  the  throwing  it  into  a  stream  is  most  probably  a  ram- 

Chain  some  parts  of  Sweden  on  the  eve  of  May  Day  lads  go  about 
carrying  each  a  bunch  of  fresh  birch  twigs  wholly  or  partly  in  leaf 
With  the  village  fiddler  at  their  head,  they  make  the  round  of  the 
houses  singing  May  songs  ;  the  burden  of  their  songs  is  a  prayer  for 
fine  weather,  a  plentiful  harvest,  and  worldly  and  spin  ual  blessings. 
One  of  them  carries  a  basket  m  which  he  collects  gifts  of  eggs  and  the 
like  If  they  are  well  received,  they  stick  a  leafy  twig  in  the  roo  over 
the  cottage  door  But  in  Sweden  midsummer  is  the  season  when  these 
ceremonies  are  chiefly  observed.  On  the  Eve  of  St.  John  (the Owen  y- 
third  of  June)  the  houses  are  thoroughly  cleansed  and  garnished  with 
green  boughs  and  flowers.  Young  fir-trees  are  raised  at  the  doorway 
ami  elsewhere  about  the  homestead  ,  and  very  often  smaU  umbrageous 
-.rPonrc;  are  constructed  in  the  garden.  In  Stockholm  on  this  day  a 
leaf-market  is  held  at  which  thousands  of  May-poles  (Maj  Stanger), 
from  six  inches  to  twelve  feet  high,  decorated  with  leaves .  flowers 
slips  of  coloured  paper,  gilt  egg-shells  strung  on  reeds  and  so  on,  are 
exposed  for  sale.  Bonfires  are  lit  on  the  hills,  and  the  people  dance 
round  them  and  jump  over  them.  But  the  chief  event  of  the  day 
is  setting  up  the  May-pole.  This  consists  of  a  straight  and  tall  spruce- 
pile  tme,  stripped  of  its  branches.  "  At  times  hoops  and  a  others 
pieces  of  wood,  placed  crosswise,  are  attached  to  it  at  mterva  s  , 
whilst  at  others  it  is  provided  with  bows,  representing,  so  to  say, 
a  man  with  his  arms  akimbo.  From  top  to  bottom  not  only  the 
■  Mai  stang  '  (May-pole)  itself,  but  the  hoops,  bows,  etc.,  are  orna¬ 
mented  with  leaves,  flowers,  slips  of  various  cloth  gilt  egg-shel  s 
etc.  •  and  on  the  top  of  it  is  a  large  vane,  or  it  may  be  a  flag, 
raising  of  the  May-pole,  the  decoration  of  which  is  done  by  the  village 
maidens  is  an  affair  of  much  ceremony ;  the  people  flock  to  it  from 
all  quarters,  and  dance  round  it  in  a  great  ring.  Midsummer  customs 
of  the  same  sort  used  to  be  observed  m  some  parts  of  Ge™any.  Thus 
in  the  towns  of  the  Upper  Harz  Mountains  tall  fir-trees,  with  the  bark 
peeled  off  their  lower  trunks,  were  set  up  in  open  places  and  deck 
with  flowers  and  eggs,  which  were  painted  yellow  and  red.  Round 
these  trees  the  young  folk  danced  by  day  and  the  old  folk  in  the  evening. 
In  some  parts  of  Bohemia  also  a  May-pole  or  midsummer-tree  is  erected 
on  St.  Tohn’s  Eve.  The  lads  fetch  a  tall  fir  or  pine  from  the  wood  and 
set  it  up  on  a  height,  where  the  girls  deck  it  with  nosegays,  garlands, 

and  red  ribbons.  It  is  afterwards  burned.  . 

It  would  be  needless  to  illustrate  at  length  the  custom,  which  ha 


x  RELICS  OF  TREE-WORSHIP  IN  MODERN  EUROPE  123 

prevailed  in  various  parts  of  Europe,  such  as  England,  France  and 
Germany,  of  setting  up  a  village  May-tree  or  May-pole  on  May  Da v. 
A  few  examples  will  suffice.  The  puritanical  writer  Phillip  Stubbes  in 
his  Anatomie  of  Abuses,  first  published  at  London  in  1583,  has  described 
with  manifest  disgust  how  they  used  to  bring  in  the  May-pole  in  the 
days  of  good  Queen  Bess.  His  description  affords  us  a  vivid  glimpse  of 
merry  England  m  the  olden  time.  "  Against  May,  Whitsonday,  or 
other  time,  all  the  yung  men  and  maides,  olde  men  and  wives  run 
gadding  over  night  to  the  woods,  groves,  hils,  and  mountains,  where 
they  spend  all  the  night  m  plesant  pastimes  ;  and  in  the  morning  thev 
return  bringing  with  them  birch  and  branches  of  trees,  to  deck  their 
assemblies  withall.  And  no  mervaile,  for  there  is  a  great  Lord  present 
amongst  them,  as  superintendent  and  Lord  over  their  pastimes  and 
sportes,  namely,  Sathan,  prince  of  hel.  But  the  chiefest  jewel  thev 
bring  from  thence  is  their  May-pole,  which  they  bring  home  with  great 
veneration,  as  thus.  They  have  twentie  or  fortie  yoke  of  oxen  everv 
oxe  having  a  sweet  nose-gay  of  flouers  placed  on  the  tip  of  his  homes 
and  these  oxen  drawe  home  this  May-pole  (this  stinkyng  ydol  rather)' 
which  is  covered  all  over  with  floures  and  hearbs,  bound  round  about 
With  stungs,  from  the  top  to  the  bottome,  and  sometime  painted  with 
variable  colours,  with  two  or  three  hundred  men,  women  and  children 
ollowmg  it  with  great  devotion.  And  thus  beeing  reared  up  with 
andkercheefs  and  flags  hovering  on  the  top,  they  straw  the  ground 
rounde  about,  bmde  green  boughes  about  it,  set  up  sommer  haules 
bowers  and  arbors  hard  by  it.  And  then  fall  they  to  daunce  about  it' 
like  as  the  heathen  people  did  at  the  dedication  of  the  Idols,  whereof 
this  is  a  perfect  pattern,  or  rather  the  thing  itself.  I  have' heard  it 
credibly  reported  (and  that  viva  voce )  by  men  of  great  gravitie  and 
reputation,  that  of  fortie,  threescore,  or  a  hundred  maides  going  to  the 

wood  over  night,  there  have  scaresly  the  third  part  of  them  returned 
home  agame  undefiled.” 

In  Swabia  on  the  first  of  May  a  tall  fir-tree  used  to  be  fetched  into 
the  village,  where  it  was  decked  with  ribbons  and  set  up  •  then  the 
people  danced  round  it  merrily  to  music.  The  tree  stood  on 'the  village 
green  the  whole  year  through,  until  a  fresh  tree  was  brought  in  next 
May  Day.  In  Saxony  “  people  were  not  content  with  bringing  the 
summer  symbolically  (as  king  or  queen)  into  the  village  ;  they  brought 
the  fresh  green  itself  from  the  woods  even  into  the  houses  :  that  is  the 
lay  or  Whitsuntide  trees,  which  are  mentioned  in  documents  from  the 
thirteenth  century  onwards.  The  fetching  in  of  the  May-tree  was  also 
a  lestival.  The  people  went  out  into  the  woods  to  seek  the  May  (majum 
quaerere)  brought  young  trees,  especially  firs  and  Jbirches,  to  the  village 
and  set  them  up  before  the  doors  of  the  houses  or  of  the  cattle-stalls  or 
m  the  rooms.  Young  fellows  erected  such  May-trees,  as  we  have  already 
said,  before  the  chambers  of  their  sweethearts.  Besides  these  house- 
0  ays,  a  great  May-tree  or  May-pole,  which  had  also  been  brought 
in  solemn  procession  to  the  village,  was  set  up  in  the  middle  of  the 
village  or  in  the  market-place  of  the  town.  It  had  been  chosen  by  the 


124  RELICS  OF  TREE-WORSHIP  IN  MODERN  EUROPE  ch. 

whole  community,  who  watched  over  it  most  carefully.  Generally  the 
tree  was  stripped  of  its  branches  and  leaves,  nothing  but  the  crown 
being  left,  on  which  were  displayed,  in  addition  to  many-coloured 
ribbons  and  cloths,  a  variety  of  victuals  such  as  sausages,  cakes,  and 
e,rgS  The  young  folk  exerted  themselves  to  obtain  these  piv.es. 
the  greasy  poles  which  are  still  to  be  seen  at  our  fairs  we  have  a  relic 
of  these  old  May-poles.  Not  uncommonly  there  was  a  race  on  foot 
or  on  horseback  to  the  May-tree-a  Whitsunday  pastime  which  m 
course  of  time  has  been  divested  of  its  goal  and  sumves  as  a  popular 
custom  to  this  day  in  many  parts  of  Germany.  At  Bordeaux  on 
the  first  of  May  the  boys  of  each  street  used  to  erect  m  it  a  May-pole, 
which  they  adorned  with  garlands  and  a  great  crown;  and  every 
evening  during  the  whole  of  the  month  the  young  people  of  both 
sexes  claimed  singing  about  the  pole.  Down  to  the  present  day  May- 
trees  decked  with  flowers  and  ribbons  are  set  up  on  May  Day  m  every 
village  and  hamlet  of  gay  Provence.  Under  them  the  young  folk 

make  merrv  and  the  old  folk  rest.  . 

In  all  these  cases,  apparently,  the  custom  is  or  was  to  bring  m  a 
new  May-tree  each  year.  However,  in  England  the  village  May-pole 
seems  as  a  rule,  at  least  in  later  times,  to  have  been  permanent,  not 
renewed  annually.  Villages  of  Upper  Bavaria  renew  their  May-pole 
once  every  three,  four,  or  five  years.  It  is  a  fir-tree  fetched  from  . 
forest  and  amid  all  the  wreaths,  flags,  and  inscriptions  with  which  it  is 
bedecked,  an  essential  part  is  the  bunch  of 'dark  green  foliage  left  at 
the  top  “  as  a  memento  that  in  it  we  have  to  do,  not  with  a  dead  pole 
but  with  a  living  tree  from  the  greenwood.”  We  can  hardly  doubt  that 
originally  the  practice  everywhere  was  to  set  up  a  new  May-tree  eve  y 
year  As  the  object  of  the  custom  was  to  bring  in  the  fructifying  spirit 
of  vegetation,  newly  awakened  in  spring,  the  end  would  have  been 
defeated  if,  instead  of  a  living  tree,  green  and  sappy,  an  old  withered 
one  had  been  erected  year  after  year  or  allowed  to  stand  permanently^ 
When  however,  the  meaning  of  the  custom  had  been  forgotten,  and  the 
May-tree  was  regarded  simply  as  a  centre  for  holiday  merry-making, 
people  saw  no  reason  for  felling  a  fresh  tree  every  year  and  preferred 
to  let  the  same  tree  stand  permanently,  only  decking  it  with  fresh 
flowers  on  May  Day.  But  even  when  the  May-pole  had  thus  become  a 
fixture,  the  need  of  giving  it  the  appearance  of  being  a  green  tree  not  a 
dead  pole,  was  sometimes  felt.  Thus  at  Weverham  in  Cheshire  are 
two  May-poles,  which  are  decorated  on  this  day  (May  Day)  with  all  due 
attention  to  the  ancient  solemnity  ;  the  sides  are  hung  with  garlan  s 
and  the  top  terminated  by  a  birch  or  other  tall  slender  tree  with  its 
leaves  on  ;  the  bark  being  peeled,  and  the  stem  spliced  to  the  pole,  so 
as  to  give  the  appearance  of  one  tree  from  the  summit  Thus  the 
renewal  of  the  May-tree  is  like  the  renewal  of  the  Harvest-May  ,  each 
is  intended  to  secure  a  fresh  portion  of  the  fertilising  spirit  of  vegetation, 
and  to  preserve  it  throughout  the  year.  But  whereas  the  efficacy  of  t 
Harvest-May  is  restricted  to  promoting  the  growth  of  the  crops,  that  ot 
the  May-tree  or  May-branch  extends  also,  as  we  have  seen,  to  women 


125 


x  RELICS  OF  TREE-WORSHIP  IN  MODERN  EUROPE 

and  cattle.  Lastly,  it  is  worth  noting  that  the  old  May-tree  is  some¬ 
times  burned  at  the  end  of  the  year.  Thus  in  the  district  of  Prague 
young  people  break  pieces  of  the  public  May-tree  and  place  them  behind 
the  holy  pictures  in  their  rooms,  where  they  remain  till  next  May  Day, 
and  aie  then  burned  on  the  hearth.  In  Wiirtemberg  the  bushes  which 
are  set  up  on  the  houses  on  Palm  Sunday  are  sometimes  left  there  for  a 
year  and  then  burnt. 

So  much  for  the  tree-spirit  conceived  as  incorporate  or  immanent 
in  the  tree.  We  have  now  to  show  that  the  tree-spirit  is  often  con¬ 
ceived  and  represented  as  detached  from  the  tree  and  clothed  in  human 
form,  and  even  as  embodied  in  living  men  or  women.  The  evidence 
for  this  anthropomorphic  representation  of  the  tree-spirit  is  largely 
to  be  found  in  the  popular  customs  of  European  peasantry. 

There  is  an  instructive  class  of  cases  in  which  the  tree-spirit  is 
represented  simultaneously  in  vegetable  form  and  in  human  form, 
which  aie  set  side  by  side  as  if  for  the  express  purpose  of  explaining 
each  other.  In  these  cases  the  human  representative  of  the  tree- 
spirit  is  sometimes  a  doll  or  puppet,  sometimes  a  living  person,  but 
whether  a  puppet  or  a  person,  it  is  placed  beside  a  tree  or  bough  ;  so 
that  together  the  person  or  puppet,  and  the  tree  or  bough,  form  a 
sort  of  bilingual  inscription,  the  one  being,  so  to  speak,  a  translation 
of  the.  other.  Here,  therefore,  there  is  no  room  left  for  doubt  that 
the  spirit  of  the  tree  is  actually  represented  in  human  form.  Thus  in 
Bohemia,  on  the  fourth  Sunday  in  Lent,  young  people  throw  a  puppet 
called  Death  into  the  water  *  then  the  girls  go  into  the  wood,  cut 
down  a  young  tree,  and  fasten  to  it  a  puppet  dressed  in  white  clothes 
to  look  like  a  woman  *  with  this  tree  and  puppet  they  go  from  house 
to  house  collecting  gratuities  and  singing  songs  with  the  refrain  : 

“We  carry  Death  out  of  the  village. 

We  bring  Summer  into  the  village.” 

Here,  as  we  shall  see  later  on,  the  "  Summer  ”  is  the  spirit  of  vegeta¬ 
tion  returning  or  reviving  in  spring.  In  some  parts  of  our  own  country 
children  go  about  asking  for  pence  with  some  small  imitations  of 
May-poles,  and  with  a  finely-dressed  doll  which  they  call  the  Lady 
of  the  May.  In  these  cases  the  tree  and  the  puppet  are  obviously 
regarded  as  equivalent. 

Thann,  in  Alsace,  a  girl  called  the  Little  May  Rose,  dressed  in 
white,  carries  a  small  May-tree,  which  is  gay  with  garlands  and  ribbons. 
Her  companions  collect  gifts  from  door  to  door,  singing  a  song  : 

“  Little  May  Rose  turn  round  three  times, 

Let  us  look  at  you  round  and  round  ! 

Rqse  of  the  May,  come  to  the  greenwood  away, 

We  will  be  merry  all. 

So  we  go  from  the  May  to  the  roses.” 

In  the  course  of  the  song  a  wish  is  expressed  that  those  who  give  nothing 
may  lose  their  fowls  by  the  marten,  that  their  vine  may  bear  no  clusters, 


126  RELICS  OF  TREE-WORSHIP  IN  MODERN  EUROPE  ch. 

their  tree  no  nuts,  their  field  no  corn  ;  the  produce  of  the  year  is 
supposed  to  depend  on  the  gifts  offered  to  these  May  singers  Here 
and  in  the  cases  mentioned  above,  where  children  go  about  with  green 
boughs  or  garlands  on  May  Day  singing  and  collecting  money,  the 
meaning  is  that  with  the  spirit  of  vegetation  they  bring  plenty  and 
(rood  luck  to  the  house,  and  they  expect  to  be  paid  for  the  service. 
In  Russian  Lithuania,  on  the  first  of  May,  they  used  to  set  up  a  green 
tree  before  the  village.  Then  the  rustic  swains  chose  the  prettiest 
girl,  crowned  her,  swathed  her  in  birch  branches  and  set  her  besi  e 
the  May-tree,  where  they  danced,  sang,  and  shouted  O  May.  U 
Mav !  ”  In  Brie  (Isle  de  France)  a  May- tree  is  erected  m  the  midst 
of  the  village  ;  its  top  is  crowned  with  flowers  ;  lower  down  it  is 
twined  with  leaves  and  twigs,  still  lower  with  huge  green  branches. 
The  girls  dance  round  it,  and  at  the  same  time  a  lad  wrapt  in  leaves 
and  called  Father  May  is  led  about.  In  the  small  towns  of  the  Franken 
Wald  mountains  in  Northern  Bavaria,  on  the  second  of  May,  a  Walber 
tree  is  erected  before  a  tavern,  and  a  man  dances  round  it,  enveloped 
in  straw  from  head  to  foot  in  such  a  way  that  the  ears  of  corn  unite 
above  his  head  to  form  a  crown.  He  is  called  the  Walber,  and  used 
to  be  led  in  procession  through  the  streets,  which  were  adorned  with 


P  Amongst  the  Slavs  of  Carinthia,  on  St.  George’s  Day  (the  twenty- 
third  of  April),  the  young  people  deck  with  flowers  and  garlands  a 
tree  which  has  been  felled  on  the  eve  of  the  festival.  The  tree  is  then 
carried  in  procession,  accompanied  with  music  and  joyful  acclama¬ 
tions  the  chief  figure  in  the  procession  being  the  Green  George  a 
voung  fellow  clad  from  head  to  foot  in  green  birch  branches  At  the 
close  of  the  ceremonies  the  Green  George,  that  is  an  effigy  of  him,  is 
thrown  into  the  water.  It  is  the  aim  of  the  lad  who  acts  Green  George 
to  step  out  of  his  leafy  envelope  and  substitute  the  effigy  so  adroitly 
that  no  one  shall  perceive  the  change.  In  many  places,  however, 
the  lad  himself  who  plays  the  part  of  Green  George  is  ducked  m  a 
river  or  pond,  with  the  express  intention  of  thus  ensuring  ram  to 
make  the  fields  and  meadows  green  in  summer.  In  some  places  the 
cattle  are  crowned  and  driven  from  their  stalls  to  the  accompaniment 

of  a  song  :  7  . 

“  Green  George  we  bring, 

Green  George  we  accompany, 

May  he  feed  our  herds  well. 

If  not,  to  the  water  with  him.” 


! 


Here  we  see  that  the  same  powers  of  making  rain  and  fostering  the 
cattle  which  are  ascribed  to  the  tree-spirit  regarded  as  incorporate 
in  the  tree,  are  also  attributed  to  the  tree-spmt  represented  by  a 


living  man.  .  .  x  i 

Among  the  gypsies  of  Transylvania  and  Roumama  the  festival 

of  Green  George  is  the  chief  celebration  of  spring.  Some  of  them 

keep  it  on  Easter  Monday,  others  on  St.  George’s  Day  (the  twenty- 

third  of  April).  On  the  eve  of  the  festival  a  young  willow  tree  is 


x  RELICS  OF  TREE-WORSHIP  IN  MODERN  EUROPE  127 

cut  down,  adorned  with  garlands  and  leaves,  and  set  up  in  the  ground. 

,  me+  rth  Chlld  ?laCG  °ne  °f  their  §arments  under  the  tree  and 
leave  it  there  over  night ;  if  next  morning  they  find  a  leaf  of  the  tree 

™  °a  ^  garnf  nt'  theT  know  that  their  delivery  will  be  easy 

a"d  sav  °  YoPutn  g°  t0  tv*  t**  “  the  ^  -  it  tffi 

and  say,  You  will  soon  die,  but  let  us  live.”  Next  morning-  the 

gypsies  gather  about  the  willow.  The  chief  figure  of  the  festival  is 

Gieen  George,  a  lad  who  is  concealed  from  top  to  toe  in  green  leaves 

and  blossoms.  He  throws  a  few  handfuls  of  grass  to  the  beasts  of 

the  tribe,  in  order  that  they  may  have  no  lack  of  fodder  throughout 

the  year  Then  he  takes  three  iron  nails,  which  have  lain  fortiiree 

drcSiNd  tS  “  Water’  and  knocks  them  into  the  willow  •  after 

which  he  pulls  them  out  and  flings  them  into  a  running  stream  to 

Preen  rte  ^  .w^tefrsPlnts-  Fmally,  a  pretence  is  made  of  throwing 
Green  George  into  the  water,  but  in  fact  it  is  only  a  puppet  made  of 

branches  and  leaves  which  is  ducked  in  the  stream.  In  this  version 

of  the  custom  the  powers  of  granting  an  easy  delivery  to  women 

asncnbedCrXmCaiTg  vitt^Y  to  the  sick  and  old  are  clearly 

the  tree  We  °J  ;  WbUe  Green  GeorSe’  the  human  double  of 
the  tree,  bestows  food  on  the  cattle,  and  further  ensures  the  favour 

the  ^le7ater"splnts  by  Patting  them  m  indirect  communication  with 

the  rel^sUtofthng  more,.exaraPles  to  the  same  effect,  we  may  sum  up 
the  results  of  the  preceding  pages  in  the  words  of  Mannhardt  •  “  The 

customs  quoted  suffice  to  establish  with  certainty  the  conclusion  that 

m  these  spring  processions  the  spirit  of  vegetation  is  often  represented 

both  by  the  May-tree  and  in  addition  by  a  man  dressed  in  green  leaves 

or  flowers  or  by  a  girl  similarly  adorned.  It  is  the  same  fpirit  Xh 

mates  the  tree  and  is  active  in  the  inferior  plants  and  which  we 

have  recognised  m  the  May-tree  and  the  Harvest-May.  Quite  con- 

firTflT  thefsplnt  1S  alf  supposed  to  manifest  his  presence  in  the 
ret  flower  of  spring  and  reveals  himself  both  in  a  girl  representing 
a  May-rose,  and  also,  as  giver  of  harvest,  in  the  person  of  the  Walbef 
The  ^recession  with  this  representative  of  the  divinity  was  supposed 
produce  the  same  beneficial  effects  on  the  fowls,  the  fruit-trees 
and  the  crops  as  the  presence  of  the  deity  himself.  In  other  words’ 

sentX^  refalfded  T*  an  imag®  but  as  an  actual  repre- 

“ta7?  h of  veSetatlon  ;  hence  the  wish  expressed  by  the 

°t  the  “ay'rose  and  the  Muy-tree  that  those  who  refuse 

blessings  whi  h  "t  *  "  ,,  *  may  have  no  share  in  the 

lessmgs  which  it  is  in  the  power  of  the  itinerant  spirit  to  bestow 

Mavbn7  f°nfC  Ude  ,that  these  begging  processions  with  May-trees  or 

fad  eve£whfr0m  d°°r  1  d°°r  (‘  bringing  the  May  or  the  summer  ’) 

held  everywhere  originally  a  serious  and,  so  to  speak,  sacramental 

umeenffiT;  r0Plie  ^  ,believed  tkat  the  god  of  growth  was  present 

to  bestow  hi  mS  ;  7  £?  Procession  he  was  brought  to  each  house 

bestow  his  blessing.  The  names  May,  Father  May  Mav  Ladv 

Queen  of  the  May,  by  which  the  anthropomorphic  spirit  of  vegetatio! 


128  RELICS  OF  TREE-WORSHIP  IN  MODERN  EUROPE  ch. 

is  often  denoted,  show  that  the  idea  of  the  spirit  of  vegetation  is  blent 
with  a  personification  of  the  season  at  which  his  powers  are  most 

strikingly  manifested/’  .  ,  , 

So  far  we  have  seen  that  the  tree-spirit  or  the  spirit  of  vegeta¬ 
tion  in  general  is  represented  either  in  vegetable  form  alone,  as  by  a 
tree  bough,  or  flower  ;  or  in  vegetable  and  human  form  simultaneous  y, 
as  by  a  tree,  bough,  or  flower  in  combination  with  a  puppet  or  a  living 
person.  It  remains  to  show  that  the  representation  of  him  by  a  tree, 
bough  or  flower  is  sometimes  entirely  dropped,  while  the  representa¬ 
tion  of  him  by  a  living  person  remains.  In  this  case  the  representative 
character  of  the  person  is  generally  marked  by  dressing  him  or  her  in 
leaves  or  flowers ;  sometimes,  too,  it  is  indicated  by  the  name  he 

Thus  in  some  parts  of  Russia  on  St.  George’s  Day  (the  twenty-third 
of  April)  a  youth  is  dressed  out,  like  our  Jack-in-the-Green,  with  leaves 
and  flowers.  The  Slovenes  call  him  the  Green  George.  Holding  a 
lighted  torch  in  one  hand  and  a  pie  in  the  other,  he  goes  out  to  the 
corn-fields,  followed  by  girls  singing  appropriate  songs  A  circle  of 
brushwood  is  next  lighted,  in  the  middle  of  which  is  set  the  pie  All 
who  take  part  in  the  ceremony  then  sit  down  around  the  fire  and  divide 
the  pie  among  them.  In  this  custom  the  Green  George  dressed  m 
leaves  and  flowers  is  plainly  identical  with  the  similarly  disguised  Gree 
George  who  is  associated  with  a  tree  in  the  Cannthian,  Transylvanian, 
and  Roumanian  customs  observed  on  the  same  day.  Again,  we  saw 
that  in  Russia  at  Whitsuntide  a  birch-tree  is  dressed  m  woman  s  clothes 
and  set  up  in  the  house.  Clearly  equivalent  to  this  is  the  custom 
observed  on  Whit-Monday  by  Russian  girls  m  the  district  of  Pmsk. 
They  choose  the  prettiest  of  their  number,  envelop  her  m  a  mass  of 
foliage  taken  from  the  birch-trees  and  maples,  and  carry  her  about 

through  the  village.  .  .  .  ^ 

In  Ruhla  as  soon  as  the  trees  begin  to  grow  green  m  spring  th 

children  assemble  on  a  Sunday  and  go  out  into  the  woods,  where  t  ey 
choose  one  of  their  playmates  to  be  the  Little  Leaf  Man.  They  break 
branches  from  the  trees  and  twine  them  about  the  child  till  on  y  is 
shoes  peep  out  from  the  leafy  mantle.  Holes  are  made  m  it  for  him 
to  see  through,  and  two  of  the  children  lead  the  Little  Leaf  Man  that 
he  may  not  stumble  or  fall.  Singing  and  dancing  they  take  him  from 
house  to  house,  asking  for  gifts  of  food  such  as  eggs  cream,  sausages 
and  cakes  Lastly  they  sprinkle  the  Leaf  Man  with  water  and  feast 
on  the  food  they7  have  collected.  In  the  Fricktal,  Switzerland,  a 

Whitsuntide  boys  go  out  into  a  wood  and  swathe  one  of  their  num  e 
in  leafy  boughs.  He  is  called  the  Whitsuntide-lout,  and  being  mounted 
on  horseback  with  a  green  branch  in  his  hand  he  is  led  back  into  the 
village  At  the  village-well  a  halt  is  called  and  the  leaf-clad  lou 
dismounted  and  ducked  in  the  trough.  Thereby  he  acquires  the  right 
of  sprinkling  water  on  everybody,  and  he  exercises  the  rig  speci  ^ 
on  girls  and  street  urchins.  The  urchins  march  before  him  in  bands 
begging  him  to  give  them  a  Whitsuntide  wetting. 


RELICS  OF  TREE-WORSHIP  IN  MODERN  EUROPE  i  >rj 


n  -ii gland  the  best-known  example  of  these  leaf-clad  mummers  is 
the  Jack-m-the-Green,  a  chimney-sweeper  who  walks  encased  in  a 
pyiamidal  framework  of  wickerwork,  which  is  covered  with  holly  and 
ivy  and  surmounted  by  a  crown  of  flowers  and  ribbons.  Thus  arraved 
he  dances  on  May  Day  at  the  head  of  a  troop  of  chimney-sweeps,  who 

th  ewt1nenCe+vi  IRF^1Ckta  ,a  Slmilar  frame  of  basketwork  is  called 
the  Whitsuntide  Basket.  As  soon  as  the  trees  begin  to  bud,  a  spot 

is  chosen  in  the  wood,  and  here  the  village  lads  make  the  frame  with 

all  secrecy,  lest  others  should  forestall  them.  Leafy  branches  are 

twined  lound  two  hoops,  one  of  which  rests  on  the  shoulders  of  the 

wearer,  the  other  encircles  his  calves  ;  holes  are  made  for  his  eyes  and 

mouth  ;  and  a  large  nosegay  crowns  the  whole.  In  this  guise  he 

appears  suddenly  in  the  village  at  the  hour  of  vespers,  preceded  by 

three  boys  blowing  on  horns  made  of  willow  bark.  The  great  obiect 

of  his  supporters  is  to  set  up  the  Whitsuntide  Basket  on  the  village 

well  and  to  keep  it  and  him  there,  despite  the  efforts  of  the  lads  from 

neighbouring  villages,  who  seek  to  carry  off  the  Whitsuntide  Basket 
and  set  it  up  on  their  own  well. 

In  the  class  of  cases  of  which  the  foregoing  are  specimens  it  is 
obvious  that  the  leaf-clad  person  who  is  led  about  is  equivalent  to  the 
May-tree,  May-bough,  or  May-doll,  which  is  carried  from  house  to 
house  by  children  begging.  Both  are  representatives  of  the  beneficent 
spirit  of  vegetation,  whose  visit  to  the  house  is  recompensed  bv  a 
present  of  money  or  food.  J 

.  0ften  the  leaf-clad  person  who  represents  the  spirit  of  vegetation 

+nklMWn  iz-the  n!.'  0r  the  queen  ;  thus>  for  example,  he  or  she  is  called 
the  May  King,  Whitsuntide  King,  Queen  of  May,  and  so  on.  These 

titles  as  Mannhardt  observes,  imply  that  the  spirit  incorporate  in 

vegetation  is  a  ruler,  whose  creative  power  extends  far  and  wide 

In  a  village  near  Salzwedel  a  May-tree  is  set  up  at  Whitsuntide  and 

the  boys  race  to  it ;  he  who  reaches  it  first  is  king  ;  a  garland  of  flowers 

is  put  round  his  neck  and  in  his  hand  he  carries  a  May-bush,  with  which 

as  the  procession  moves  along,  he  sweeps  away  the  dew.  At  each 

+i?U^iW T  Smg.a  son&’  wishin§  the  inmates  good  luck,  referring  to 
the  black  cow  m  the  stall  milking  white  milk,  black  hen  on  the  nest 
aymg  white  eggs,  and  begging  a  gift  of  eggs,  bacon,  and  so  on.  At 
the  village  of  Ellgoth  in  Silesia  a  ceremony  called  the  Kings  Race  is 
observed  at  Whitsuntide.  A  pole  with  a  cloth  tied  to  it  is  set  up  in  a 
meadow  and  the  young  men  ride  past  it  on  horseback,  each  trying 
to  snatch  away  the  cloth  as  he  gallops  by.  The  one  who  succeeds  in 
carrying  it  off  and  dipping  it  in  the  neighbouring  Oder  is  proclaimed 
hang.  Here  the  pole  is  clearly  a  substitute  for  a  May-tree.  In  some 
villages  of  Brunswick  at  Whitsuntide  a  May  King  is  completely  en¬ 
veloped  in  a  May-bush.  In  some  parts  of  Thuringen  also  they  have  a 
May  King  at  Whitsuntide,  but  he  is  dressed  up  rather  differently.  A 
rame  of  wood  is  made  in  which  a  man  can  stand  ;  it  is  completely 
covered  with  birch  boughs  and  is  surmounted  by  a  crown  of  birch  and 
owers,  in  which  a  bell  is  fastened.  This  frame  is  placed  in  the  wood 

K 


I  JO  RELICS  OF  TREE-WORSHIP  IN  MODERN  EUROPE  ch. 

-m<l  the  Mav  King  gets  into  it.  The  rest  go  out  and  look  for  hint,  and 
when  they  hav^found  him  they  lead  him  back  into  the  village  to  he 
magistrate  the  clergyman,  and  others,  who  have  to  guess  who  is  m  t  e  j 
Srous  frame  If  they  guess  wrong,  the  May  King  rings  his  bell 

5  «.?■ ^fsuccessfuld^ gu^ser.  at 

distinguisheil  bym  eggs  limn  hcmselo  house,  threatening 

5  “■  <*  m  by  .by  b-  throughout 

1h  ’  ar  in  this  custom  the  high-steward  appears,  for  some  leason, 

to  have  usurped  the  insignia  of  the  king.  At  Mfeheim 

fellows  go  about  on  the  afternoon  of  Whit-Monday  crac™6 
hrng  whips  in  measured  time  and  collecting  eggs  from  the  houses.  The 
ddd  person  of  the  band  is  the  Leaf  King,  a  lad  swathed  so  complete^ 
in  birchen  twigs  that  nothing  of  him  can  be  seen  but  his  feet.  A  hug 
head-dress  of  birchen  twigs  adds  to  his  apparent  stature.  In  his  ha 
he  carries  a  long  crook,  with  which  he  tries  to  catch  stray  dogs  and 
Children  In  some  parts  of  Bohemia  on  Whit-Monday  the  young 
Sows  disguise  themselves  in  tall  caps  of  birch  bark  adorned  with 
flowers  One  of  them  is  dressed  as  a  king  and  dragged  on  a  sledge  . 
the  village  green,  and  if  on  the  way  they  pass  a  pool  the  sledge  ^  always 
overturned  into  it.  Arrived  at  the  green  they  gather  round  the  king  , 
the  crier  jumps  on  a  stone  or  climbs  up  a  tree  and  recites  la™P°° 
about  each  house  and  its  inmates.  Afterwards  the  disguises 
are  stripped  off  and  they  go  about  the  village  in  holiday  attire,  carrying 
•I  Mav-tree  and  begging.  Cakes,  eggs,  and  corn  are  sometimes  given 

them>  At  Grossvargula,  near  Langensalza,  in  the  n*.  fnt*S 

„  Crass  King  used  to  be  led  about  in  procession  at  Whitsuntide.  He 
iS«.«?lu  .  pyramid  .1  poplar  branches  ,b.  bap  »<  *ch  ™ 
adorned  with  a  royal  crown  of  branches  and  flowers.  H 

horseback  with  the  leafy  pyramid  over  him  50  '  folTs"  face 

touched  the  ground,  and  an  opening  was  left  in  it  only  for  Ins  face 
Surrounded  by  a  cavalcade  of  young  fellows,  he  rode  m  procession 
the  town  hall,  the  parsonage,  and  so  on,  where  they  all  got  a  drin 
her  Then  under  the  seven  lindens  of  the  neighbouring  Sommerberg 
the  Grass  King  was  stripped  of  his  green  casing  ;  the  crown  was  hande 
to  fte  Mayor8  and  thetauiches  were  stuck  in  the  flax  fields  m  order 
to  make  the  flax  grow  tall.  In  this  last  trait  the  fertilising  influence 
ascribed  to  the  representative  of  the  tree-spirit  comes  out  clearly.  In 
the  neighbourhood  of  Pilsen  (Bohemia)  a  conical  hut  of  green  branches, 
without  any  door,  is  erected  at  Whitsuntide  in  the  midst  of  the  villa^ 
To  this  hut  rides  a  troop  of  village  lads  witli  a  king  at  their  hea  . 
weaS  a  sword  at  his  side  and  a\ugar-loaf  hat  of  rushes  on  his  head 
Tn  his  train  are  a  judge,  a  crier,  and  a  personage  called  the  Frog-flayer 
or  Hangman.  This  last  is  a  sort  of  ragged  merryandrew,  wearing  a 


x  RELICS  OF  TREE-WORSHIP  IN  MODERN  EUROPE  131 

rusty  old  sword  and  bestriding  a  sorry  hack.  On  reaching  the  hut  the 
crier  dismounts  and  goes  round  it  looking  for  a  door.  Finding  none 
he  says,  Ah,  this  is  perhaps  an  enchanted  castle  ;  the  witches  creep 
thiough  the  leaves  and  need  no  door.”  At  last  he  draws  his  sword 
and  hews  his  way  into  the  hut,  where  there  is  a  chair,  on  which  he  seats 
himself  and  proceeds  to  criticise  in  rhyme  the  girls,  farmers  and 
arm-seivants  of  the  neighbourhood.  When  this  is  over,  the  Fro£- 
ayer  steps  forward  and,  after  exhibiting  a  cage  with  fro^s  in  it  sets 
up  a  gallows  on  which  he  hangs  the  frogs  in  a  row.  In  the  neighbour¬ 
hood  of  PI  as  the  ceremony  differs  in  some  points.  The  king  and  his 
soldiers  are  completely  clad  in  bark,  adorned  with  flowers  and  ribbons  ; 
they  all  carry  swords  and  ride  horses,  which  are  gay  with  green  branches 
and  flowers.  While  the  village  dames  and  girls  are  being  criticised 
at  the  arbour,  a  frog  is  secretly  pinched  and  poked  by  the  crier  till  it 
quacks.  Sentence  of  death  is  passed  on  the  frog  by  the  kin0- ;  the 
hangman  beheads  it  and  flings  the  bleeding  body  among  the  spectators. 
Lastly,  the  king  is  driven  from  the  hut  and  pursued  by  the  soldiers. 
The  pinching  and  beheading  of  the  frog  are  doubtless,  as  Mannhardt 
observes,  a  rain-charm.  We  have  seen  that  some  Indians  of  the 
Orinoco  beat  frogs  for  the  express  purpose  of  producing  rain,  and  that 
killing  a  frog  is  a  European  rain-charm. 

.  °ften  the  spirit  of  vegetation  in  spring  is  represented  by  a  queen 
instead  of  a  king;  In  the  neighbourhood  of  Libchowic  (Bohemia),  on  the 
fourth  Sunday  in  Lent,  girls  dressed  in  white  and  wearing  the  first 
spring  flowers,  as  violets  and  daisies,  in  their  hair,  lead  about  the  village 
a  girl  who  is  called  the  Queen  and  is  crowned  with  flowers.  During  the 
procession,  which  is  conducted  with  great  solemnity,  none  of  the  girls 
may  stand  still,  but  must  keep  whirling  round  continually  and  singing. 
In  every  house  the  Queen  announces  the  arrival  of  spring  and  wishes 
the  inmates  good  luck  and  blessings,  for  which  she  receives  presents. 
In  German  Hungary  the  girls  choose  the  prettiest  girl  to  be  their 
Whitsuntide  Queen,  fasten  a  towering  wreath  on  her  brow,  and  carry 
her  singing  through  the  streets.  At  every  house  they  stop,  sing  old 
ballads,  and  receive  presents.  In  the  south-east  of  Ireland  on' May 
Day  the  prettiest  girl  used  to  be  chosen  Queen  of  the  district  for  twelve 
months.  .  She  was  crowned  with  wild  flowers  ;  feasting,  dancing, 
and  rustic  sports  followed,  and  were  closed  by  a  grand  procession  in 
the  evening.  During  her  year  of  office  she  presided  over  rural  gather¬ 
ings  of  young  people  at  dances  and  merry-makings.  If  she  married 
before  next  May  Day,  her  authority  was  at  an  end,  but  her  successor 
was  not  elected  till  that  day  came  round.  The  May  Queen  is  common 
m  France  and  familiar  in  England. 

Again  the  spirit  of  vegetation  is  sometimes  represented  by  a  king 
and  queen,  a  lord  and  lady,  or  a  bridegroom  and  bride.  Here  again 
the  parallelism  holds  between  the  anthropomorphic  and  the  vegetable 
representation  of  the  tree-spirit,  for  we  have  seen  above  that  trees  are 
sometimes  married  to  each  other.  At  Halford  in  south  Warwickshire 
the  children  go  from  house  to  house  on  May  Day,  walking  two  and  two 


132  RELICS  OF  TREE-WORSHIP  IN  MODERN  EUROPE  ch. 

in  procession  and  headed  by  a  King  and  Queen.  Two  boys  carry  a 
May-pole  some  six  or  seven  feet  high,  which  is  covered  with  flowers 
and  greenery.  Fastened  to  it  near  the  top  are  two  cross-bars  at  right 
angles  to  each  other.  These  are  also  decked  with  flowers  and  from 
thf  ends  of  the  bars  hang  hoops  similarly  adorned  At  the  houses  the 
children  sing  May  songs  and  receive  money,  which  is  used  to  provide 
tea  for  them  at  the  schoolhouse  in  the  afternoon.  In  a  Bohemiaji 
village  near  Koniggratz  on  Whit-Monday  the  children  play  the  kings 
game,  at  which  a  king  and  queen  march  about  under  a  canopy,  the 
queen  wearing  a  garland,  and  the  youngest  girl  carrying  two  wreaths 
on  a  plate  behind  them.  They  are  attended  by  boys  and  gills  called 
groomsmen  and  bridesmaids,  and  they  go  from  house  to  house  collecting 
gifts.  A  regular  feature  in  the  popular  celebration  of  Whitsuntide 
Silesia  used  to  be,  and  to  some  extent  still  is,  the  contest  for  the  king- 
ship  This  contest  took  various  forms,  but  the  mark  or  goal  was 
generally  the  May-tree  or  May-pole.  Sometimes  the  youth  who  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  climbing  the  smooth  pole  and  bringing  down  the  prize  was 
proclaimed  the  Whitsuntide  King  and  his  sweetheart  the  Whitsuntide 
Bride.  Afterwards  the  king,  carrying  the  May-bush,  repaired  wi 
the  rest  of  the  company  to  the  alehouse,  where  a  dance  and  a  feast 
ended  the  merry-making.  Often  the  young  farmers  and  labourers 
raced  on  horseback  to  the  May-pole,  which  was  adorned  with  flowers, 
ribbons,  and  a  crown.  He  who  first  reached  the  pole  was  the  Whitsun- 
tide  King,  and  the  rest  had  to  obey  his  orders  for  that  day.  The  wore 
rider  became  the  clown.  At  the  May-tree  all  dismounted  and  hoisted 
the  king  on  their  shoulders.  He  nimbly  swarmed  up  the  pole  and 
brought  down  the  May-bush  and  the  crown,  which  had  been  fastened 
to  the  top.  Meantime  the  clown  hurried  to  the  alehouse  and  proceeded 
to  bolt  thirty  rolls  of  bread  and  to  swig  four  quart  bottles  of  brandy 
with  the  utmost  possible  despatch.  He  was  followed  by  the  king  who 
bore  the  May-bush  and  crown  at  the  head  of  the  company.  If  on  their 
arrival  the  clown  had  already  disposed  of  the  rolls  and  the  brandy, 
and  greeted  the  king  with  a  speech  and  a  glass  of  beer,  his .  score  was 
paid  by  the  king  ;  otherwise  he  had  to  settle  it  himself.  After  churc 
time  the  stately  procession  wound  through  the  village.  At  the  head 
of  it  rode  the  king,  decked  with  flowers  and  carrying  the  May-bush. 
Next  came  the  clown  with  his  clothes  turned  inside  out,  a  great  flaxen 
beard  on  his  chin,  and  the  Whitsuntide  crown  on  his  head.  Two 
riders  disguised  as  guards  followed.  The  procession  drew  up  before 
every  farmyard  ;  the  two  guards  dismounted,  shut  the  clown  into  the 
house  and  claimed  a  contribution  from  the  housewife  to  buy  soap 
with  which  to  wash  the  clown’s  beard.  Custom  allowed  them  to 
carry  off  any  victuals  which  were  not  under  lock  and  key.  Last  of  all 
they  came  to  the  house  in  which  the  king’s  sweetheart  lived.  She  was 
greeted  as  Whitsuntide  Queen  and  received  suitable  presents— to  wit, 
a  many-coloured  sash,  a  cloth,  and  an  apron.  The  king  got  as  a  prize, 
a  vest,  a  neckcloth,  and  so  forth,  and  had  the  right  of  setting  up  the 
May-bush  or  Whitsuntide-tree  before  his  master’s  yard,  where  it 


x  RELICS  OF  TREE-WORSHIP  IN  MODERN  EUROPE  133 

remained  as  an  honourable  token  till  the  same  day  next  year  Finally 
the  Procession  took  its  way  to  the  tavern,  where  the  king  and  queen 
opened  the  dance.  Sometimes  the  Whitsuntide  King  "and  Queen 
succeeded  to  office  in  a  different  way.  A  man  of  straw,  fs  large  as  life 
nd  crowned  with  a  red  cap,  was  conveyed  in  a  cart,  between  two  men 
armed  and  disguised  as  guards,  to  a  place  where  a  mock  court  was 
waiting  to  try  him.  A  great  crowd  followed  the  cart.  After  a  formal 
rial  the  straw  man  was  condemned  to  death  and  fastened  to  a  stake 

to  ‘el  T tion  ground.  The  young  men  with  bandaged  eyes  tried 
to  stab  him  with  a  spear.  He  who  succeeded  became  king  and  his 
sweetheai  t  queen  The  straw  man  was  known  as  the  Goliath. 

dress^n  aTtH  of.®en™frk  it  used  to  be  the  custom  at  Whitsuntide  to 
dres.,  up  a  little  girl  as  the  Whitsun-bride  and  a  little  boy  as  her  groom 

She  was  decked  m  all  the  finery  of  a  grown-up  bride,  and  wore  a^rown 
of  the  freshest  flowers  of  spring  on  her  head.  Her  groom  was  as  gav 
as  flowers  ribbons,  and  knots  could  make  him.  The  other  children 
adorned  themselves  as  best  they  could  with  the  yellow  flowers  of  the 
trollius  and  caltha.  Then  they  went  in  great  state  from  farmhouse 

bridesmaids56’  T  glrls,  walking  at  the  head  of  the  procession  as 

horses  tod an  d  S1X  °r  .elght  outnders  galloping  ahead  on  hobby¬ 
horses  to  announce  their  coming.  Contributions  of  eggs,  butter 

oaves,  cream,  coffee,  sugar,  and  tallow-candles  were  received  and 

conveyed  away  in  baskets.  When  they  had  made  the  round  of  the 

and  th  STm°  tha  farm.ers  Wlves  helped  to  arrange  the  wedding  feast 
nd  the  children  danced  merrily  in  clogs  on  the  stamped  clay  floor  till 

the  sun  lose  and  the  birds  began  to  sing.  All  this  is  now  a  thing  of 

e  past.  Only  the  old  folks  still  remember  the  little  Whitsun-bride 
and  her  mimic  pomp. 

with^M^v'n  S66n  Sw®den  the  ceremonies  associated  elsewhere 

Accordingly  w'  °fi  Vbds"ntlde  commonly  take  place  at  Midsummer. 
Accordingly  we  find  that  in  some  parts  of  the  Swedish  province  of 

coronefhthey  StlUcho°se  a  Midsummer’s  Bride,  to  whom  the  "  church 
~  dS  0C,;asi°naI1y  lent-  The  girl  selects  for  herself  a  Bride- 

fooked’  ?ld  a  C0llectl0IJ IS  ,IJlade  for  the  Pair-  who  for  the  time  being  are 
looked  on  as  man  and  wife.  The  other  youths  also  choose  each  Ins 

de.  A  similar  ceremony  seems  to  be  still  kept  up  in  Norway 

wmnnn6  nelghbo1urhood  of  Brianfon  (Dauphine)  on  May  Day  the  lads 
rap  up  m  green  leaves  a  young  fellow  whose  sweetheart  has  deserted 

be  asleen  T  d°W"  °n  the  ground  and  feigns  to 

and  wl«  i,Then  a,&lr?  whobkes  hlm-  and  would  marry  him,  comes 

thev  T‘ 1  raiS1Ilg  h™  Up  offers  him  her  arm  and  a  flaS-  So 

rnnftSm  1  th  al®houf  -  where  the  Palr  lead  off  the  dancing.  But  they 
fy  ,Wltk"*he  Tear'  or  they  are  treated  as  old  bachelor  and 

is  called  thenR  T  debarred  ,the  company  of  the  young  folk.  The  lad 
off  hk  v  Bridegroom  of  the  month  of  May.  In  the  alehouse  he  puts 

in  tt,15  b,alment  °f  leavcs'  out  of  which,  mixed  with  flowers,  his  partner 

when V  inCa  TakeS  3  nosegay-  and  wears  it  at  her  breast  next  day, 
when  he  leads  her  again  to  the  alehouse.  Like  this  is  a  Russian  custom 


134  RELICS  OF  TREE-WORSHIP  IN  MODERN  EUROPE  ch. 

observed  in  the  district  of  Nerechta  on  the  Thursday  before  Whit-  1 
sundav  The  girls  go  out  into  a  birch-wood,  wind  a  girdle  or  ban 
round' a  stately  birch,  twist  its  lower  branches  into  a  wreath,  and  kiss 
each  other  in  pairs  through  the  wreath.  The  girls  who  kiss  throug 
the  wreath  call  each  other  gossips. .  Then  one  of  the  girls  steps  forward, 
and  m  m  king  a  drunken  man,  flings  herself  on  the  ground,  rolls  on 
the  g  ITs  and  feigns  to  fall  fast  asleep.  Another  girl  wakens  the 
pretended  sleeper  and  kisses  him  ;  then  the  whole  bevy  trips  singing 
through  the  wood  to  twine  garlands,  which  they  throw  into  the  water. 

In  thf  fate  of  the  garlands  floating  on  the  stream  they  read  their  own. 
Here  the  part  of  the  sleeper  was  probably  at  one  time  played  by  a  la  . 
hr  these  French  and  Russian  customs  we  have  a  forsaken  bridegroom 
in  the  following  a  forsaken  bride.  On  Shrove  Tuesday  the  Slovenes 
of  Oberkrain  drag  a  straw  puppet  with  joyous  cries  up  and  down  t  o 
village  •  then  they  throw  it  into  the  water  or  burn  it,  and  from  the 
height  of  the  flames  they  judge  of  the  abundance  of  the  next  harvest 
The  noisy  crew  is  followed  by  a  female  masker,  w  o  rags  a  g 
board  bv  a  string  and  gives  out  that  she  is  a  forsaken  bride.  . 
b  1  Vie  Jed  in  the  light  of  what  has  gone  before,  the  awakening  of  the 
forsaken  sleeper  in  these  ceremonies  probably  represents  the  revival 
of  vegetation  in  spring.  But  it  is  not  easy  to  assign  then  respective 
parts  to  the  forsaken  bridegroom  and  to  the  girl  who  wakes  him  from 
his  slumber.  Is  the  sleeper  the  leafless  forest  or  the  bare  earth  o 
winter  ?  Is  the  girl  who  wakens  him  the  fresh  verdure  or  the  genial 
sunshine  of  spring  ?  It  is  hardly  possible,  on  the  evidence  before  us, 

to  answer  que^  ^  Scotland  the  revival  of  vegetation  in  spring 

used  to  be  graphically  represented  on  St.  Bride’s  Day,  the  first  o 
February.  Thus  in  the  Hebrides  “  the  mistress  and  servants  of  each 
family  take  a  sheaf  of  oats,  and  dress  it  up  in  women  s  apparel,  put 
it  in  a  large  basket,  and  lay  a  wooden  club  by  it,  and  this  they  ca 
Briid’s  bed  ;  and  then  the  mistress  and  servants  cry  three  times, 

‘  Briid  is  come,  Briid  is  welcome.’  This  they  do  just  befor®  §olnjL° 
bed,  and  when  they  rise  in  the  morning  they  look  among  the  ashes, 
expecting  to  see  the  impression  of  Briid’s  club  there  ;  which  if  -  CY  > 
they  reckon  it  a  true  presage  of  a  good  crop  and  prosperous  yeai,  < 
theJontrary  they  take  as  an  ill  omen.”  The  same  custom  is  desenb 
by  another  witness  thus  :  “  Upon  the  night  before  Cand  emas  it  s 
usual  to  make  a  bed  with  corn  and  hay,  over  which  some  blankets  are 
laid  in  a  part  of  the  house,  near  the  door.  When  it  is  ready,  a  peison 
goes  out  and  repeats  three  times,  .  .  .  ‘  Bridget,  Bridget,  come  111  j 
thv  bed  is  ready.’  One  or  more  candles  are  left  burning  near  it  all 
nDht ’’  Similarly  in  the  Isle  of  Man  "  on  the  eve  of  the  first  of 
February,  a  festival  was  formerly  kept,  called,  in  the  Manks  language, 
Laa’l  Breeshev  in  honour  of  the  Irish  lady  who  went  over  to  the  Isle 
inLtA.  the  veil  from  St  Maughold.  The  eu.tom  w«  » 
„ather  a  bundle  of  green  rushes,  and  standing  with  them  m  the  hanO 
on  the  threshold  of  the  door,  to  invite  the  holy  Saint  Bridget  to  com 


xi  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  SEXES  ON  VEGETATION  135 

and  lodge  with  them  that  night.  In  the  Manks  language,  the  invitation 
if n  v  US  ‘  tire'dc,  Brede,  tar  gys  my  thie  tar  dyn  thie  ayms  noght 
roshiljeeyn  dorrys  da  Brede,  as  Ihig  da  Brede  e  heet  staigh.  ’  In  English  : 

ridget,  Bridget,  come  to  my  house,  come  to  my  house  to-night 
Open  the  door  for  Bridget,  and  let  Bridget  come  in/  After  these 
words  were  repeated,  the  rushes  were  strewn  on  the  floor  by  way  of  a 
carpet  or  bed  for  St.  Bridget.  A  custom  very  similar  to  this  was  also 
observed  m  some  of  the  Out-Isles  of  the  ancient  kingdom  of  Man/' 
In  these  Manx  and  Highland  ceremonies  it  is  obvious  that  St.  Bride,  or 
St.  Bridget,  is  an  old  heathen  goddess  of  fertility,  disguised  in  a  thread¬ 
bare  Christian  cloak.  Probably  she  is  no  other  than  Brigit,  the  Celtic 
goddess  of  fire  and  apparently  of  the  crops. 

Often  the  marriage  of  the  spirit  of  vegetation  in  spring,  though  not 
irectly  represented,  is  implied  by  naming  the  human  representative  of 
the  spirit,  “  the  Bride,”  and  dressing  her  in  wedding  attire.  Thus  in 
some  villages  of  Altmark  at  Whitsuntide,  while  the  boys  go  about 
carrying  a  May-tree  or  leading  a  boy  enveloped  in  leaves  and  flowers 
the  girls  lead  about  the  May  Bride,  a  girl  dressed  as  a  bride  with  a  great 
nosegay  in  her  hair.  They  go  from  house  to  house,  the  May  Bride 
smgmg  a  song  in  which  she  asks  for  a  present,  and  tells  the  inmates  of 
each  house  that  if  they  give  her  something  they  will  themselves  have 
something  the  whole  year  through  ;  but  if  they  give  her  nothing  they 
will  themselves  have  nothing.  In  some  parts  of  Westphalia  two  girls 
lead  a  flower-crowned  girl  called  the  Whitsuntide  Bride  from  door  to 
door,  singing  a  song  in  which  they  ask  for  eggs. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  SEXES  ON  VEGETATION 

From  the  preceding  examination  of  the  spring  and  summer  festivals  of 
Europe  we  may  infer  that  our  rude  forefathers  personified  the  powers 
of  vegetation  as  male  and  female,  and  attempted,  on  the  principle  of 
homoeopathic  or  imitative  magic,  to  quicken  the  growth  of  trees  and 
plants  by  representing  the  marriage  of  the  sylvan  deities  in  the  persons 
of  a  King  and  Queen  of  May,  a  Whitsun  Bridegroom  and  Bride,  and  so 
orth.  .  Such  representations  were  accordingly  no  mere  symbolic  or 
allegorical  dramhs,  pastoral  plays  designed  to  amuse  or  instruct  a  rustic 
audience.  They  were  charms  intended  to  make  the  woods  to  grow 
green,  the  fresh  grass  to  sprout,  the  corn  to  shoot,  and  the  flowers  to 
blow.  And  it  was  natural  to  suppose  that  the  more  closely  the  mock 
marriage  of  the  leaf-clad  or  flower-decked  mummers  aped  the  real 
marriage  of  the  woodland  sprites,  the  more  effective  would  be  the 
charm.  Accordingly  we  may  assume  with  a  high  degree  of  probability 
that  the  profligacy  which  notoriously  attended  these  ceremonies  was  at 
one  time  not  an  accidental  excess  but  an  essential  part  of  the  rites,  and 
that  in  the  opinion  of  those  who  performed  them  the  marriage  of  trees 


I36  the  influence  of  the  SEXES  ON  VEGETATION  ch. 

and  plants  could  not  be  fertile  without  the  real  union  of  the  human  sexes. 

At  the  present  day  it  might  perhaps  be  vain  to  look  m  civilised  Europe 
for  customs  of  this  sort  observed  for  the  explicit  purpose  of  promoting 
the  growth  of  vegetation.  But  ruder  races  in  other  parts  of  the  world 
have  consciously  employed  the  intercourse  of  the  sexes  as  a  means  to 
ensure  the  fruitfulness  of  the  earth  ;  and  some  rites  which  are  still,  or 
were  till  lately,  kept  up  in  Europe  can  be  reasonably  explained  only  as 
stunted  relics  of  a  similar  practice.  The  following  facts  will  make  this 

^  C  For  four  days  before  they  committed  the  seed  to  the  earth  the 
Pipiles  of  Central  America  kept  apart  from  their  wives  “  in  order  that 
on  the  night  before  planting  they  might  indulge  their  passions  to  the 
fullest  extent ;  certain  persons  are  even  said  to  have  been  appointed 
to  perform  the  sexual  act  at  the  very  moment  when  the  first  seeds  were 
deposited  in  the  ground/'  The  use  of  their  wives  at  that  time  was 
indeed  enjoined  upon  the  people  by  the  priests  as  a  religious  duty  m 
default  of  which  it  was  not  lawful  to  sow  the  seed.  The  only  possible 
explanation  of  this  custom  seems  to  be  that  the  Indians  confused  the 
process  by  which  human  beings  reproduce  their  kind  with  the  process 
by  which  plants  discharge  the  same  function,  and  fancied  that  by 
resorting  to  the  former  they  were  simultaneously  forwarding  the  latter. 
In  some  parts  of  Java,  at  the  season  when  the  bloom  will  soon  be  on  the 
rice  the  husbandman  and  his  wife  visit  their  fields  by  night  and  there 
engage  in  sexual  intercourse  for  the  purpose  of  promoting  the  growth 
of  the  crop.  In  the  Leti,  Sarmata,  and  some  other  groups  of  islands 
which  lie  between  the  western  end  of  New  Guinea  and  the  northern 
part  of  Australia,  the  heathen  population  regard  the  sun  as  the  male 
principle  by  whom  the  earth  or  female  principle  is  fertilised.  1  hey  call 
him  Upu-lera  or  Mr.  Sun,  and  represent  him  under  the  form  of  a  lamp 
made  of  coco-nut  leaves,  which  may  be  seen  hanging  everywhere  m 
their  houses  and  in  the  sacred  fig-tree.  Under  the  tree  lies  a  large  flat 
stone,  which  serves  as  a  sacrificial  table.  .  On  it  the  heads  of  slam  foes 
were  and  are  still  placed  in  some  of  the  islands.  Once  a  year,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  rainy  season,  Mr.  Sun  comes  down  into  the  holy  fig-tree 
to  fertilise  the  earth,  and  to  facilitate  his  descent  a  ladder  with  seven 
rungs  is  considerately  placed  at  his  disposal.  It  is  set  up  under  the  tree 
and  is  adorned  with  carved  figures  of  the  birds  whose  shrill  clarion 
heralds  the  approach  of  the  sun  in  the  East.  On  this  occasion  pigs 
and  dogs  are  sacrificed  in  profusion  ;  men  and  women  alike  indulge 
in  a  saturnalia ;  and  the  mystic  union  of  the  sun  and  the  earth  is 
dramatically  represented  in  public,  amid  song  and  dance,  by  the  re 
union  of  the  sexes  under  the  tree.  The  object  of  the  festival  we  are 
told,  is  to  procure  rain,  plenty  of  food  and  drink,  abundance  of  cattle 
and  children  and  riches  from  Grandfather  Sun.  They  pray  that  he  may 
make  every  she-goat  to  cast  two  or  three  young,  the  people  to  multiply, 
the  dead  pigs  to  be  replaced  by  living  pigs,  the  empty  rice-baskets  to  be 
filled,  and  so  on.  And  to  induce  him  to  grant  their  requests  they  otter 
him  pork  and  rice  and  liquor,  and  invite  him  to  fall  to.  In  the  Babar 


xi  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  SEXES  ON  VEGETATION  i37 

Islands  a  special  flag  is  hoisted  at  this  festival  as  a  symbol  of  the 
creative  energy  of  the  sun  ;  it  is  of  white  cotton,  about  nine  feet  high 
and  consists  of  the  figure  of  a  man  in  an  appropriate  attitude.  It 
would  be  unjust  to  treat  these  orgies  as  a  mere  outburst  of  unbridled 
passion  ;  no  doubt  they  are  deliberately  and  solemnly  organised  as 
essential  to  the  fertility  of  the  earth  and  the  welfare  of  man 

The  same  means  which  are  thus  adopted  to  stimulate  the  growth  of 
the  ci  ops  are  naturally  employed  to  ensure  the  fruitfulness  of  trees 
In  some  parts  of  Amboyna,  when  the  state  of  the  clove  plantation 
in  icates  that  the  crop  is  likely  to  be  scanty,  the  men  go  naked  to  the 
plantations  by  night,  and  there  seek  to  fertilise  the  trees  precisely  as 
they  would  impregnate  women,  while  at  the  same  time  they  call  out  for 

abundantly  ^  ^  1S  SUpp0Sed  to  nlake  the  trees  bear  fruit  more 

The  Baganda  of  Central  Africa  believe  so  strongly  in  the  intimate 
relation  between  the  intercourse  of  the  sexes  and  the  fertility  “the 
ground  that  among  them  a  barren  wife  is  generally  sent  away  .because 
she  is  supposed  to  prevent  her  husband’s  garden  from  bearing  fruit 

fertihtv  b v^lie al*y '  *  a  ^UP'e  Wh°  haV®  given  pr°°f  of  extraordinary 
,  ,  1  ty  ky  becoming  the  parents  of  twins  are  believed  by  the  Baganda 

to  be  endowed  with  a  corresponding  power  of  increasing  the  fruitfulness 

of  the  pkntam-trees,  which  furnish  them  with  their  staple  food.  Some 

ittle  time  after  the  birth  of  the  twins  a  ceremony  is  performed,  the 

bject  of  which  clearly  is  to  transmit  the  reproductive  virtue  of  the 

parents  to  the  plantains.  The  mother  lies  down  on  her  back  in  the 

her  kls^th^h  ^  h°use,and  PIaces  a  flower  of  the  plantain  between 
her  legs  ,  then  her  husband  comes  and  knocks  the  flower  away  with  his 

genital  member.  Further,  the  parents  go  through  the  country  per! 

forming  dances  in  the  gardens  of  favoured  friends,  apparently  fo/the 

purpose  of  causing  the  plantain-trees  to  bear  fruit  more  abundantly 

and  a  van°us  Pa£ts  °f  ?Ur0pe  customs  have  prevailed  both  at  spring 

relation  oflb  h  are  d6arly  baS6d  °n  the  same  crude  ™tion  that  thf 

the  amwth  S®X  ®S  t0  each  other  can  be  50  used  as  to  quicken 

e  grow  th  of  plants.  For  example,  in  the  Ukraine  on  St.  George’s  Day 

the  wenty-thn-d  of  April)  the  priest  in  h.s  robes,  attended®  by  1% 

bednn'in/tT  1 0Ut  t0  th®  ,,fields  °f  th®  vlUaSe’  where  the  crops  are 
th?t  tt,y  h°W  greC,n  ab°Ve  the  ground-  and  blesses  them.  After 
and  roll  cp,0™?  ,marned  PeoPle  he  down  in  couples  on  the  sown  fields 
the  mowth TAu  over  on  them,  in  the  belief  that  this  will  promote 

rofled  bv  to!  Cr°PS;n  "  S°me  partS  °f  Russia  the  P^est  himself  is 
the  mud  0Ve"theksProutmg  crop,  and  that  without  regard  to 

If  tt  i  U  es  Whlch  he  may  encounter  in  his  beneficent  progress 
Father  Pfrd  reS1StS  or  remonstrates,  his  flock  murmurs,  “  Little 
although  vo  H  not.  really  wish  us  well,  you  do  not  wish  us  to  have  corn, 

at  iarvest  tb  Q°  W‘Sh  °  llVC  °"  °Ur  corn”  some  parts  of  Germany 

on  the  field  eTt,en  and  women’ w*°  have  reaped  the  corn,  roll  together 

custom  deshr  a®am  13  Probably  a  mitigation  of  an  older  and  ruder 
custom  designed  to  impart  fertility  to  the  fields  by  methods  like  those 


i38  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  SEXES  ON  VEGETATION  CH. 

resorted  to  by  the  I’ipiles  of  Central  America  long  ago  and  by  the 
mltivators  of  rice  in  Tava  at  the  present  time. 

To  the  student  who  cares  to  track  the  devious  course  of  the  human 
mind  in  its  gropings  after  truth,  it  is  of  some  interest  to  observe  that 
the  same  theoretical  belief  in  the  sympathetic  influence  of  the  sexes 
on  vegetation,  which  has  led  some  peoples  to  indulge  their  passions 
as  a  means  of  fertilising  the  earth,  has  led  others  to  seek  the  same  end 
by  directly  opposite  means.  From  the  moment  that  they  sowed  the 
maize  till  the  time  that  they  reaped  it,  the  Indians  of  Nicaragua  ive 
chastely  keeping  apart  from  their  wives  and  sleeping  m  a  separate 
plice  They  ate  no  salt,  and  drank  neither  cocoa  nor  chicha (  the 
fermented  liquor  made  from  maize  ;  in  short  the  season  was  for  them 
as  the  Spanish  historian  observes,  a  time  of  abstinence.  To  th  s  .y 
some  of  the  Indian  tribes  of  Central  America  practise  continence  for 
the  purpose  of  thereby  promoting  the  growth  of  the  crops.  T  u 
we  are  told  that  before  sowing  the  maize  the  ICekchi  Indians  sleep 
amrt  from  their  wives,  and  eat  no  flesh  for  five  days,  while  among  t  e 
Lanoifineres  and  Cajiboneros  the  period  of  abstinence  from  these 
carnal  pleasures  extends  to  thirteen  days.  So  amongst  some  of  the 
Germans  of  Transylvania  it  is  a  rule  that  no  man  may  sleep  with  is 
wife  during  the  whole  of  the  time  that  he  is  engaged  in  sowing  his 
fields  Th!  same  rule  is  observed  at  Kalotaszeg  m  Hungary  the 
people  think  that  if  the  custom  were  not  observed  the  coin  would 
be  mildewed.  Similarly  a  Central  Australian  headman  of  the  kaitish 
tribe  strictly  abstains  from  marital  relations  with  his  wife  all  tl 
-i-i me  that  he  is  performing  magical  ceremonies  to  make  the  grass  gro\  , 
fefh!  believes  !hat  a  breach  !f  this  rule  would  prevent  the  grass  seed 
from  sprouting  properly.  In  some  of  the  Melanesian  islands,  w 
the  yam  vines§  are  being  trained,  the  men  sleep  near  the  gardens  and 
neyer  Approach  their  wives  ;  should  they  enter  the  garden  after 
breakingPPthis  rule  of  continence  the  fruits  of  the  garden  would  be 

spoilt,  e  ^  wh  ;t  ;s  tilat  similar  beliefs  should  logically  lead,  among 
different  peoples,  to  such  opposite  modes  of  conduct  as  strict  chasti  y 
and  more  orP  less  open  debauchery,  the  reason,  as  it  presents  itself 
to  the  primitive  mind,  is  perhaps  not  very  far  to  seek.  If  rude  man 
identifies  himself,  in  a  manner,  with  nature  ;  if  he  fails  to  distmguis 
the  impulses  and  processes  in  himself  from  the  methods  which  nature 
ado^o  ensure  the  reproduction  of  plants  and  animals,  he  may 
feap  to  one  of  two  conclusions.  Either  he  may  infer  that  by  yielding 
to  his  appetites  he  will  thereby  assist  m  the  multiplication  of  plan 
and  animals  •  or  he  may  imagine  that  the  vigour  which  he  refuses 
“pe!dTn  reproducing  his  own  kind,  will  form  as  it  were  a  store 
energy  whereby  other  creatures,  whether  vegetable  or  amma , 
somehow  benefit  in  propagating  their  species.  Thus  from  the  snn 
crude  philosophy,  the  same  primitive  notions  of  nature  and  life, 
savage  may^  derive  by  differed  channels  a  rule  either  of  profligacy  or 

of  asceticism. 


XI  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  SEXES  ON  VEGETATION  139 

To  readers  bred  in  a  religion  which  is  saturated  with  the  ascetic 
idealism  of  the  East,  the  explanation  which  I  have  given  of  the  rule 
of  continence  observed  under  certain  circumstances  by  rude  or  savage 
peoples  may  seem  far-fetched  and  improbable.  They  may  think 
that  moral  purity,  which  is  so  intimately  associated  in  their  minds 
with  the  observance  of  such  a  rule,  furnishes  a  sufficient  explanation 
of  it  ;  they  may  hold  with  Milton  that  chastity  in  itself  is  a  noble 
virtue,  and  that  the  restraint  which  it  imposes  on  one  of  the  strongest 
impulses  of  our  animal  nature  marks  out  those  who  can  submit  to 
it  as  men  raised  above  the  common  herd,  and  therefore  worthy  to 
receive  the  seal  of  the  divine  approbation.  However  natural  this 
mode  of  thought  may  seem  to  us,  it  is  utterly  foreign  and  indeed  in¬ 
comprehensible  to  the  savage.  If  he  resists  on  occasion  the  sexual 
instinct,  it  is  from  no  high  idealism,  no  ethereal  aspiration  after  moral 
purity,  but  for  the  sake  of  some  ulterior  yet  perfectly  definite  and 
concrete  object,  to  gain  which  he  is  prepared  to  sacrifice  the  immediate 
gratification  of  his  senses.  That  this  is  or  may  be  so,  the  examples 
I  have  cited  are  amply  sufficient  to  prove.  They  show  that  where 
the  instinct  of  self-preservation,  which  manifests  itself  chiefly  in  the 
search  for  food,  conflicts  or  appears  to  conflict  with  the  instinct  which 
conduces  to  the  propagation  of  the  species,  the  former  instinct,  as 
the  primary  and  more  fundamental,  is  capable  of  overmastering  the 
latter.  In  short,  the  savage  is  willing  to  restrain  his  sexual  propensity 
for  the  sake  of  food.  Another  object  for  the  sake  of  which  he  con¬ 
sents  to  exercise  the  same  self-restraint  is  victory  in  war.  Not  only 
the  warrior  in  the  held  but  his  friends  at  home  will  often  bridle  their 
sensual  appetites  from  a  belief  that  by  so  doing  they  will  the  more 
easily  overcome  their  enemies.  The  fallacy  of  such  a  belief,  like  the 
belief  that  the  chastity  of  the  sower  conduces  to  the  growth  of  the 
seed,  is  plain  enough  to  us  ;  yet  perhaps  the  self-restraint  which  these 
and  the  like  beliefs,  vain  and  false  as  they  are,  have  imposed  on  man¬ 
kind,  has  not  been  without  its  utility  in  bracing  and  strengthening 
the  breed.  For  strength  of.  character  in  the  race  as  in  the  individual 
consists  mainly  in  the  power  of  sacrificing  the  present  to  the  future, 
of  disregarding  the  immediate  temptations  of  ephemeral  pleasure  for 
more  distant  and  lasting  sources  of  satisfaction.  The  more  the  power 
is  exercised  the  higher  and  stronger  becomes  the  character  ;  till  the 
height  of  heroism  is  reached  in  men  who  renounce  the  pleasures  of 
life  and  even  life  itself  for  the  sake  of  keeping  or  winning  for  others, 
perhaps  in  distant  ages,  the  blessings  of  freedom  and  truth. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  SACRED  MARRIAGE 


§  I.  Diana  as  a  Goddess  of  Fertility . — We  have  seen  that  according 
to  a  widespread  belief,  which  is  not  without  a  foundation  in  fact, 


I4o  THE  SACRED  MARRIAGE  ch. 

plants  reproduce  their  kinds  through  the  sexual  union  of  male  and 
female  elements,  and  that  on  the  principle  of  homoeopathic  or  imita¬ 
tive  magic  this  reproduction  is  supposed  to  be  stimulated  by  the 
real  or  mock  marriage  of  men  and  women,  who  masquerade  for  the 
time  being  as  spirits  of  vegetation.  Such  magical  dramas  have  placed 
a  great  part  in  the  popular  festivals  of  Europe,  and  based  as  they  are 
on  a  very  crude  conception  of  natural  law,  it  is  clear  that  they  must 
have  been  handed  down  from  a  remote  antiquity.  We  shall  hardly, 
therefore,  err  in  assuming  that  they  date  from  a  time  when  the  fore¬ 
fathers  of  the  civilised  nations  of  Europe  were  still  barbarians,  herding 
their  cattle  and  cultivating  patches  of  corn  in  the  clearings  of  the  vast 
forests,  which  then  covered  the  greater  part  of  the  continent,  from 
the  Mediterranean  to  the  Arctic  Ocean.  But  if  these  old  spells  and 
enchantments  for  the  growth  of  leaves  and  blossoms,  of  grass  and 
flowers  and  fruit,  have  lingered  down  to  our  own  time  in  the  shape  of 
pastoral  plays  and  popular  merry-makings,  is  it  not  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  they  survived  in  less  attenuated  forms  some  two  thousand 
years  ago  among  the  civilised  peoples  of  antiquity  ?  Or,  to  put  it 
otherwise,  is  it  not  likely  that  in  certain  festivals  of  the  ancients  we 
may  be  able  to  detect  the  equivalents  of  our  May  Day,  Whitsuntide,  | 
and  Midsummer  celebrations,  with  this  difference,  that  in  those  days 
the  ceremonies  had  not  yet  dwindled  into  mere  shows  and  pageants, 
but  were  still  religious  or  magical  rites,  in  which  the  actors  consciously 
supported  the  high  parts  of  gods  and  goddesses  ?  Now  in  the  first 
chapter  of  this  book  we  found  reason  to  believe  that  the  priest  who 
bore  the  title  of  King  of  the  Wood  at  Nemi  had  for  his  mate  the  goddess 
of  the  grove,  Diana  herself.  May  not  he  and  she,  as  King  and  Queen 
of  the  Wood,  have  been  serious  counterparts  of  the  merry  mummers 
who  play  the  King  and  Queen  of  May,  the  Whitsuntide  Bridegroom 
and  Bride  in  modern  Europe  ?  and  may  not  their  union  have  been 
yearly  celebrated  in  a  theogamy  or  divine  marriage  ?  Such  diamatic 
weddings  of  gods  and  goddesses,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  were  carried 
out  as  solemn  religious  rites  in  many  parts  of  the  ancient  world  ; 
hence  there  is  no  intrinsic  improbability  in  the  supposition  that  the 
sacred  grove  at  Nemi  may  have  been  the  scene  of  an  annual  ceremony 
of  this  sort.  Direct  evidence  that  it  wras  so  there  is  none,  but  analogy 
pleads  in  favour  of  the  view,  as  I  shall  now  endeavour  to  show. 

Diana  was  essentially  a  goddess  of  the  woodlands,  as  Ceres  was  a 
goddess  of  the  corn  and  Bacchus  a  god  of  the  vine.  Her  sanctuaries 
were  commonly  in  groves,  indeed  every  grove  was  sacred  to  her,  and 
she  is  often  associated  with  the  forest  god  Silvanus  in  dedications. 
But  whatever  her  origin  may  have  been,  Diana  was  not  always  a  mere 
goddess  of  trees.  Like  her  Greek  sister  Artemis,  she  appears  to  have 
developed  into  a  personification  of  the  teeming  life  of  nature,  both 
animal  and  vegetable.  As  mistress  of  the  greenwood  she  would  natur¬ 
ally  be  thought  to  own  the  beasts,  whether  wild  or  tame,  that  ranged 
through  it,  lurking  for  their  prey  in  its  gloomy  depths,  munching  the 
fresh  leaves  and  shoots  among  the  boughs,  or  cropping  the  herbage  in 


XII 


DIANA  AS  A  GODDESS  OF  FERTILITY 


141 

Wh  PofntfIa +6S  and^e“S'  4  ThlIS  She  might  come  t0  be  the  Patron  goddess 
both  of  hunters  and  herdsmen,  just  as  Silvanus  was  the  god  not  only 

of  woods,  but  of  cattle.  Similarly  in  Finland  the  wild  beasts  of  lhe 

rest  weie  iegarded  as  the  herds  of  the  woodland  God  Tapio  and  of 

his  stately  and  beautiful  wife.  No  man  might  slay  one  of  these  animals 

without  the  gracious  permission  of  their  divine^wners  Hence  the 

hunter  prayed  to  the  sylvan  deities,  and  vowed  rich  offerings  to  them 

if  they  would  drive  the  game  across  his  path.  And  cattle8 also  seem 

to  have  enjoyed  the  protection  of  those  spirits  of  the  woods,  both  when 

hey  were  m  their  stalls  and  while  they  strayed  in  the  forest.  Brfore 

the  Gayos  of  Sumatra  hunt  deer,  wild  goats,  or  wild  pigs  with  hounds  in 

Lmd  of  tL  fons  66^!1-  t0  °btain  **  ^  the  unseen 

of  the  forest.  This  is  done  according  to  a  prescribed  form  by 

a  man  who  has  special  skill  in  woodcraft.  He  lays  down  a  quTd  of 

betel  before  a  stake  which  is  cut  in  a  particular  way  to  represent  the 

or  of  the  Wood  and  having  done  so  he  prays  to  the  spirit  to  signify 

his  consent  or  refusal.  In  his  treatise  on  hunting  Arrian  telfs  Z 

that  the  Celts  used  to  offer  an  annual  sacrifice  to  ArtemfsTn  her  toh 

day,  purchasing  the  sacrificial  victim  with  the  fines  which  they  had 

pi  into  her  treasury  for  every  fox,  hare,  and  roe  that  they  had  killed 

beasts  21°  oT^  i'P6  cus‘°™  Clearty  imPHed  that  wild 
for  theilughter  8  SS’  ““  ^  She  mUSt  be  ““Pensated 

But  Diana  was  not  merely  a  patroness  of  wild  beasts,  a  mistress  of 

woods  and  hills,  of  lonely  glades  and  sounding  rivers  ;  conceived  as* 

tbe  mi°Tfi,an?  esPeciallD  [t  would  seem,  as  the  yellow  harvest  moon 

of  WO  ed  the  farmeVS  gTran,ge  with  g°odIy  fruits>  and  heard  the  prayers 
of  women  in  travail.  In  her  sacred  grove  at  Nemi,  as  we  haw  seen 

she  was  especially  worshipped  as  a  goddess  of  childbirth,  who  bestowed 

sprmg  oil  men  and  women.  Thus  Diana,  like  the  Greek  Artemis 

with  whom  she  was  constantly  identified,  may  be  described  as  a  goddess 

th  aafUre  “ general  and  of  fertility  in  particular.  We  need  not  wonder 

therefore,  that  m  her  sanctuary  on  the  Aventine  she  was  represented 

y  an  image  copied  from  the  many-breasted  idol  of  the  Ephesian 

■  mtemis,  with  all  its  crowded  emblems  of  exuberant  fecundity  Hence 

Tullus  Ho  ,uaderstand  why  an  ancient  Roman  law,  attributed  to  King 
u  us  Hostilms,  prescribed  that,  when  incest  had  been  committed 

an  expiatory  sacrifice  should  be  offered  by  the  pontiffs  in  the  grove  of 
Diana.  For  we  know  that  the  crime  of  incest  is  commonly  supposed 
to  cause  a  dearth  ;  hence  it  would  be  meet  that  atonement  for  the 
offence  should  be  made  to  the  goddess  of  fertility 

fertile>"!t°h  Pf^dple  **  the  Soddess  of  fertility  must  herself  be 

testimonvbnfhred-  Dlana  l  haVe  a  maIe  Partner-  Her  mate,  if  the 
-eZZcuLf  mS  Tay  be  Ousted,  was  that  Virbius  who  had  his 

E  t  '“r11!6  rather  his  embodiment,  in  the  King  of  the 
Wood  at  Nemi.  The  aim  of  their  union  would  be  to  promote  the 

iiaTn!UnleSh  °  uthe  uarth’  °f  anlmals,  and  of  mankind  ;  and  it  might 
rally  be  thought  that  this  object  would  be  more  surely  attained 


142 


THE  SACRED  MARRIAGE 


CH. 


if  the  sacred  nuptials  were 

divine  bride  and  Antions  that  this  was  done  in 

by  living  persons.  No  anc  {  h  Arician  ritual  is  so  scanty 

the  grove  at  Nemi ;  but  our  can  hardly  COUnt  as  a  fatal 

that  the  want  of  informa  1  .  absenCe  of  direct  evidence, 

SSSSed  on  the 

degenerjde,  wTedeTc  abed  iX  last  chapter.  Here  we  shall  consider 

their  ancient  counterparts.  Babvlon  the  imposing  sanctuary 

§  2.  The  Marriage  of  the  Gods.-£tB*tyumvi  J  8  towers  Qr 

of  Bel  rose  like  a  py ranut  a  ove  1  other  On  the  highest  tower, 

stories,  planted  one  on^the  op  ^  ^  ^  ^  rest_  there  stood  a 

reached  by  an ■.***?£  the  temple  a  great  bed,  magnificently  draped 
spacious  temple,  and  m  P  jn  tpe  temple  no  image 

and  cushioned,  with  a  golden  table  be^deit^  Jm  ^  save  a 

was  to  be  seen  and  no .  hum a  b  ^g  P^^  priestS)  the  god  chose 

of  t'h."  gSt  might  have  no  Intercom*  with  mortal 


man 


At  Thebes  in  Egypt  a  — ^  Bdat  BabyZ!  she  was 
consort  of  the  god,  and-  In  Egyptian  texts  she  is  often 

saidtohaveno^^^^au.^^  ^  ^  ^  ^  a 

mentioned  as  Egypt  herself.  For,  according  to  the 

personage  than  the  Lmee  A aiiv  begotten  bv  the  god  Ammon, 

- m 

who  assumed  foi  the  tinm  b  The  divine  procreation 

that  disguise  had  intercourse  with t  the :  qu  •  D  P  d 

is  carved  ^ 

tions  attached  f  o'  the  paint, »g.  leave  no  donht  at  to  the  nr.anmg  ol 

the  scenes.  ,  q{  the  vine>  Dionysus,  was  annually  married  to 

At  Athens  th  g  the  consummation  of  the  divine  union, 

the  Queen,  and  it  appea  c  ceremony  *  but  whether 

a,  cell  as  the  esponsals.  was  enacted  at  the ^cemmony 

the  par.  <d  the  fd  «s  PXfLre".ookpE  in  the  old  official 
of  ensuring  the  fer  y  and  in  meamng  the 


XII 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  GODS 


143 

phant;  with  the  priestess  of  Demeter,  who  acted  the  parts  of  god  and 
goddess.  But  their  intercourse  was  only  dramatic  or  symbolical,  for 
the  hierophant  had  temporarily  deprived  himself  of  his  virility  by  an 
application  of  hemlock.  The  torches  having  been  extinguished  the 
pair  descended  into  a  murky  place,  while  the  throng  of  worshippers 
awaited  in  anxious  suspense  the  result  of  the  mystic  congress,  on  which 
they  believed  their  own  salvation  to  depend.  After  a  time  the  hiero- 
p  ant  reappeared  and  in  a  blaze  of  light  silently  exhibited  to  the 
assembly  a  reaped  ear  of  corn,  the  fruit  of  the  divine  marriage.  Then 
m  a  loud  voice  he  proclaimed,  “  Queen  Brimo  has  brought  forth  a 
sacred  boy  Bnmos,  by  which  he  meant,  “  The  Mighty  One  has  brought 

f?rm  ‘rt  Mlghty'”  ,T,he  corn-niother  in  fact  had  given  birth  to  her 
child,  the  corn,  and  her  travail-pangs  were  enacted  in  the  sacred 

lama.  This  revelation  of  the  reaped  corn  appears  to  have  been  the 
crowning  act  of  the  mysteries.  Thus  through  the  glamour  shed  round 
these  rites  by  the  poetry  and  philosophy  of  later  ages  there  still  looms 
ike  a  distant  landscape  through  a  sunlit  haze,  a  simple  rustic  festival 
designed  to  cover  the  wide  Eleusinian  plain  with  a  plenteous  harvest 
by  wedding  the  goddess  of  the  corn  to  the  sky-god,  who  fertilised  the 
bare  earth  with  genial  showers.  Every  few  years  the  people  of  Plataea 
m  Boeotia,  held  a  festival  called  the  Little  Daedala,  at  which  they 
felled  an  oak-tree  m  an  ancient  oak  forest.  Out  of  the  tree  thev 
carved  an  image,  and  having  dressed  it  as  a  bride,  they  set  it  on  a 
bullock-cart  with  a  bridesmaid  beside  it.  The  image  seems  then 
to  have  been  drawn  to  the  bank  of  the  river  Asopus  and  back  to  the 
^tended  by  a  piping  and  dancing  crowd.  Every  sixty  years 
the  festival  of  the  Great  Daedala  was  celebrated  by  all  the  people  of 
oeotia  ;  and  at  it  all  the  images,  fourteen  in  number,  which  had 
accumulated  at  the  lesser  festivals,  were  dragged  on  wains  in  pro- 
cesswn  to  the  river  Asopus  and  then  to  the  top  of  Mount  Cithaeron 
where  they  were  burnt  on  a  great  pyre.  The  story  told  to  explain  the 
estivals  suggests  that  they  celebrated  the  marriage  of  Zeus  to  Hera 
represented  by  the  oaken  image  in  bridal  array.  In  Sweden  eve™ 

+a,  lfe_SIze  !maSe  °f  Frey,  the  god  of  fertility,  both  animal  and 
getable,  was  diawn  about  the  country  in  a  waggon  attended  by  a 
beautiful  girl  who  was  called  the  god’s  wife.  She  acted  also  as  his 
priestess  in  his  great  temple  at  Upsala.  Wherever  the  waggon  came 
with  the  image  of  the  god  and  his  blooming  young  bride,  the  people 
crowded  to  meet  them  and  offered  sacrifices  for  a  fruitful  year.  P 
us  the  custom  of  marrying  gods  either  to  images  or  to  human 
beings  was  widespread  among  the  nations  of  antiquity.  The  ideas 
on  which  such  a  custom  is  based  are  too  crude  to  allow  us  to  doubt 
r  1  Clv>lised  Babylonians,  Egyptians,  and  Greeks  inherited  it 
rom  their  barbarous  or  savage  forefathers.  This  presumption  is 
strengthened  when  we  find  rites  of  a  similar  kind  in  vogue  among  the 
ower  races  Thus,  for  example,  we  are  told  that  once  upon  a  time  the 
Wotyaks  of  the  Malmyz  district  in  Russia  were  distressed  by  a  series 
ot  bad  harvests.  They  did  not  know  what  to  do,  but  at  last  concluded 


THE  SACRED  MARRIAGE 


CH. 


144 

that  their  powerful  but  mischievous  god  Keremet  must  be  angry  at 
being  unmarried.  So  a  deputation  of  elders  visited  the  Wotyaks  of 
Cura  and  came  to  an  understanding  with  them  on  the  subject.  Then 
they  returned  home,  laid  in  a  large  stock  of  brandy,  and  having  made 
ready  a  gaily  decked  waggon  and  horses,  they  drove  m  procession  with 
bells  ringing,  as  they  do  when  they  are  fetching  home  a  bride,  to  the 
sacred  grove  at  Cura.  There  they  ate  and  drank  merrily  all  night,  and 
next  morning  they  cut  a  square  piece  of  turf  in  the  grove  and  took  it 
home  with  them.  After  that,  though  it  fared  well  with  the  people  of 
Malmyz,  it  fared  ill  with  the  people  of  Cura  ;  for  in  Malmyz  the  bread 
was  good,  but  in  Cura  it  was  bad.  Hence  the  men  of  Cura ^who  had 
consented  to  the  marriage  were  blamed  and  roughly  handled  by  their 
indignant  fellow- villagers.  “  What  they  meant  by  this  marriage 
ceremony,”  says  the  writer  who  reports  it,  “  it  is  not  easy  to  imagine. 
Perhaps,  as  Bechterew  thinks,  they  meant  to . marry  Keremet  to  the 
kindlv  and  fruitful  Mukylcin,  the  Earth-wife,  in  order  that  she  might 
influence  him  for  good.”  When  wells  are  dug  in  Bengal,  a  wooden 
image  of  a  god  is  made  and  married  to  the  goddess  of  water 

Often  the  bride  destined  for  the  god  is  not  a  log  or  a  clod,  but  a 
living  woman  of  flesh  and  blood.  The  Indians  of  a  village  in  Pern  have 
been  known  to  marry  a  beautiful  girl,  about  fourteen  years  of  age,  to  a 
stone  shaped  like  a  human  being,  which  they  regarded  as  a  god  (huaca). 
All  the  villagers  took  part  in  the  marriage  ceremony,  which  lasted  three 
days,  and  was  attended  with  much  revelry.  The  girl  thereafter 
remained  a  virgin  and  sacrificed  to  the  idol  for  the  people.  They 
showed  her  the  utmost  reverence  and  deemed  her  divine.  Every  year 
about  the  middle  of  March,  when  the  season  for  fishing  with  the  drag¬ 
net  began  the  Algonquins  and  Hurons  married  their  nets  to  two  young 
girls  aged  six  or  seven.  At  the  wedding  feast  the  net  was  placed 
between  the  two  maidens,  and  was  exhorted  to  take  courage  and  catch 
many  fish.  The  reason  for  choosing  the  brides  so  young  was  to  make 
sure  that  they  were  virgins.  The  origin  of  the  custom  is  said  to  have 
been  this.  One  year,  when  the  fishing  season  came  round,  the  Algon¬ 
quins  cast  their  nets  as  usual,  but  took  nothing.  Surprised  at  then 
want  of  success,  they  did  not  know  what  to  make  of  it,  till  the  soul  or 
genius  (oki)  of  the  net  appeared  to  them  in  the  likeness  of  a  tall  well- 
built  man,  who  said  to  them  in  a  great  passion,  “  I  have  lost  my  wife 
and  I  cannot  find  one  who  has  known  no  other  man  but  me  ;  that  is 
why  you  do  not  succeed,  and  why  you  never  will  succeed  till  you  give 
me  satisfaction  on  this  head.”  So  the  Algonquins  held  a  council  and 
resolved  to  appease  the  spirit  of  the  net  by  marrying  him  to  two  such 
very  young  girls  that  he  could  have  no  ground  of  complaint  on  that 
score  for  the  future.  They  did  so,  and  the  fishing  turned  out  all  that 
could  be  wished.  The  thing  got  wind  among  their  neighbours  the 
Hurons,  and  they  adopted  the  custom.  A  share  of  the  catch  was 
always  given  to  the  families  of  the  two  girls  who  acted  as  brides  of  the 

net  for  the  year.  1Uf 

The  Oraons  of  Bengal  worship  the  Earth  as  a  goddess,  and  annually 


XII 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  GODS 


*45 


celebrate  her  marriage  with  the  Sun-god  Dharme  at  the  time  when  the 
sal  tiee  lsm  blossom.  The  ceremony  is  as  follows.  All  bathe,  then  the 
men  repair  to  the  sacred  grove  (sarnd),  while  the  women  assemble  at  the 
nouse  of  the  village  priest.  After  sacrificing  some  fowls  to  the  Sun-god 
and  the  demon  of  the  grove,  the  men  eat  and  drink.  "  The  priest  is 
then  carried  back  to  the  village  on  the  shoulders  of  a  strong  man. 
Near  the  village  the  women  meet  the  men  and  wash  their  feet.  With 
eating  of  drums  and  smgmg,  dancing,  and  jumping,  all  proceed  to  the 
priest  s  house,  which  has  been  decorated  with  leaves  and  flowers.  Then 
the  usual  form  of  marriage  is  performed  between  the  priest  and  his  wife 
symbolising  the  supposed  union  between  Sun  and  Earth.  After  the 
ceremony  all  eat  and  drink  and  make  merry  ;  they  dance  and  sing 
obscene  songs,  and  finally  indulge  in  the  vilest  orgies.  The  object  is  to 
move  the  mother  earth  to  become  fruitful.”  Thus  the  Sacred  Marriage 
of  the  Sun  and  Earth,  personated  by  the  priest  and  his  wife,  is  celebrated 
as  a  charm  to  ensure  the  fertility  of  the  ground  ;  and  for  the  same 

purpose,  on  the  principle  of  homoeopathic  magic,  the  people  indulge  in 
a  licentious  orgy.  r  b 


It  deserves  to  be  remarked  that  the  supernatural  being  to  whom 
women  are  married  is  often  a  god  or  spirit  of  water.  Thus  Mukasa, 
the  god  of  the  Victoria  Nyanza  lake,  who  was  propitiated  by  the 
Baganda  every  time  they  undertook  a  long  voyage,  had  virgins  pro¬ 
vided  for  him  to  serve  as  his  wives.  Like  the  Vestals  they  were  bound 
to  chastity  but  unlike  the  Vestals  they  seem  to  have  been  often 
unfaithful.  Ihe  custom  lasted  until  Mwanga  was  converted  to  Chris¬ 
tianity.  .  The  Akikuyu  of  British  East  Africa  worship  the  snake  of  a 
certain  river,  and  at  intervals  of  several  years  they  marry  the  snake-god 
to  women,  but  especially  to  young  girls.  For  this  purpose  huts  are 
uilt  by  order  of  the  medicine-men,  who  there  consummate  the  sacred 
marriage  with  the  credulous  female  devotees.  If  the  girls  do  not  repair 
to  the  huts  of  their  own  accord  in  sufficient  numbers,  they  are  seized 
and  dragged  thither  to  the  embraces  of  the  deity.  The  offspring  of 
these  mystic  unions  appears  to  be  fathered  on  God  (Ngai)  •  certainly 
there  are  children  among  the  Akikuyu  who  pass  for  children  of  God. 
It  is  said  that  once,  when  the  inhabitants  of  Cayeli  in  Burn — an  East 
ndian  island  were  threatened  with  destruction  by  a  swarm  of 
crocodile5,  they  ascribed  the  misfortune  to  a  passion  which  the  prince 
o  the  crocodiles  had  conceived  for  a  certain  girl.  Accordingly  they 
compelled  the  damsel’s  father  to  dress  her  in  bridal  array  and  deliver 
her  over  to  the  clutches  of  her  crocodile  lover. 

t  i  ^  ^1G  same  sort  rePorted  to  have  prevailed  in  the  Maidive 

islands  before  the  conversion  of  the  inhabitants  to  Islam.  The  famous 

Arab  traveller  Ibn  Batutah  has  described  the  custom  and  the  manner 

m  whlch  11  came  t0  an  end.  He  was  assured  by  several  trustworthy 
natives,  whose  names  he  gives,  that  when  the  people  of  the  islands  were 
idolaters  there  appeared  to  them  every  month  an  evil  spirit  among  the 
Jinn,  who  came  from  across  the  sea  in  the  likeness  of  a  ship  full  of 
burning  lamps.  The  wont  of  the  inhabitants,  as  soon  as  they  perceived 


L 


146 


THE  KINGS  OF  ROME  AND  ALBA 


CH. 


him  was  to  take  a  voung  virgin,  and,  having  adorned  her,  to  lead  her 
to  a  heathen  temple  that  stood  on  the  shore,  with  a  window  looking  out 
to  sea  There  they  left  the  damsel  for  the  night,  and  when  they  came 
back  »  they  found  he,  a  maid  no  jnorey  „d  dead.  Evety 

month  they  drew  lots,  and  he  upon  whom  the  lot  fell  gave  up 
daughter  to  the  jinnee  of  the  sea.  The  last  of  the  maidens  thus 
Sered  to  the  demon  was  rescued  by  a  pious  Berber  who  by  reciting 
the  Koran  succeeded  in  driving  the  jinnee  back  into  the  sea. 

Hvn  Ratutah’s  narrative  of  the  demon  lover  and  his  mortal  Driaes 
closely  resembles  a  well-known  type  of  folk-tale,  of  which  versions 
have  been  found  from  Japan  and  Annam  m  the  East  to  Senegam  a 
Scandinavia,  and  Scotland  in  the  West  The :  story  vanes  m  detmk 
from  people  to  people,  but  as  commonly  told  it  runs  thus.  A  certain 

country  fe  infected  by  a  many-headed  serpent an  victim 
monster  which  would  destroy  the  whole  people  if  a  human  vict  , 
generally  a  virgin,  were  not  delivered  up  to  him  periodically.  ^  any 
Sta.  tav.  pcilirf.  end  at  last  it  to  fallen  to  «.!«*£» 
king’s  own  daughter  to  be  sacrificed.  She  is  exposed  to  the  mon  , 
but  the  hero  of  the  tale,  generally  a  young  man  of  humble  birt 
interposes  in  her  behalf,  slays  the  monster,  and  receives  the  hand  of 
ihe  p'rmcess  as  his  reward.  In  many  of  the  tales i  the  monster  who  1 
sometimes  described  as  a  serpent,  inhabits  the  watei  of  a  sea,  a  , 
a  fountain.  In  other  versions  he  is  a  serpent  or  dragon  who  takes 
possession  of  the  springs  of  water,  and  only  allows  the  water  o  ^ow  or 
the  people  to  make  use  of  it  on  condition  of  receiving  a  human  victim. 

It  would  probably  be  a  mistake  to  dismiss  all  the^  taJ“  “  ^ 
inventions  of  the  story-teller.  Rather  we  may  suppose  that  they  reflect 
a  real  custom  of  sacrificing  girls  or  women  to  be  the  wi\  es  ot  water 
spirits,  who  are  very  often  conceived  as  great  serpents  01  dragons. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  KINGS  OF  ROME  AND  ALBA 

K  r  Numa  and  Egeria.— From  the  foregoing  survey  of  custom  and 

legend  we  may  infer  that  the  sacred  marriage  of  the  Powel*  b“th . 
leoe  j  r  „.Q+pr  Uc  been  celebrated  by  many  peoples  for  the 

chvine  bridegroom  or  bride  is  often  sustained  by  a  man  or  woman.  The 
. JL  therefore  lend  some  countenance  to  the  conjecture  tha 

g" fa  P>»«s  .1 :  v.E....ion -J- 

tor  manifested  themselves  in  the  fair  forms  of  shady  woods,  tumbling 

mSSSSSSra HSH 


XIII 


NUMA  AND  EGERIA  r 

important  figure  in  the  grove  was  the  water-nymph  Egeria  who  was 
worshipped  by  pregnant  women  because  she,  like  Diana  couM  grin 
them  an  easy  delivery.  From  this  it  seems  fairly  safe  to  conclude  thTt 

1  e  other  sPllngs,  the  water  of  Egeria  was  credited  with  a  power 
f  facilitating  conception  as  well  as  delivery.  The  votive  offerings 
found  on  the  spot,  which  clearly  refer  to  the  begetting  of  children  mav 
possiMy  have  been  dedicated  to  Egeria  rather  than  to  DiLf  or  perhaps 
we  should  rather  say  that  the  water-nymph  Egeria  is  only  another  form 

rivemaf  wdl  aluT^53  herself'  the  mistress  sounding 

mei  s  as  well  as  of  umbrageous  woods,  who  had  her  home  by  the  lake 

and  her  mirror  in  its  calm  waters,  and  whose  Greek  counterpart  Artemis 

Dilna  is  “'ll  “fi'f  and  sPrings-  The  identification  of  Egeria  with 
Diana  is  confirmed  by  a  statement  of  Plutarch  that  Egeria  was  one  of 

the  oak-nymphs  whom  the  Romans  believed  to  preside  over  every  green 

oak-grove  ,  for  while  Diana  was  a  goddess  of  the  woodlands  in  general 

she  appears  to  have  been  intimately  associated  with  oaks  in  particular’ 

especially  at  her  sacred  grove  of  Nemi.  Perhaps  then  Egeria  was  the 

fairy  of  a  spring  that  flowed  from  the  roots  of  a  sacred  oak  Such  n 

spring  is  said  to  have  gushed  from  the  foot  of  the  great  oak  at 

Dodona  and  from  its  murmurous  flow  the  priestess  drew  oracles 

Among  the  Greeks  a  draught  of  water  from  certain  sacred  springs  or 

wells  was  supposed  to  confer  prophetic  powers.  This  would  explain 

e  more  than  mortal  wisdom  with  which,  according  to  tradition 

gena  inspired  her  royal  husband  or  lover  N uma.  When  we  remember 

how  very  often  m  early  society  the  king  is  held  responsible  for  th™  fa  1  of 

ram  and  the  fruitfulness  of  the  earth,  it  seems  hardly  rash  o  coniec  ure 

hat  in  the  legend  of  the  nuptials  of  Numa  and  Egeria  le  have  a 

reminiscence  of  a  sacred  marriage  which  the  old  Roman  kings  regularly 

enablf  VW  +h  a  g0,ddess  of  vegetation  and  water  for  theSpurpose  of 
enabling  him  to  discharge  his  divine  or  magical  functions  Inluch  a 

nte  the  part  of  the  goddess  might  be  played  either  by  an  image  or  a 

tluth  "n  th t  clnf  ^  W°man'  Pr°bably  by  the  Queen'  If  there  is  any 
uth  m  this  conjecture,  we  may  suppose  that  the  King  and  Queen  of 

Rome  masqueraded  as  god  and  goddess  at  their  marriage  exactly  as  the 

King  and  Queen  of  Egypt  appear  to  have  done.  The  legend  of  Numa 

of  thegen7rtS  t0  a  sacred  Srove  rather  than  to  a  house  as  the  scene 
of  Mav  or  If  thnl0n’  Whl^h’  h^e  the  marriage  of  the  King  and  Queen 
annuaflv  celeb  at6  Jme-g°d  and  the  Queen  of  Athens,  may  have  been 
earth  W  If  b  ted  ^  u  Charm  t0  ensure  the  fertihty  not  only  of  the 
scene  of  the  ^  beaSt  I°W’  accordinS  to  some  accounts,  the 

on  nnlf  l  'i  marr!age  was  no  other  than  the  Sacred  grove  of  Nemi,  and 
q  c  independent  grounds  we  have  been  led  to  suppose  that  in  that 

ve^fethheetKinI  r  th?  W°°d  WaS  W6dded  to  K.  The  Sm 
union  of  the  R  tW°  dlftlnct  hn,es  °f  enquiry  suggests  that  the  legendary 

duplicate  of  1”“  ^  ^lthT,Egena  maT  have  been  a  reflection  or 
dolble  Di  l  TKnl0,n  °f  theKln?  of  the  Wood  with  Egeria  or  her 

as  Kings  of  Vi  w  S  ‘1°^  "I  lmpIy  that  the  Roman  kings  ever  served 
ngs  of  the  Wood  in  the  Ancian  grove,  but  only  that  they  may 


148 


THE  KINGS  OF  ROME  AND  ALBA  - 


cn. 


originally  have  been  invested  with  a  sacred  character  of  the  same  general 
kind  and  may  have  held  office  on  similar  terms.  To  be  more  explicit 
it  is  possible  that  they  reigned,  not  by  right  of  birth,  but  m  vir  ue  0 
their  supposed  divinity  as  representatives  or  embodiments  of  a  goc  an 
that  as  such  they,  mated  with  a  goddess,  and  had  to  prove  then  fitness 
from  time  to  time  to  discharge  their  divine  functions  by  engaging  in  a 
severe  bodily  struggle,  which  may  often  have  proved  fatal  to  them 
leaving  the  crown  to  their  victorious  adversary.  Our  know  le  ge 
Roman  kingship  is  far  too  scanty  to  allow  us  to  affirm  any  one  of These 
oropositions  with  confidence;  but  at  least  there  are  some  scattered 
hiX  or  indications  of  a  similarity  in  all  these  respects  between  the 
priests  of  Nerni  and  the  kings  of  Rome,  or  perhaps  rather  between  their 
remote  predecessors  in  the  dark  ages  which  preceded  the  dawn  o  legend 
S  2.  The  King  as  Jupiter.— \n  the  first  place,  then  it  would  seem 
that  the  Roman  king  personated  no  less  a  deity  than  Jupitei  ■  himse  . 
For  down  to  imperial  times  victorious  generals  celebrating  a  triumph 
and  magistrates  presiding  at  the  games  in  the  Circus,  wore  the  costume 
of  Jupiter  which  was  borrowed  for  the  occasion  from  his  great  temp  e 
on  the  Capitol ;  and  it  has  been  held  with  a  high  degree  of  piobability 
both  by  ancients  and  moderns  that  in  so  doing  they  copied  the  11  a^' 
tionary  attire  and  insignia  of  the  Roman  kings.  They  rode  a  chariot 
drawn  by  four  laurel-crowned  horses  through  the  city,  where  every 
one  else  went  on  foot  :  they  wore  purple  robes  embroidered  or  spangled 
with  "old  •  in  the  right  hand  they  bore  a  branch  of  laurel,  and  in  the 
left  hand  an  ivory  sceptre  topped  with  an  eagle :  a  wreath  of  laurel 
crowned  their  brows  :  their  face  was  reddened  with  vermilion  ,  anc 
over  their  head  a  slave  held  a  heavy  crown  of  massy  gold  fashioned  in 
the  likeness  of  oak  leaves.  In  this  attire  the  assimilation  of  the  man 
to  the  god  comes  out  above  all  in  the  eagle-topped  sceptre  the  oaken 
crown,  and  the  reddened  face.  For  the  eagle  was  the  bird  of  Joy  e,  the 
oak  was  his  sacred  tree,  and  the  face  of  his  image  stan  mg  m  ns 
horse  chariot  on  the  Capitol  was  in  like  manner  regularly  dyed  red  on 
festivals  •  indeed,  so  important  was  it  deemed  to  keep  the  divine 
features  properly  rouged  that  one  of  the  first  duties  of  the  censors  was 
to  contract  for  having  this  done.  As  the  triumphal  procession  always 
ended  in  the  temple  of  Jupiter  on  the  Capitol,  it  was  peculiarly  appro¬ 
priate  that  the  head  of  the  victor  should  be  graced  by  a  crown  o  oak 
leaves  for  not  only  was  every  oak  consecrated  to  Jupitei,  bu 
Canitoline  temple  of  the  god  was  said  to  have  been  built  by  Romulus 
beside  a  sacred  oak,  venerated  by  shepherds,  to  which  the  king  attache 
the  spoils  won  by  him  from  the  enemy  s  general  in  battle.  W  e  are 
expressly  told  that  the  oak  crown  was  sacred  to  Capitolme  Jupner , 
a  passage  of  Ovid  proves  that  it  was  regarded  as  the  god  s  special 

6m  According  to  a  tradition  which  we  have  no  reason  to  reject,  home 
was  founded  by  settlers  from  Alba  Longa,  a  city  situated  on  the  slop 
of  the  Alban  hills,  overlooking  the  lake  and  the  Campagna.  cn 
the  Roman  kings  claimed  to  be  representatives  or  embodiments  of 


XI II 


THE  KING  AS  JUPITER 


149 

Jupiter,  the  god  of  the  sky,  of  the  thunder,  and  of  the  oak,  it  is  natural 

tr  !p?PnSe  jllat  tPe  kmgs  of  Alba>  from  whom  the  founder  of  Rome 
aced  Ins  deseent,  may  have  set  up  the  same  claim  before  them. 

ow  the  Alban  dynasty  bore  the  name  of  Silvii  or  Wood  and  it  can 

haaUy  be  without  significance  that  in  the  vision  of  the  historic  glories 

as  weiTasT™6 1  h  1!f “  “  the  underworid.  Virgil,  an  antiquary 

with  oal  A  ch  WT  ,rePresent  a11  tlle  Iine  of  Silvii  as  crowned 
with  oak.  A  chaplet  of  oak  leaves  would  thus  seem  to  have  been  part 

1  faUsTTo  °f  the  ?ldHkingS  °f  Alba  L°n^  as  °f  their  successors 
t  it  kings  of  Rome  in  both  cases  it  marked  the  monarch  as  the  human 

representative  of  the  oak-god.  The  Roman  annals  record  tha“ 

the  kings  of  Alba,  Romulus,  Remulus,  or  Amulius  Silvius  by  name 

Tuniterf0rTelng  &  gfl-ln  hlS  °Wn  Person'  the  equal  or  superior  of 
Jupiter.  To  support  Ins  pretensions  and  overawe  his  subjects  he 

constructed  machines  whereby  he  mimicked  the  clap  of  thunder  and 

he  flash  of  lightning  Diodorus  relates  that  in  the  season  of  fruitage 

to  drownUtheer  18  l0n  mid  freqUeU  the  kin^  com“a«ded  his  soldiers 
to  drown  the  loar  of  heaven  s  artillery  by  clashing  their  swords  against 

their  shields.  But  he  paid  the  penalty  of  his  impiety,  for  he  perished 

he  and  his  house  struck  by  a  thunderbolt  in  the  midst  of  a  dreadful 

h  srnalace  Rntbyrm  6  ram’  **  AIban  lake  r0Se  in  fl°°d  a"d  drowned 
is  palace.  But  still,  says  an  ancient  historian,  when  the  water  is 

w  anc  the  surface  unruffled  by  a  breeze,  you  may  see  the  ruins  of  the 

palace  at  the  bottom  of  the  clear  lake.  Taken  along  with  the  similar 

story  of  Sato  king  of  Elis,  this  legend  points  to  a  real  custom 

to  Africa  d7  V  y  U83  °f  °reeCe  and  ItalV  wh°.  like  their  fellows 
ikfnca  down  to  modern  times,  may  have  been  expected  to  produce 

ram  and  thunder  for  the  good  of  the  crops.  The  priestly  king  Numa 

passed  for  an  adept  in  the  art  of  drawing  down  lightning  from  the 

sky.  Mock  thunder,  we  know,  has  been  made  by  various  peoples  as 

kint?"Chanr  m  modern  times  ;  why  should  it  not  have  been  made  by 
kings  m  antiquity  ?  y 

Thus,  if  the  kings  of  Alba  and  Rome  imitated  Jupiter  as  god  of  the 

Ifim  iT  lTea  >!nS  acr0'!n  of  oak  leaves-  they  seem  also  to  have  copied 
him  in  his  character  of  a  weather-god  by  pretending  to  make  thunder 

an  lghtmng.  And  if  they  did  so,  it  is  probable  that,  like  Jupiter  in 

heaven  and  many  kings  on  earth,  they  also  acted  as  public  rain-makers 

the'iTT  U'A  fl0ru,  tke  dark  sk>7  by  their  enchantments  whenever 
sl„iUldfen  6arth  Cned  °Ut  f°r  the  refreshing  moisture.  At  Rome  the 
sluices  of  heaven  were  opened  by  means  of  a  sacred  stone,  and  the 

ceremony  appears  to  have  formed  part  of  the  ritual  of  Jupiter  Elicius 
the  god  who  elicits  from  the  clouds  the  flashing  lighting  and  the 

khiTri8  T"'  And  Wh°  S°  Wdl  fitted  t0  Perform  the  ceremony  as  the 
king,  the  living  representative  of  the  sky-god  ? 

kirJf  lfeAmngS  aPed  Capit°hne  Jove,  their  predecessors  the 

T  to U  f‘ba  Probably  laid  themselves  out  to  mimic  the  great  Latian 

Mountain  h°Thtd  115  f,Sat,  ab°Vf  the  City  on  the  summit  of  the  Alban 
ountam.  Latmus,^  the  legendary  ancestor  of  the  dynasty,  was  said 


CH. 


I3o  THE  KINGS  OF  ROME  AND  ALBA 

to  have  been  changed  into  Latian  Jupiter  after  vanishing  from  the 
v/orld  in  the  mysterious  fashion  characteristic  of  the  old  Latin  kings. 
The  sanctuary  of  the  god  on  the  top  of  the  mountain  was  the  religious 
centre  of  the  Latin  League,  as  Alba  was  its  political  capital  till  Rome 
wrested  the  supremacy  from  its  ancient  rival.  Apparently  no  temple, 
in  our  sense  of  the  word,  was  ever  erected  to  Jupiter  on  this  his  holy 
mountain  ;  as  god  of  the  sky  and  thunder  he  appropriately  received 
the  homage  of  his  worshippers  in  the  open  air.  The  massive  wall,  of 
which  some  remains  still  enclose  the  old  garden  of  the  Passiomst 
monastery,  seems  to  have  been  part  of  the  sacred  piecinct  which 
Tarquin  the  Proud,  the  last  king  of  Rome,  marked  out  for  the  solemn 
annual  assembly  of  the  Latin  League.  The  god’s  oldest  sanctuary  on 
this  airy  mountain-top  was  a  grove  ;  and  bearing  m  mind  not  merely 
the  special  consecration  of  the  oak  to  Jupiter,  but  also  the  traditional 
oak  crown  of  the  Alban  kings  and  the  analogy  of  the  Capitoline  Jupiter 
at  Rome  we  may  suppose  that  the  trees  in  the  grove  were  oaks.  W  e 
know  that  in  antiquity  Mount  Algidus,  an  outlying  group  of  the  Alban 
hills,  was  covered  with  dark  forests  of  oak  ;  and  among  the  tribes  who 
belonged  to  the  Latin  League  in  the  earliest  days,  and  were  entitled 
to  share  the  flesh  of  the  white  bull  sacrificed  on  the  Alban  Mount,  there 
was  one  whose  members  styled  themselves  the  Men  of  the  Oak,  doubt¬ 
less  on  account  of  the  woods  among  which  they  dwelt. 

But  we  should  err  if  we  pictured  to  ourselves  the  country  as  covered 
in  historical  times  with  an  unbroken  forest  of  oaks.  Theophrastus 
has  left  us  a  description  of  the  woods  of  Latium  as  they  weie  in  the 
fourth  century  before  Christ.  He  says  :  The  land  of  the  Latins  is 
all  moist.  The  plains  produce  laurels,  myrtles,  and  wonderful  beeches  ; 
for  they  fell  trees  of  such  a  size  that  a  single  stem  suffices  for  the  keel 
of  a  Tyrrhenian  ship.  Pines  and  firs  grow  in  the  mountains.  What 
they  call  the  land  of  Circe  is  a  lofty  headland  thickly  wooded  with 
oak,  myrtle,  and  luxuriant  laurels.  The  natives  say  that  Circe  dwelt 
there,  and  they  show  the  grave  of  Elpenor,  from  which  grow  myrtles 
such  as  wreaths  are  made  of,  whereas  the  other  myrtle-trees  aie  tall. 
Thus  the  prospect  from  the  top  of  the  Alban  Mount  in  the  early  days 
of  Rome  must  have  been  very  different  in  some  respects  from  what  it 
is  to-day.  The  purple  Apennines,  indeed,  in  their  eternal  calm  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  shining  Mediterranean  in  its  eternal  unrest  on  the 
other,  no  doubt  looked  then  much  as  they  look  now,  whether  bathed  in 
sunshine  or  chequered  by  the  fleeting  shadows  of  clouds  ;  but  instead 
of  the  desolate  brown  expanse  of  the  fever-stricken  Campagna,  spanned 
by  its  long  lines  of  ruined  aqueducts,  like  the  broken  arches  of  the 
bridge  in  the  vision  of  Mirza,  the  eye  must  have  ranged  over  woodlands 
that  stretched  away,  mile  after  mile,  on  all  sides,  till  their  varied  hues 
of  green  or  autumnal  scarlet  and  gold  melted  insensibly  into  the  blue 
of  the  distant  mountains  and  sea. 

But  Jupiter  did  not  reign  alone  on  the  top  of  his  holy  mountain. 
He  had  his  consort  with  him,  the  goddess  Juno,  who  was  worshipped 
here  under  the  same  title,  Moneta,  as  on  the  Capitol  at  Rome.  As 


XIII 


THE  KING  AS  JUPITER  15I 

the  oak  crown  was  sacred  to  Jupiter  and  Juno  on  the  Capitol  so  we 
may  suppose  it  was  on  the  Alban  Mount,  from  which  the  Capitoline 
worship  was  derived.  Thus  the  oak-god  would  have  his  oak-goddess 
m  the  sacred  oak  grove.  So  at  Dodona  the  oak-god  Zeus  was  coupled 
with  Dione,  whose  very  name  is  only  a  dialectically  different  form  of 
Juno ,  and  so  on  the  top  of  Mount  Cithaeron,  as  we  have  seen,  he 
appears  to  have  been  periodically  wedded  to  an  oaken  image  of  Hera. 
It  is  probable,  though  it  cannot  be  positively  proved,  that  the  sacred 
marriage  of  Jupitei  and  Juno  was  annually  celebrated  by  all  the 
peoples  of  the  Latin  stock  in  the  month  which  thev  named  after  the 
goddess,  the  midsummer  month  of  June. 

If  at  any  time  of  the  year  the  Romans  celebrated  the  sacred  marriage 
of  Jupiter  and  Juno,  as  the  Greeks  commonly  celebrated  the  corre¬ 
sponding  marriage  of  Zeus  and  Hera,  we  may  suppose  that  under  the 
Republic  the  ceremony  was  either  performed  over  images  of  the  divine 
pair  or  acted  by  the  Flamen  Dialis  and  his  wife  the  Flaminica.  For 
the  Flamen  Dialis  was  the  priest  of  Jove  ;  indeed,  ancient  and  modern 
writers  have  regarded  him,  with  much  probability,  as  a  living  image  of 
Jupiter,  a  human  embodiment  of  the  sky-god.  In  earlier  times  the 
Roman  king,  as  representative  of  Jupiter,  would  naturally  play  the 
part  of  the  heavenly  bridegroom  at  the  sacred  marriage,  while  his 
queen  would  figure  as  the  heavenly  bride,  just  as  in  Egypt  the  king 
and  queen  masqueraded  in  the  character  of  deities,  and  as  at  Athens 
the  queen  annually  wedded  the  vine-god  Dionysus.  That  the  Roman 
king  and  queen  should  act  the  parts  of  Jupiter  and  Juno  would  seem 

all  the  more  natural  because  these  deities  themselves  bore  the  title 
of  King  and  Queen. 

Whether  that  was  so  or  not,  the  legend  of  Numa  and  Egeria  appears 
to  embody  a  reminiscence  of  a  time  when  the  priestly  king  himself 
played  the  part  of  the  divine  bridegroom  ;  and  as  we  have  seen  leason 
to  suppose  that  the  Roman  kings  personated  the  oak-god,  while  Egeria 
is  expressly  said  to  have  been  an  oak-nymph,  the  story  of  their  union 
m  the  sacred  grove  raises  a  presumption  that  at  Rome  in  the  regal 
period  a  ceremony  was  periodically  performed  exactly  analogous  to 
that  which  was  annually  celebrated  at  Athens  down  to  the  time  of 
Aristotle.  The  marriage  of  the  King  of  Rome  to  the  oak-goddess 
like  the  wedding  of  the  vine-god  to  the  Queen  of  Athens,  must  have 
been  intended  to  quicken  the  growth  of  vegetation  by  homoeopathic 
magic.  Of  the  two  forms  of  the  rite  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  the 
Roman  was  the  older,  and  that  long  before  the  northern  invaders 
met  with  the  vine  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  their  forefathers 
had  marned  the  tree-god  to  the  tree-goddess  in  the  vast  oak  forests 
oi  Central  and  Northern  Europe.  In  the  England  of  our  day  the 
forests  have  mostly  disappeared,  yet  still  on  many  a  village  green 
and  m  many  a  country  lane  a  faded  image  of  the  sacred  marriage 
lingers  in  the  rustic  pageantry  of  May  Day. 


152 


SUCCESSION  TO  KINGDOM  IN  ANCIENT  LATIUM  CH. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  SUCCESSION  TO  THE  KINGDOM  IN  ANCIENT  LATIUM 

In  regard  to  the  Roman  king,  whose  priestly  functions  were  inherited 
by  his  successor  the  King  of  the  Sacred  Rites,  the  foregoing  discussion 
has  led  us  to  the  following  conclusions.  He  represented  and  indeed 
personated  Jupiter,  the  great  god  of  the  sky,  the  thunder,  and  the  oak 
and  in  that  character  made  rain,  thunder,  and  lightning  for  the  good 
of  his  subjects,  like  many  more  kings  of  the  weather  in  other  parts  of 
the  world.  Further,  he  not  only  mimicked  the  oak-god  by  wearing 
an  oak  wreath  and  other  insignia  of  divinity,  but  he  was  married  to  an 
oak-nymph  Egeria,  who  appears  to  have  been  merely  a  local  form  of 
Diana  in  her  character  of  a  goddess  of  woods,  of  waters,  and  of  childbirth. 
All  these  conclusions,  which  we  have  reached  mainly  by  a  considera¬ 
tion  of  the  Roman  evidence,  may  with  great  probability  be  applied 
to  the  other  Latin  communities.  They  too  probably  had  of  old  their 
divine  or  priestly  kings,  who  transmitted  their  religious  functions, 
without  their  civil  powers,  to  their  successors  the  Kings  of  the  Sacred 

Rites.  ,  ,  ,, 

But  we  have  still  to  ask,  What  was  the  rule  of  succession  to  the 

kingdom  among  the  old  Latin  tribes  ?  According  to  tradition,  there 

were  in  all  eight  kings  of  Rome,  and  with  regard  to  the  five  last  of  them, 

at  all  events,  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  they  actually  sat  on  the  throne, 

and  that  the  traditional  history  of  their  reigns  is,  in  its  main  outlines, 

correct.  Now  it  is  very  remarkable  that  though  the  first  king  of  Rome, 

Romulus,  is  said  to  have  been  descended  from  the  royal  house  of  Alba, 

in  which  the  kingship  is  represented  as  hereditary  in  the  male  line,  not 

one  of  the  Roman  kings  was  immediately  succeeded  by  his  son  on  the 

throne.  Yet  several  left  sons  or  grandsons  behind  them.  On  the 

other  hand,  one  of  them  was  descended  from  a  former  king  through  his 

mother,  not  through  his  father,  and  three  of  the  kings,  namely  Tatius, 

the  elder  Tarquin,  and  Servius  Tullius,  were  succeeded  by  their  sons- 

in-law,  who  were  all  either  foreigners  or  of  foreign  descent.  This 

suggests  that  the  right  to  the  kingship  was  transmitted  in  the  female 

line?  and  was  actually  exercised  by  foreigners  who  married  the  royal 

princesses.  To  put  it  in  technical  language,  the  succession  to  the 

kingship  at  Rome  and  probably  in  Latium  generally  would  seem  to 

have  been  determined  by  certain  rules  which  have  moulded  early 

society  in  many  parts  of  the  world,  namely  exogamy,  beena  marriage, 

and  female  kinship  or  mother-kin.  Exogamy  is  the  rule  which  obliges 

a  man  to  marry  a  woman  of  a  different  clan  from  his  own  :  beena 

marriage  is  the  rule  that  he  must  leave  the  home  of  his  birth  and  live 

with  his  wife’s  people  ;  and  female  kinship  or  mother-kin  is  the  system 

of  tracing  relationship  and  transmitting  the  family  name  through 

women  instead  of  through  men.  If  these  principles  regulated  descent 

of  the  kingship  among  the  ancient  Latins,  the  state  of  things  in  this 


Xiv  SUCCESSION  TO  KINGDOM  IN  ANCIENT  LATIUM  153 

respect  would  be  somewhat  as  follows.  The  political  and  religious 
centre  of  each  community  would  be  the  perpetual  fire  on  the  king’s 
hearth  tended  by  Vestal  Virgins  of  the  royal  clan.  The  king  would  be 
a  man  of  another  clan,  perhaps  of  another  town  or  even  of  another  race 
who  had  married  a  daughter  of  his  predecessor  and  received  the 
kingdom  with  her.  The  children  whom  he  had  by  her  would  inherit 
heir  mother  s  name,  not  his ;  the  daughters  would  remain  at  home 

ind  sett’le^fi  hey  —  UP'  W°Uld  g°  aWay  into  the  world,  marry,' 
and  sett’e  m  their  wives  country,  whether  as  kings  or  commoners. 

the  daughters  who  stayed  at  home,  some  or  all  would  be  dedicated 

as  Vestal  Virgins  for  a  longer  or  shorter  time  to  the  service  of  the  fire 

on  the  hearth,  and  one  of  them  would  in  time  become  the  consort  of 
her  father  s  successor. 

This  hypothesis  has  the  advantage  of  explaining  in  a  simple  and 
natural  way  some  obscure  features  in  the  traditional  historyPof  the 
Latin  kingship.  Thus  the  legends  which  tell  how  Latin  kings  were 
rn  of  vn  gm  mothers  and  divine  fathers  become  at  least  more  intelli¬ 
gible.  For,  stripped  of  their  fabulous  element,  tales  of  this  sort  mean 

kn  thnn+nhat  a  woman  has  been  gotten  with  child  by  a  man  un- 

■  ,,'n  ’  a+d  t  Ur  uncertainty  as  to  fatherhood  is  more  easily  compatible 
ith  a  system  of  kinship  which  ignores  paternity  than  with  one  which 
makes  it  all-important.  If  at  the  birth  of  the  Latin  kings  their  fathers 

iifereinethJ  unk"own  the  fact  points  either  to  a  general  looseness  of 
the  ro-val  family  or  to  a  special  relaxation  of  moral  rules  on 
ceitain  occasions,  when  men  and  women  reverted  for  a  season  to  the 
icence  of  an  earlier  age.  Such  Saturnalias  are  not  uncommon  at  some 
stages  of  social  evolution.  In  our  own  country  traces  of  them  long 

Christm  m  m  ,praCf C6S  °f  May  Day  and  Whitsuntide,  if  not  o&f 
Chiistmas.  Children  born  of  the  more  or  less  promiscuous  intercourse 

which  chat actenses  festivals  of  this  kind  would  naturally  be  fathered 

on  the  god  to  whom  the  particular  festival  was  dedicated7 

connexion  it  may  be  significant  that  a  festival  of  jollity 
nn  ,,.IjUnkenness  was  celebrated  by  the  plebeians  and  slaves  at  Rome 

the^m?111™!' Da  c’  and  th^  the  f6Stival  Was  sPeciaI1y  associated  with 
he  fireborn  King  Servius  Tullius,  being  held  in  honour  of  Fortuna 

the  goddess  who  loved  Servius  as  Egeria  loved  Numa.  The  popular 

eiry  makings  at  this  season  included  foot-races  and  boat-races  •  the 

liber  was  gay  with  flower-wreathed  boats,  in  which  young  folk  sat 

quaffing  wine.  The  festival  appears  to  have  been  a  sor/of  Midsummer 

ifm^d  la  apSW6nng  t0  the  real  Safurnalia  which  fell  at  Midwinter. 

LstfvafhTs  hUr°PeKaS  WnShf  leam  later  0n’  the  great  Midsumme; 
princinal  fe  ab°T£  &  festlval  of  lovers  and  of  fire  ;  one  of  its 
bonfirefh f  !q*  t  1S,the  palrmg  of  sweethearts,  who  leap  over  the 
j»°”f  hand  “  hanf  ,°r  *  lr°W  fl0Wers  across  ‘he  flames  to  each  other 
L?dmany  omens  of  love  and  marriage  are  drawn  from  the  flowers 

ot  V°rtnat  thlS  myStiC  SeaSOn’  !t  is  the  time  of  ‘he  roses  and  of 
Ze,  nit  mnocence  and  beauty  of  such  festivals  in  modern 
■imes  ought  not  to  blind  us  to  the  likelihood  that  in  earlier  days  they 


i54  SUCCESSION  TO  KINGDOM  IN  ANCIENT  LATIUM 


CH. 


were  marked  by  coarser  features,  which  were  probably  of  the  essence 
rr  rites.  Indeed,  among  the  rude  Esthoman  peasantry  these 
features  seem  to  have  lingered  down  to  our  own  generation,  if  not  to 
the  present  day.  One  other  feature  in  the  Roman  celebiation  of  - 
summer  deserves  to  be  specially  noticed.  The  custom  o  rowing  in 
flnwer-decked  boats  on  the  river  on  this  day  proves  that  it  was  to 
some  extent  a  water  festival ;  and  water  has  always,  down  to  modern 
times  played  a  conspicuous  part  m  the  rites  oi  Midsummer  Day,  w  ic 
explains  why  the  Church,  in  throwing  its  cloak  over  the  old  heathen 

festival  chose  to  dedicate  it  to  St.  John  the  Baptist. 

The  hypothesis  that  the  Latin  kings  may  have  been  begotten  at  an 
annual  festival  of  love  is  necessarily  a  mere  conjecture,  though 
traditional  birth  of  Numa  at  the  festival  of  the  Panl.a,  when  shepherds 
leaped  across  the  spring  bonfires,  as  lovers  leap  across  the  Midsummer 
fires  may  perhaps  be  thought  to  lend  it  a  faint  colour  of  probability. 
But ’it  is  quite  possible  that  the  uncertainty  as  to  their  fathers  may  not 
have  arisen  till  long  after  the  death  of  the  kings,  when  their  figures 
began  to  melt  away  into  the  cloudland  of  fable,  assuming  fantastic 
shapes  ^an™  gorgeous  colouring  as  they  passed  from  earth  to  heaven 
If  they  were  alien  immigrants,  strangers  and  pilgrims  in  the  land  they 
ruled  over  it  would  be  natural  enough  that  the  people  should  forget 
their  lineage  and  forgetting  it  should  provide  them  with  another, 
which  made  up  in  lustre  what  it  lacked  in  truth.  The  final  apotheosis 
which  represented  the  kings  not  merely  as  sprung  from  gods  but  as 
themselves  deities  incarnate,  would  be  much  facilitated  if  in  their 
lifetime,  as  we  have  seen  reason  to  think,  they  had  actually  laid  claim 

t0  uTmong  the  Latins  the  women  of  royal  blood  always  stayed  at 
home  and  received  as  their  consorts  men  of  another  stock,  and  often  of 
another  country,  who  reigned  as  kings  in  virtue  of  their  marriage  with 
a  native  prince^,  we  can  understand  not  only  why  foreigners  wore  h 
crown  at  Rome,  but  also  why  foreign  names  occur  m  the  list  of 
Alban  kings.  In  a  state  of  society  where  nobility  is  reckoned  only 
through  women — in  other  words,  where  descent  through  the  mothe 
is  everything,  and  descent  through  the  father  is  nothing— no  objection 
will  be^felt  to  uniting  girls  of  the  highest  rank  to  men  of  humble  bnth, 
"‘  ,1  to  Miens  or  slavfs,  provided  that  in  themselves  the  men  appear 
to  be  suitable  mates.  What  really  matters  is  that  the  royal  stock  on 
which  the  prosperity  and  even  the  existence  of  the  people ms  s  pF  d 
to  denend  should  be  perpetuated  in  a  vigorous  and  efficient  ioi  , 
lor  th's  purpose  it  isVcessary  that  the  women  of  the  royal  famdy 
should  bear  children  to  men  who  are  physically  and  menL  y  , 
according  to  the  standard  of  early  society,  to  discharge  the  impor 
duty  of  procreation.  Thus  the  personal  qualities  of  the  kings  at  this 
stage  of  social  evolution  are  deemed  of  vital  importance  If  they, 
like  their  consorts,  are  of  royal  and  divine  descent,  so  much  the  bette  , 

but  it  is  not  essential  that  they  should  be  so.  .  h  throne 

At  Athens,  as  at  Rome,  we  find  traces  of  succession  to  the  throne 


xiv  SUCCESSION  TO  KINGDOM  IN  ANCIENT  LATIUM  155 

by  marriage  with  a  royal  princess ;  for  two  of  the  most  ancient  kings 
o  ens,  namely  Cecrops  and  Amphictyon,  are  said  to  have  married 
the  daughters  of  their  predecessors.  This  tradition  is  to  a  certain 
extent  confirmed  by  evidence,  pointing  to  the  conclusion  that  at  Athens 
male  kinship  was  preceded  by  female  kinship. 

Further,  if  I  am  right  in  supposing  that  in  ancient  Latium  the 
royal  families  kept  their  daughters  at  home  and  sent  forth  their  sons 
to  many  princesses  and  reign  among  their  wives’  people,  it  will  follow 
that  the  male  descendants  would  reign  in  successive  generations  over 
different  kingdoms.  Now  this  seems  to  have  happened  both  in  ancient 
Gieece  and  m  ancient  Sweden ;  from  which  we  may  legitimately  infer 
that  it  was  a  custom  practised  by  more  than  one  branch  of  the  Aryan 
stock  m  Europe  Many  Greek  traditions  relate  how  a  prince  left  his 
native  land  and  going  to  a  far  country  married  the  king’s  daughter 
and  succeeded  to  the  kingdom.  Various  reasons  are  assigned  by 
ancient  Greek  writers  for  these  migrations  of  the  princes.  A  common 
one  is  that  the  king  s  son  had  been  banished  for  murder.  This  would 
exp  am  very  well  why  he  fled  his  own  land,  but  it  is  no  reason  at  all 
why  he  should  become  king  of  another.  We  may  suspect  that  such 
reasons  are  afterthoughts  devised  by  writers,  who,  accustomed  to  the 
rule  that  a  son  should  succeed  to  his  father’s  property  and  kingdom 
were  hard  put  to  it  to  account  for  so  many  traditions  of  kings’  sons 
who  quitted  the  land  of  their  birth  to  reign  over  a  foreign  kingdom. 
In  Scandinavian  tradition  we  meet  with  traces  of  similar  customs, 
or  we  read  of  daughters’  husbands  who  received  a  share  of  the  king- 
oms  of  their  royal  fathers-in-law,  even  when  these  fathers-in-law  had 

S°nS  a  iG611  ’  m  Particular,  during  the  five  generations  which 

preceded  Harold  the  Fair-haired,  male  members  of  the  Ynglingar  family 
w  ich  is  said  to  have  come  from  Sweden,  are  reported  in  the  Heim- 
sknngla  or  Sagas  of  the  Norwegian  Kings  to  have  obtained  at  least  six 
provinces  in  Norway  by  marriage  with  the  daughters  of  the  local  kings. 

st^nfYu  W0Uld  fen\that  amonS  some  Aryan  peoples,  at  a  certain 
stage  of  their  social  evolution,  it  has  been  customary  to  regard  women 

and  not  men  as  the  channels  in  which  royal  blood  flows,  and  to  bestow 

me  kingdom  m  each  successive  generation  on  a  man  of  another  family 

°  tGn  °[  anotJ1^r  country,  who  marries  one  of  the  princesses  and 

°kVer  hlS  ^lfe  S  peoPle*  A  common  type  of  popular  tale,  which 
+ J T  ,,  an  adventurer,  coming  to  a  strange  land,  wins  the  hand  of 

m^1SidaU^Aer  and  with  her  the  half  or  the  whole  of  the  kingdom 
may  well  be  a  reminiscence  of  a  real  custom. 

HT^ere  USagef  and  ldeas  of  this  sort  prevail,  it  is  obvious  that  the 
rm.f?  lpiS  me1r51y  an  aPPanage  of  marriage  with  a  woman  of  the  blood 
^  /.  0  d  Danish  historian  Saxo  Grammaticus  puts  this  view  of 

me  kingship  very  clearly  in  the  mouth  of  Hermutrude,  a  legendary 

"  Indeed  she  was  a  queen,”  says  Hermutrude^ 

7  .^t  her  sex  gainsaid  it,  might  be  deemed  a  king  ;  nay  (and 

S  truer^  whomsoever  she  thought  worthy  of  her  bed  was  at 
e  a  kln&’  and  she  yielded  her  kingdom  with  herself.  Thus  her 


156  SUCCESSION  TO  KINGDOM  IN  ANCIENT  LATIUM  ch. 


sceptre  and  her  hand  went  together."  The  statement  is  all  the  more 
significant  because  it  appears  to  reflect  the  actual  P^ce  o ® 
Pictish  kings.  We  know  from  the  testimony  of  Bede  that,  whenever 
a  doubt  arose  as  to  the  succession,  the  Piets  chose  their  kings  from  the 
female  rather  than  the  male  line. 

The  personal  qualities  which  recommended  a  man  for  a  royal 
alliance  and  succession  to  the  throne  would  naturally  vary ^accord  mg 
to  the  popular  ideas  of  the  time  and  the  character  of  the  king 
substitute,  but  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  among  them  in  ear  y 
society  physical  strength  and  beauty  would  hold  a  prominent  place. 

Sometimes  apparently  the  right  to  the  hand  of  the  princess  and  to 
the  throne  has  been  determined  by  a  race.  The  Alitemman  Li  y 
awarded  the  kingdom  to  the  fleetest  runner.  Amongst  the  old  Prussians, 
candidates  for  nobility  raced  on  horseback  to  the  king  and  the  one  who 
reached  him  first  was  ennobled.  According  to  tradition  the  earliest 
games  at  Olympia  were  held  by  Endymion,  who  set  his  sons  to  run  a 
race  for  the  kingdom.  His  tomb  was  said  to  be  at  the  point  of  the 
racecourse  from  which  the  runners  started.  The  famous  stoi  y  of  Pelops 
and  Hippodamia  is  perhaps  only  another  version  of  the  legend  diat  the 
first  races  at  Olympia  were  run  for  no  less  a  prize  than  a  kingdom. 

These  traditions  may  very  well  reflect  a  real  custom  of  racing  or 
a  bride  for  such  a  custom  appears  to  have  prevailed  among  various 
peoples,  though  in  practice  it  has  degenerated  into  a  mere  form  or 
pretence.  Thus  “  there  is  one  race,  called  the  ‘  Love  Chase  wine 
may  be  considered  a  part  of  the  form  of  marriage  among  the  Kirghiz. 
In  this  the  bride,  armed  with  a  formidable  whip,  mounts  a  fleet  hoist, 
and  is  pursued  by  all  the  young  men  who  make  any  pretensions  to  her 
hand.  She  will  be  given  as  a  prize  to  the  one  who  catches  hep  but  s 
has  the  right,  besides  urging  on  her  horse  to  the  utmost,  to  use  hei  whip, 
often  with  no  mean  force,  to  keep  off  those  lovers  who  are  unwelcome 
to  her  and  she  will  probably  favour  the  one  whom  she  has  already 
chosen  in  her  heart.”  The  race  for  the  bride  is  found  also  among  t  e 
Koryaks  of  North-eastern  Asia.  It  takes  place  m  a  large  tent,  roun 
which  many  separate  compartments  called  pologs  are  arranged  m  a 
continuous  circle.  The  girl  gets  a  start  and  is  clear  of  the  marriage, 
she  can  run  through  all  the  compartments  without  being  caught  by  th 
bridegroom.  The  women  of  the  encampment  place  every  obstacle  m 
the  man’s  way,  tripping  him  up,  belabouring  him  with  switches,  and  so 
forth,  so  that  he  has  little  chance  of  succeeding  unless  the  girl  wishes  it 
and  waits  for  him.  Similar  customs  appear  to  have  been  practised 
by  all  the  Teutonic  peoples ;  for  the  German,  Anglo-Saxon,  and  Norse 
languages  possess  in  common  a  word  for  marriage  which  means  simp  f 
bride-race.  Moreover,  traces  of  the  custom  survived  into  modem 


il 


times. 


Thus  it  appears  that  the  right  to  marry  a  girl,  and  especially  a 
princess,  has  often  been  conferred  as  a  prize  in  an  athletic  contest. 
There  would  be  no  reason,  therefore,  for  surprise  if  the  Roman  kings, 
before  bestowing  their  daughters  in  marriage,  should  have  resoitcd  to 


XIV  SUCCESSION  TO  KINGDOM  IN  ANCIENT  LATIUM  157 

this  ancient  mode  of  testing  the  personal  qualities  of  their  future  sons- 
mdaw  and  successors.  Ii  my  theory  is  correct,  the  Roman  king  and 
:  of  tl"  per*onat®d  JlIP‘ter  and  his  divine  consort,  and  in  the  character 

marriage  for^he63  ^  th/°Ugh  the  annual  ceremony  of  a  sacred 
mainage  for  the  purpose  of  causing  the  crops  to  grow  and  men  and 

ca  e  to  be  fruitful  and  multiply.  Thus  they  did  what  in  more  northern 

nlSvroroTdSUPNPoOSe  theuKlng  and  9Ueen  of  May  were  believed  to  do 
in  days  ot  old.  Now  we  have  seen  that  the  right  to  plav  the  nart  of 

£,  S  hv?  S“"  «'  “*>■ 

termined  by  an  athletic  contest,  particularly  by  a  race  This  mav 
have  been  a  relic  of  an  old  marriage  custom  of  the  sort  we  have 

matrimonv &  cust°m  designed  to  test  the  fitness  of  a  candidate  for 
atrimony  Such  a  test  might  reasonably  be  applied  with  peculiar 

dncapadtateehhulgfomthrder  f°  emUre  that  n°  personal  defect  should 
incapacitate  him  for  the  performance  of  those  sacred  rites  and  cere- 

miHt^v°duHei  ;heVenf?0re  “  the  deSpatch  of  his  civil  and 
tary  duties,  the  safety  and  prosperity  of  the  community  were 

believed  to  depend  And  it  would  be  natural  to  require  of  him  that 

"t*  t0  tflme  be  f  °uld  submit  himself  afresh  to  the  same  ordeal 
r  the  sake  of  publicly  demonstrating  that  he  was  still  equal  to  the 
discharge  of  his  high  calling.  A  relic  of  that  test  perhaps  survived  in 
the  ceremony  known  as  the  Flight  of  the  King  (regifugium)  which 
continuecl  to  be  annually  observed  at  Rome  down  to  imperial  times 
the  twenty-fourth  day  of  February  a  sacrifice  used  to  be  offered  in 

fromCZ  Fon,mandW  en  *  Was.0ver  the  Kin§  of  the  Sacred  Rites  fled 
from  the  Torum  We  may  conjecture  that  the  Flight  of  the  King  was 

kf  prize  taorthCrfleetantannUal  Whkh  may  haVe  been  awarded 

as  a  puze  to  the  fleetest  runner.  At  the  end  of  the  year  the  king  might 

run  again  for  a  second  term  of  office  ;  and  so  on,  until  he  was  defeated 

and  deposed  or  perhaps  slain.  In  this  way  what  had  once  been  a  race 

would  bnd  t0  ®  theucharacter  of  a  flight  and  a  pursuit.  The  king 
ivould  be  given  a  start ;  he  ran  and  his  competitors  ran  after  him  and 

,  i-Te.re.ov^taken  ke  bad  to  yield  the  crown  and  perhaps  his  life  to 
^  lightest  of  foot  among  them.  In  time  a  man  of  masterful  chapter 
ght  succeed  m  seating  himself  permanently  on  the  throne  and 

fltavsn?o  haveTal  raq  0rmight  t0  the  empty  fo™  which  *  seems 
nternreted  fls  historical  times.  The  rite  was  sometimes 

W  but Thk  C0m”rutl0\0f  the  eXpulsi0n  of  the  kin8s  from 

,  ut  this  appears  to  have  been  a  mere  afterthought  devised  to 
XP  am  a  ceremony  of  which  the  old  meaning  was  forgotten  It  is  far 

"eeping  ,  7  ^  ^  thUS  the  K“g  °f  the  Sacred  ^tes  was  merely 

2  Up  an  “cient  custom  which  in  the  regal  period  had  been 

Mention  of  7  l  predecessors  the  kings.  What  the  original 

r  less  a  f  aW  been  mUSt  probably  always  remain  more 

Jh  f  “atter  conjecture.  The  present  explanation  is  suggested 

ivolved  561136  6  dlffiCUlty  and  obscur'ty  in  which  the  subject  is 

Thus,  if  my  theory  is  correct,  the  yearly  flight  of  the  Roman  king  ' 


158  SUCCESSION  TO  KINGDOM  IN  ANCIENT  LATIUM 


CH. 


was  a  relic  of  a  time  when  the  kingship  was  an  annual  office  awar  lc  , 
alone  with  the  hand  of  a  princess,  to  the  victorious  athlete  01  gladiator, 
whoSthereafter  figured  along  with  his  bride  as  a  god  and  goddess  at  a 

mtliic  magic  If  I  am  right  m  supposing  that  in  very  early  times  me 

buzz? 

a  thunderbolt  for  impiously  mimicking  the  thunder  01  juj  u  . 
Romulus  is  said  to  have  vanished  mysteriously  like  Aeneas,  or 
have  been  cut  to  pieces  by  the  patricians  whom  he  had  offended  and 
hT»v"n.h  of  July,  the  day  on  which  h«  perwhed  ,  fc.iv.  , 
which  bore  some  resemblance  to  the  Saturnalia,  For  on  that  day  me 
female  slaves  were  allowed  to  take  certain  remarkable  liberties.  1  hey  1 
dressed  up  as  free  women  in  the  attire  of  matrons  and  maids  and  m 
fhis  guise  they  went  forth  from  the  city,  scoffed  and  jeered  at  all  whom 
hev^iet  and  engaged  among  themselves  in  a  fight  striking  and 
throwing  stones  at  each  other.  Another  Roman  king  who  perished  by 
violence8was  Tatius,  the  Sabine  colleague  of  Romulus.  It  is  said  that 
^  cniT  avimum  offering  a  public  sacrifice  to  the  ancestral  gods,  when  , 

soermenLTwhom S  given  umbrage,  despatched  him  with  the 

sacrificial  knives  and  spits  which  they  had  snatched  from  t  le  a  ar.  e 
occasion and  the  manner  of  his  death  suggest  that  the  slaughter  may 
been  a  sacrifice  rather  than  an  assassination.  Again,  Tullus 
Hostilius  the  successor  of  Numa,  was  commonly  said  to  have  been 
ffihed  bv ’lightning  but  many  held  that  he  was  murdered  at  the  mstiga- 
SSSct “S,  Who  reienod  .fter  hhu 

die  five  who  reined  after  him  the  last  was  deposed  and  ended  his 
life  in  exile  and  of  the  remaining  four  not  one  died  a  natuial  deat  , 
f  or  three  of ’them  were  assassinated  and  Tullus  Hostilius  was  consumed 

^  IhTsUegends  of  the  violent  ends  of  the  Roman  kings  suggest  that 
the  contest  by  which  they  gained  the  throne  may  sometimes  have 
been  a  mortal  combat  rather  than  a  race.  If  that  were  so,  the  analogy 
which  we  have  traced  between  Rome  and  Nemi  would  be  still  c  loser. 
At  both  places  the  sacred  kings,  the  living  representativ 
godhead,  would  thus  be  liable  to  suffer  deposition  and  death  at  he  , 
band  of  any  resolute  man  who  could  prove  his  divine  right  to  the 
o  v  office  bv  the  strong  arm  and  the  sharp  sword.  It  would  not  be 

oftelTavi1  sffigll  cmnffiTt J  foV  down  *0  historic^ 

,•  TTmbrians  regularly  submitted  their  pi iv cite  d  sp  - 

thTordeal  ofbattle  and  he  who  cut  his  adversary’s  throat  was  though 
Sereby  ttave  proved  the  justice  of  his  cause  beyond  the  reach  of 

cavil. 


XV 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  THE  OAK 


159 


CHAPTER  XV 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  THE  OAK 

toared  bvall  the  to®  °,!  the  °ak  g°d  appearS  t0  have  been 

shared  by  all  the  branches  of  the  Aryan  stock  in  Europe.  Both  Greeks 

and  Italians  associated  the  tree  with  their  highest  god  Zeus  or  [uniter 
the  divinity  of  the  sky,  the  rain,  and  the  thunder.  Perhaps  the  oMest 
and  certainly  one  of  the  most  famous  sanctuaries  in  Greece  was  that 
of  Dodona,  where  Zeus  was  revered  in  the  oracular  oak.  The  thunder¬ 
storms  which  are  said  to  rage  at  Dodona  more  frequently  than  any¬ 
where  else  in  Europe,  would  render  the  spot  a  fitting  home  for  the  god 
whose  voice  was  heard  alike  in  the  rustling  of  the  oak  leaves  and  to 
e  ciash  of  thunder.  Perhaps  the  bronze  gongs  which  kept  un  a 
humming  m  the  wind  round  the  sanctuary Vre  meant  to  mZic 
e  thunder  that  might  so  often  be  heard  rolling  and  rumbling  in  the 

vallev  S  to*  R  ^  mountains  which  shut  in  the  gloomy 

an/w  In  foeotla'  we  have  seen,  the  sacred  marriage  of  Zeus 

,d,  H®ra’  the  oak  fod  and  the  oak  goddess,  appears  to  have  been 
ebrated  with  much  pomp  by  a  religious  federation  of  states.  And 
J-yeaeus  m  Arcadia  the  character  of  Zeus  as  god  both  of  the 

the  nrie^°f  7  ram  n°mrS  °Ut  dearly  the  rain  charm  Practised  by 
he  priest  of  Zeus,  who  dipped  an  oak  branch  in  a  sacred  spring  In 

his  latter  capacity  Zeus  was  the  god  to  whom  the  Greeks  regularlv 

prayed  for  rain  Nothing  could  be  more  natural ;  for  often,  though 

lWay\he  had  hl*  seat  on  the  mountains  where  the  clouds  gather 
I"dth-aks  smw-  °n  the  acropolis  at  Athens  there  was  an  image 
of  Earth  praying  to  Zeus  for  rain.  And  in  time  of  drought  toe 
Athenians  themselves  prayed,  “Rain,  rain,  O  dear  Zeus  on  the 
cornland  of  the  Athenians  and  on  the  plains.” 

At  ofvmn;GeUS/fdedn  the,thunder  and  lightning  as  well  as  the  rain. 

Thunder-hob-  d  *  7^  7 WaS  worshiPPed  under  the  surname  of 
underbolt  and  at  Athens  there  was  a  sacrificial  hearth  of  Lightning 

aver  M  eeC1py  ’  Where  S°me  priestly  °fficials  etched  for  lightning 
aver  Mount  Parnes  at  certain  seasons  of  the  year.  Further  spots 

'reel  ^i been  struck  by  lightning  were  regularly  fenced  in  byPthe 

vho k  “^1  consecrated  t0  Zeus  the  Descender,  that  is,  to  the  god 
ho  came  down  m  the  flash  from  heaven.  Altars  were  set  up  within 
hese  enclosures  and  sacrifices  offered  on  them.  Several  such  places 
ire  known  from  inscriptions  to  have  existed  in  Athens.  P 

'eus  ^ndW!fn  a+ncirnt  ?reek  kings  claimed  to  be  descended  from 
-  us,  and  even  to  bear  his  name,  we  may  reasonably  suppose  that 

Srato  fo^to^  d  TIT®  hiS  divine  fl,nctions  bY  making  thunder 
heii  foe/  r  htK?0°d  °f  heur  pe°ple  0r  the  terror  and  confusion  of 
.  ,  .In  thl/  resPect  the  legend  of  Salmoneus  probably  reflects 

he  pretensions  of  a  whole  class  of  petty  sovereigns  who  reign d 5 
id,  each  over  his  little  canton,  in  the  oak-clad  highlands  of  Greece. 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  THE  OAK 


CH. 


160 

Like  their  kinsmen  the  Irish  kings,  they  were  expected  to  be  a  source 
of  fertility  to  the  land  and  of  fecundity  to  the  cattle  ;  and  how  could 
thev  fulfil  these  expectations  better  than  by  acting  the  part  of  their 
kinsman  Zeus,  the  great  god  of  the  oak,  the  thunder,  and  the  rain  . 
They  personified  him,  apparently,  just  as  the  Italian  kings  personified 

J  1  In  ancient  Italy  every  oak  was  sacred  to  Jupiter,  the  Italian  counter¬ 
part  of  Zeus  ;  and  on  the  Capitol  at  Rome  the  god  was  worshipped 
as  the  deity  not  merely  of  the  oak,  but  of  the  rain  and  the  thun  cr. 
Contrasting  the  piety  of  the  good  old  times  with  the  scepticism  o  an 
age  when  nobody  thought  that  heaven  was  heaven,  or  cared  a  g 
for  Jupiter,  a  Roman  writer  tells  us  that  in  former  days  noble  matrons 
used  to  go  with  bare  feet,  streaming  hair,  and  pure  minds,  up  the  ong 
Capitoline  slope,  praying  to  Jupiter  for  rain.  And  straightway,  he 
goes  on  it  rained  bucketsful,  then  or  never,  and  everybody  returned 
dripping  like  drowned  rats.  “  But  nowadays,”  says  he,  we  are  no 

longer  religious,  so  the  fields  lie  baking. 

When  we  pass  from  southern  to  central  Europe  we  still  meet  with 

the  great  god  of  the  oak  and  the  thunder  among  the  barbarous  Aryans 
who  dwelt  in  the  vast  primaeval  forests.  Thus  among  the  Celts  o 
Gaul  the  Druids  esteemed  nothing  more  sacred  than  the  mistletoe 
and  the  oak  on  which  it  grew  ;  they  chose  groves  of  oaks  for  the  scene 
of  their  solemn  service,  and  they  performed  none  of  their  rites  without 
oak  leaves.  “  The  Celts,”  says  a  Greek  writer,  worship  Zeus,  and 
the  Celtic  image  of  Zeus  is  a  tall  oak."  The  Celtic  conquerors  w  o 
settled  in  Asia  in  the  third  century  before  our  era,  appear  to  have 
carried  the  worship  of  the  oak  with  them  to  their  new  home,  for  in 
the  heart  of  Asia  Minor  the  Galatian  senate  met  in  a  place  which  bore 
the  pure  Celtic  name  of  Drynemetum,  “  the  sacred  oak  grove  or 
<■  the  temple  of  the  oak.”  Indeed  the  very  name  of  Druids  is  believed 

bv  good  authorities  to  mean  no  more  than  “  oak  men.” 

In  the  religion  of  the  ancient  Germans  the  veneration  foi  sacred 
groves  seems  to  have  held  the  foremost  place,  and  accoiding  to  nmm 
the  chief  of  their  holy  trees  was  the  oak.  iDappears  to  have  bee 
especially  dedicated  to  the  god  of  thunder  Donar  or  Thunai,  the 
equivalent  of  the  Norse  Thor  ;  for  a  sacred  oak  near  Geismar,  m  Hesse 
which  Boniface  cut  down  in  the  eighth  century  went  among  the 
heathen  by  the  name  of  Jupiter's  oak  (rob, a  Jovis),  which  m  old  German 
would  be  Donates  eih,  “  the  oak  of  Donar  That  the  Teuton 
thunder  god  Donar,  Thunar,  Thor  was  identified  with  the  Italian 
thunder  god  Jupiter  appears  from  our  word  Thursday  Thunar  s  day, 
which  is  merely  a  rendering  of  the  Latin  dies  Jovis.  1  hus  among 
ancient  Teutons,  as  among  the  Greeks  and  Italians,  the  go 
oak  was  also  the  god  of  the  thunder.  Moreover,  he  was  regarded  as 
the  great  fertilising  power,  who  sent  ram  and  caused  the  eart 
beadfrait  for  Adlm  of  Bremen  tells  us  that  “  Thor  presides  m  he 
air  ;  he  it  is  who  rules  thunder  and  lightning,  wind  and  rains  fine 
weather  and  crops.”  In  these  respects,  therefore,  the  Teutonic 


XVI  DIANUS  AND  DIANA  l6l 

thunder  god  again  resembled  his  southern  counterparts  Zeus  and 
Jupiter. 

Amongst  the  Slavs  also  the  oak  appears  to  have  been  the  sacred 
tree  of  the  thunder  god  Perun,  the  counterpart  of  Zeus  and  Jupiter. 
It  is  said  that  at  Novgorod  there  used  to  stand  an  image  of  Perun  in 
the  likeness  of  a  man  with  a  thunder-stone  in  his  hand.  A  fire  of 
oak  wood  burned  day  and  night  in  his  honour  \  and  if  ever  it  went 
out  the  attendants  paid  for  their  negligence  with  their  lives.  Perun 
seems,  like  Zeus  and  Jupiter,  to  have  been  the  chief  god  of  his  people  * 
for  Procopius  tells  us  that  the  Slavs  "  believe  that  one  god,  the  maker 

of  lightning,  is  alone  loid  of  all  things,  and  they  sacrifice  to  him  oxen 
and  every  victim.” 

The  chief  deity  of  the  Lithuanians  was  Perkunas  or  Perkuns,  the 
god  of  thunder  and  lightning,  whose  resemblance  to  Zeus  and  Jupiter 
has  often  been  pointed  out.  Oaks  were  sacred  to  him,  and  when  they 
were  cut  down  by  the  Christian  missionaries,  the  people  loudly  com¬ 
plained  that  their  sylvan  deities  were  destroyed.  Perpetual  fires 
kindled  with  the  wood  of  certain  oak-trees,  were  kept  up  in  honour 
of  Perkunas  ;  if  such  a  fire  went  out,  it  was  lighted  again  by  friction 
of  the  sacred  wood.  Men  sacrificed  to  oak-trees  for  good  crops,  while 
women  did  the  same  to  lime-trees  ;  from  which  we  may  infer  that 
they  regarded  oaks  as  male  and  lime-trees  as  female.  And  in  time 
of  drought,  when  they  wanted  rain,  they  used  to  sacrifice  a  black 
heifei ,  a  black  he-goat,  and  a  black  cock  to  the  thunder  god  in  the 
depths  of  the  woods.  On  such  occasions  the  people  assembled  in 
great  numbers  from  the  country  round  about,  ate  and  drank,  and 
called  upon  Perkunas.  They  carried  a  bowl  of  beer  thrice  round  the 
fire,  then  poured  the  liquor  on  the  flames,  while  they  prayed  to  the 
god  to  send  showers.  Thus  the  chief  Lithuanian  deity  presents  a 
close  resemblance  to  Zeus  and  Jupiter,  since  he  was  the  god  of  the  oak, 
the  thunder,  and  the  rain. 

From  the  foregoing  survey  it  appears  that  a  god  of  the  oak,  the 
thunder,  and  the  rain  was  worshipped  of  old  by  all  the  main  branches 

of  the  Aryan  stock  in  Europe,  and  was  indeed  the  chief  deity  of 
their  pantheon. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

DIANUS  AND  DIANA 

In  this  chapter  I  propose  to  recapitulate  the  conclusions  to  which  the 
enquiry  has  thus  far  led  us,  and  drawing  together  the  scattered  rays 
of  light,  to  turn  them  on  the  dark  figure  of  the  priest  of  Nemi. 

We  have  found  that  at  an  early  stage  of  society  men,  ignorant  of 
the  secret  processes  of  nature  and  of  the  narrow  limits  within  which 
it  is  in  our  power  to  control  and  direct  them,  have  commonly  arrogated 
to  themselves  functions  which  in  the  present  state  of  knowledge  we 

M 


DIANUS  AND  DIANA 


CH. 


162 

should  deem  superhuman  or  divine.  The  illusion  has  beem  fostered  I 
and  maintained  by  the  same  causes  which  begot  it,  namely,  the 
marvellous  order  and  uniformity  with  which  nature  conducts  er 
operations,  the  wheels  of  her  great  machine  revolving  with  a  smooth¬ 
es  and  precision  which  enable  the  patient  observer  to  anticipate  m 
general  the  season,  if  not  the  very  hour,  when  they  will  bring  round  the 
fulfilment  of  his  hopes  or  the  accomplishment  of  his  fears.  The 
regularly  recurring  events  of  this  great  cycle,  or  rather  senes  of  cycles 
soon  stamp  themselves  even  on  the  dull  mind  of  the  savage, 
foresees  them,  and  foreseeing  them  mistakes  the  desired  recurrence 
for  an  effect  of  his  own  will,  and  the  dreaded  recurrence  for  an  effect 
of  the  will  of  his  enemies.  Thus  the  springs  which  set  the  vast  machine 
in  motion,  though  they  lie  far  beyond  our  ken,  shrouded  m  a  mystery 
which  we  can  never  hope  to  penetrate,  appear  to  ignorant  man  to  lie 
within  his  reach  :  he  fancies  he  can  touch  them  and  so  work  by  magic 
art  all  manner  of  good  to  himself  and  evil  to  lus  foes.  In  time  the 
fallacy  of  this  belief  becomes  apparent  to  him  :  he  discovers  that  t  ere 
are  things  he  cannot  do,  pleasures  which  he  is  unable  of  himself  to 
procure  pains  which  even  the  most  potent  magician  is  powerless  to 
avoid.  The  unattainable  good,  the  inevitable  ill,  are  now  ascribed 
bv  him  to  the  action  of  invisible  powers,  whose  favour  is  joy  and  li  e 
whose  anger  is  misery  and  death.  Thus  magic  tends  to  be  displaced 
by  religion,  and  the  sorcerer  by  the  priest.  At  this  stage  of  tlioug  t 
the  ultimate  causes  of  things  are  conceived  to  be  personal  beings,  many 
in  number  and  often  discordant  in  character,  who  partake  of  the  nature 
and  even  of  the  frailty  of  man,  though  their  might  is  greater  than  his, 
and  their  life  far  exceeds  the  span  of  his  ephemeral  existence, 
sharply-marked  individualities,  their  clear-cut  outlines  have  not  yet 
begun  under  the  powerful  solvent  of  philosophy,  to  melt  and  coalesce 
into  that  single  unknown  substratum  of  phenomena  which,  according 
to  the  qualities  with  which  our  imagination  invests  it,  goes  y  one  or 
other  of  the  high-sounding  names  which  the  wit  of  man  has  devised 
to  hide  his  ignorance.  Accordingly,  so  long  as  men  look  on  their  gods 
as  beings  akin  to  themselves  and  not  raised  to  an  unapproachable 
height  above  them,  they  believe  it  to  be  possible  for  those  of  their 
own  number  who  surpass  their  fellows  to  attain  to  the  divine  rank 
after  death  or  even  in  life.  Incarnate  human  deities  of  this  latter 
sort  may  be  said  to  halt  midway  between  the  age  of  magic  and  the 
-ge  of  religion.  If  they  bear  the  names  and  display  the  pomp  ot 
deities  the  powers  which  they  are  supposed  to  wield  are  commonly 
those  of  their  predecessor  the  magician.  Like  him,  they  are  expected  to 
guard  their  people  against  hostile  enchantments,  to  heal  them  in 
sickness  to  bless  them  with  offspring,  and  to  provide  them  with  an 
abundant  supply  of  food  by  regulating  the  weather  and  performing 
the  other  ceremonies  which  are  deemed  necessary  to  ensure  the  fertih  y 
of  the  earth  and  the  multiplication  of  animals  Men  who  are  credited 
with  powers  so  lofty  and  far-reaching  naturally  hold  the  highest  place 
in  the  land  and  while  the  rift  between  the  spiritual  and  the  temporal 


XVI 


DIANUS  AND  DIANA 


163 


spheres  has  not  yet  widened  too  far,  they  are  supreme  in  civil  as  well 
as  religious  matters  :  in  a  word,  they  are  kings  as  well  as  gods.  Thus 
the  divinity  which  hedges  a  king  has  its  roots  deep  down  in  human 

istory,  and  long  ages  pass  before  these  are  sapped  by  a  profounder 
view  of  nature  and  man.  r 

In  the  classical  period  of  Greek  and  Latin  antiquity  the  reign  of 
kings  was  for  the  most  part  a  thing  of  the  past  ;  yet  the  stories  of  their 
meage,  titles,  and  pretensions  suffice  to  prove  that  they  too  claimed 
to  rule  by  divine  right  and  to  exercise  superhuman  powers.  Hence 
we  may  without  undue  temerity  assume  that  the  King  of  the  Wood 
at  Nemi,  though  shorn  m  later  times  of  his  glory  and  fallen  on  evil 
ays,  represented  a  long  line  of  sacred  kings  who  had  once  received 
not  only  the  homage  but  the  adoration  of  their  subjects  in  return  for 
t  e  manifold  blessings  which  they  were  supposed  to  dispense.  What 
little  we  know  of  the  functions  of  Diana  in  the  Arician  grove  seems  to 
piove  that  she  was  here  conceived  as  a  goddess  of  fertility,  and  particu- 
larly  as  a  divinity  of  childbirth.  It  is  reasonable,  therefore,  to  suppose 
that  m  the  discharge  of  these  important  duties  she  was  assisted  by  her 
priest,  the  two  figuring  as  King  and  Queen  of  the  Wood  in  a  solemn 
marriage,  which  was  intended  to  make  the  earth  gay  with  the  blossoms 
of  spring  and  the  fruits  of  autumn,  and  to  gladden  the  hearts  of  men 
and  women  with  healthful  offspring. 

If  the  priest  of  Nemi  posed  not  merely  as  a  king,  but  as  a  god  of 
the  grove  we  have  still  to  ask,  What  deity  in  particular  did  he  per¬ 
sonate  The  answer  of  antiquity  is  that  he  represented  Virbius  the 
consort  or  lover  of  Diana.  But  this  does  not  help  us  much,  for  of 
Virbius  we  know  little  more  than  the  name.  A  clue  to  the  mysterv 
is  perhaps  supplied  by  the  Vestal  fire  which  burned  in  the  grove.  For 
the  perpetual  holy  fires  of  the  Aryans  in  Europe  appear  to  have  been 
commonly  kindled  and  fed  with  oak  wood,  and  in  Rome  itself  not 
many  miles  from  Nemi,  the  fuel  of  the  Vestal  fire  consisted  of  oaken 
sticks  or  logs,  as  has  been  proved  by  a  microscopic  analysis  of  the 
charred  embers  of  the  Vestal  fire,  which  were  discovered  by  Com- 
mendatore  G.  Boni  in  the  course  of  the  memorable  excavations  which 
he  conducted  in  the  Roman  forum  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

ut  the  ritual  of  the  various  Latin  towns  seems  to  have  been  marked  bv 
great  uniformity  ;  hence  it  is  reasonable  to  conclude  that  wherever 
m  a  Vestal  fire  was  maintained,  it  was  fed,  as  at  Rome,  with 

wood  of  the  sacred  oak.  If  this  was  so  at  Nemi,  it  becomes  probable 

+w+n  ^allo^ed  £rove  there  consisted  of  a  natural  oak-wood,  and 
that  therefore  the  tree  which  the  King  of  the  Wood  had  to  guard  at  the 
pen  0  ns  ife  was  itself  an  oak  ;  indeed,  it  was  from  an  evergreen  oak, 
according  to  Virgil,  that  Aeneas  plucked  the  Golden  Bough.  Now  the 
oak  was  the  sacred  tree  of  Jupiter,  the  supreme  god  of  the  Latins. 

ence  10  lows  that  the  King  of  the  Wood,  whose  life  was  bound  up 
m  a  fashion  with  an  oak,  personated  no  less  a  deity  than  Jupiter 
mseit.  At  least  the  evidence,  slight  as  it  is,  seems  to  point  to  this 
conclusion.  The  old  Alban  dynasty  of  the  Silvii  or  Woods,  with  their 


164 


DIANUS  AND  DIANA 


CH. 


crown  of  oak  leaves,  apparently  aped  the  style  and  emulated  the 
nowers  of  Latian  Jupiter,  who  dwelt  on  the  top  of  the  Alban  Mount. 
Itls  not  impossiblePthat  the  King  of  the  Wood  who  guarded  the 
sacred  oak  a  little  lower  down  the  mountain,  was  the  lawful  successor 
and  representative  of  this  ancient  line  of  the  Silvn  or  Woods.  A  a 
events^  if  I  am  right  in  supposing  that  he  passed  for  a  human  Jupiter, 
ft  would  appear  that  Virbius,  with  whom  legend  identified  him,  was 
nothing  butPa  local  form  of  Jupiter,  considered  perhaps  in  his  original 
aspect  as  a  god  of  the  greenwood. 

The  hypothesis  that  in  later  times  at  all  events  the  King  of  the 
Wood  played  the  part  of  the  oak-god  Jupiter,  is  confirmed  by  a 
examination  of  his  divine  partner  Diana.  For  two  distinct  lines .  of 
argument  converge  to  show  that  if  Diana  was  a  queen  of  the  woods 
imgeneral,  she  was  at  Nemi  a  goddess  of  the  oak  in  particular.  In  t  e 
first  place,  she  bore  the  title  of  Vesta,  and  as  such  presided  over  a 
perpetual  fire,  which  we  have  seen  reason  to  believe  was  fed  with  oa 
wood.  But  a  goddess  of  fire  is  not  far  removed  from  a  goddess  of  the 
fuel  which  burns  in  the  fire  ;  primitive  thought  perhaps  drew  n0  sh^P 
line  of  distinction  between  the  blaze  and  the  wood  that  blazes.  In  the 
second  place,  the  nymph  Egeria  at  Nemi  appears  to  have  been  mere  y 
a  form  of  Diana,  and  Egeria  is  definitely  said  to  have  been  a  Drya  , 
a  nymph  of  the  oak.  Elsewhere  in  Italy  the  goddess  had  her  ho 
on  oak-clad  mountains.  Thus  Mount  Algidus,  a  spur  of  the  Alban 
hills  was  covered  in  antiquity  with  dark  forests  of  oak,  both  of  t 
evergreen  and  the  deciduous  sort.  In  winter  the  snow  lay  long 
these  cold  hills,  and  their  gloomy  oak-woods  were  believed  to  be  a 
favourite  haunt  of  Diana,  as  they  have  been  of  brigands  m  modern 
times  Again,  Mount  Tifata,  the  long  abrupt  ridge  of  the  Apennines 
which  looks  down  on  the  Campanian  plain  behind  Capua,  was  wooded 
of  old  with  evergreen  oaks,  among  which  Diana  had  a  temple  tic 
Sulla  thanked  the  goddess  for  his  victory  over  the  Marians  m  the  plain 
below  attesting  his  gratitude  by  inscriptions  which  were  long  after 
wards’  to  be  sell  in  the  temple.  On  the  whole  then,  we  conclude 
that  at  Nemi  the  King  of  the  Wood  personated  the  oak-god  Jupiter 
and  mated  with  the  oak-goddess  Diana  in  the  sacred  grove  An  echo 
of  their  mvstic  union  has  come  down  to  us  m  the  legend  of  the  loves 
of  Numa  and  Egeria,  who  according  to  some  had  their  trysting-place 

in  these  holv  woods.  .  < 

To  this  theory  it  may  naturally  be  objected  that  the  divine  consoi 

of  Jupiter  was  not  Diana  but  Juno,  and  that  if  Diana  had a l  mate 1  at 
all  he  might  be  expected  to  bear  the  name  not  of  Jupiter,  but  of  Dianus 
or  Tanus,  the  latter  of  these  forms  being  merely  a  corruption  of  t  . 
former  All  this  is  true,  but  the  objection  may  be  parried  by  observing 
that  the  two  pairs  of  deities,  Jupiter  and  Juno  on  the  one  side,  and 
Dianus  and  Diana,  or  Janus  and  Jana,  on  the  other  side,  are  mere  y 
duplicates  of  each  other,  their  names  and  their  functions  be  ng 
substance  and  origin  identical.  With  regard  to  their  names  all  four 
of  them  come  from  the  same  Aryan  root  DI,  meaning  bright,  which 


XVI 


DIANUS  AND  DIANA 


165 


(xcms  m  the  names  of  the  corresponding  Greek  deities,  Zeus  and  his 
dd  female  consort  Dione.  In  regard  to  their  functions,  Juno  and 
Diana  were  both  goddesses  of  fecundity  and  childbirth,  and  both  were 
sooner  or  later  identified  with  the  moon.  As  to  the  true  nature  and 
functions  of  Janus  the  ancients  themselves  were  puzzled  ;  and  where 
they  hesitated  it  is  not  for  us  confidently  to  decide.  But  the  view 
mentioned  by  Varro  that  Janus  was  the  god  of  the  sky  is  supported  not 
n  y  by  the  etymological  identity  of  his  name  with  that  of  the  sky-god 
Jupiter  but  also  by  the  relation  in  which  he  appears  to  have  stood  to 
Jupiter  s  two  mates,  Juno  and  Juturna.  For  the  epithet  Junonian 
bestowed  on  Janus  points  to  a  marriage  union  between  the  two  deities  • 
and  according  to  one  account  Janus  was  the  husband  of  the  water- 
nymph  Juturna,  who  according  to  others  was  beloved  by  Jupiter 
Moreover  Janus,  like  Jove,  was  regularly  invoked,  and  commonly 
spoken  of,  under  the  title  of  Father.  Indeed,  he  was  identified  with 
Jupiter  not  merely  by  the  logic  of  the  learned  St.  Augustine,  but  by  the 
piety  of  a  pagan  worshipper  who  dedicated  an  offering  to  Jupiter 
lanus.  A  trace  of  his  relation  to  the  oak  may  be  found  in  the  oak- 
woods  of  the  Jamculum,  the  hill  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Tiber  where 

h£toryS  t0  haVG  rClgned  aS  a  killg  in  the  rem°test  ages  of  Italian 

Thus,  if  I  am  right,  the  same  ancient  pair  of  deities  was  variously 
known  among  the  Greek  and  Italian  peoples  as  Zeus  and  Dione  Jupiter 
and  Juno  or  Dianus  (Janus)  and  Diana  (Jana),  the  names  of  the 
bemg  identical  m  substance,  though  varying  in  form  with 
the  dialect  of  the  particular  tribe  which  worshipped  them  At  first 
when  the  peoples  dwelt  near  each  other,  the  difference  between  the 
deities  wouid  be  hardly  more  than  one  of  name;  in  other  words 
it  would  be  almost  purely  dialectical.  But  the  gradual  dispersion 
of  the  tribes,  and  their  consequent  isolation  from  each  other  would 
avour  the  growth  of  divergent  modes  of  conceiving  and  worshipping 
the  gods  whom  they  had  carried  with  them  from  their  old  home  so 
that  m  time  discrepancies  of  myth  and  ritual  would  tend  to  spring  up 
and  thereby  to  convert  a  nominal  into  a  real  distinction  between  the 
divinities.  Accordingly  when,  with  the  slow  progress  of  culture,  the 
long  period  of  barbarism  and  separation  was  passing  away,  and  the 
rising  political  power  of  a  single  strong  community  had  begun  to  draw 
°r  hamper  its  weaker  neighbours  into  a  nation,  the  confluent  peoples 
would  throw  their  gods,  like  their  dialects,  into  a  common  stock  ; 
and  thus  it  might  come  about  that  the  same  ancient  deities,  which  their 
forefathers  had  worshipped  together  before  the  dispersion,  would  now 
be  so  disguised  by  the  accumulated  effect  of  dialectical  and  religious 
ivergenae3  that  their  original  identity  might  fail  to  be  recognised, 

an  ey  would  take  their  places  side  by  side  as  independent  divinities 
m  the  national  pantheon. 

,  mThiS  guPbcation  of  deities,  the  result  of  the  final  fusion  of  kindred 
tribes  who  had  long  lived  apart,  would  account  for  the  appearance  of 
Janus  beside  Jupiter,  and  of  Diana  or  Jana  beside  Juno  in  the  Roman 


DIANUS  AND  DIANA 


CH. 


166 

religion.  At  least  this  appears  to  be  a  more  probable  theory  than  the 
opinion  which  has  found  favour  with  some  modern  scholars,  t 
Tanus  was  originally  nothing  but  the  god  of  doors.  That  a  deity  of 
his  dignity  and  importance,  whom  the  Romans  revered  as  a  god 
ol  gods  and  the  father  of  his  people,  should  have  started  in  life 
as  a  humble,  though  doubtless  respectable,  doorkeeper  appears  very 
unlikely.  So  lofty  an  end  hardly  consorts  with  so  lowly  a  begin¬ 
ning.  It  is  more  probable  that  the  door  (janua)  got  its  name  from 
Janus  than  that  he  got  his  name  from  it.  This  view  is  stiengt  lene 
by  a  consideration  of  the  word  janua  itself.  The  regular  word  for  door 
is  the  same  in  all  the  languages  of  the  Aryan  family  from  India  t 
land  It  is  dur  in  Sanscrit,  thura  in  Greek,  tur  in  Geiman,  door 
English,  dorus  in  old  Irish,  and  f oris  in  Latin.  Yet  besides  this  ordinary 
name  for  door,  which  the  Latins  shared  with  all  their  Aryan  brethren, 
thev  had  also  the  name  janua,  to  which  there  is  no  corresponding  term 
in  any  Indo-European  speech.  The  word  has  the  appearance  of  erng 
an  adjectival  form  derived  from  the  noun  Janus.  I  conjecture  that 
it  may  have  been  customary  to  set  up  an  image  or  symbol  of  Janus  at 
the  principal  door  of  the  house  in  order  to  place  the  entrance  under  the 
protection  of  the  great  god.  A  door  thus  guarded  might  be  known  as 
a  janua  foris,  that  is,  a  Januan  door,  and  the  phrase  might  in  turn i  be 
abridged  into  janua,  the  noun  foris  being  understood  but  not  expres  • 
Fronf  this  to  the  use  of  janua  to  designate  a  door  in  general,  whether 
guarded  by  an  image  of  Janus  or  not,  would  be  an  easy  and  natural 

^Tf  there  is  any  truth  in  this  conjecture,  it  may  explain  very  simply 
the  origin  of  the  double  head  of  Janus,  which  has  so  long  exercised  the 
ingenuity  of  mytliologists.  When  it  had  become  customary  to  guard 
the  entrance  of  houses  and  towns  by  an  image  of  Janus,  it  mig  we 
be  deemed  necessary  to  make  the  sentinel  god  look  both  ways,  before 
and  behind,  at  the  same  time,  in  order  that  nothing  should  escape  h 
vigilant  eve.  For  if  the  divine  watchman  always  faced  m  one  direc¬ 
tion  it  is  easy  to  imagine  what  mischief  might  have  been  wrong 
with  impunity  behind  his  back.  This  explanation  of  the  double- 
headed  Janus  at  Rome  is  confirmed  by  the  double-headed  idol  whic 
the  Bush  negroes  in  the  interior  of  Surinam  regularly  set  up  as  a 
guardian  at  the  entrance  of  a  village.  The  idol  consists  of  a  block  ° 
wood  with  a  human  face  rudely  carved  on  each  side  ;  it  stands  under 
a  gateway  composed  of  two  uprights  and  a  cross-bar.  Beside  th 
idol  generally  lies  a  white  rag  intended  to  keep  off  the  devil  an 
sometimes  there  is  also  a  stick  which  seems  to  represent  a  bludgeon 
or  weapon  of  some  sort.  Further,  from  the  cross-bar  hangs  a  small 
log  which  serves  the  useful  purpose  of  knocking  on  the  head  any  evil 
spirit  who  might  attempt  to  pass  through  the  gateway.  Clearly 
this  double-headed  fetish  at  the  gateway  of  the  negro  villages  in 
Surinam  bears  a  close  resemblance  to  the  double-headed  images  o 
Janus  which,  grasping  a  stick  in  one  hand  and  a  key  in  the  ot  er,  s  ° 
sentinel  at  Roman  gates  and  doorways  ;  and  we  can  hardly  doubt  tha 


XVI 


DIANUS  AND  DIANA  l6? 

m  both  cases  the  heads  facing  two  ways  are  to  be  similarly  explained 
as  expiessive  of  the  vigilance  of  the  guardian  god,  who  kept  his  eye  on 
spiritual  foes  behind  and  before,  and  stood  ready  to  bludgeon  them 
on  the  spot.  We  may,  therefore,  dispense  with  the  tedious  and  un¬ 
satisfactory  explanations  with  which,  if  we  may  trust  Ovid,  the  wily 
Janus  himself  fobbed  off  an  anxious  Roman  enquirer. 

To  apply  these  conclusions  to  the  priest  of  Nemi,  we  may  suppose 
that  as  the  mate  of  Diana  he  represented  originally  Dianus  or  Tanus 
iatier  than  Jupiter,  but  that  the  difference  between  these  deities  was 
of  old  merely  superficial,  going  little  deeper  than  the  names,  and  leaving 
practically  unaffected  the  essential  functions  of  the  god  as  a  power  of 
the  sky,  the  thunder,  and  the  oak.  It  was  fitting,  therefore,  that  his 
human  i  epresentative  at  Nemi  should  dwell,  as  we  have  seen  reason 
to  believe  he  did,  in  an  oak  grove.  His  title  of  King  of  the  Wood 
c  early  indicates  the  sylvan  character  of  the  deity  whom  he  served  • 
and  since  he  could  only  be  assailed  by  him  who  had  plucked  the  bough 
of  a  certain  tree  m  the  grove,  his  own  life  might  be  said  to  be  bound 
up  with  that  of  the  sacred  tree.  Thus  he  not  only  served  but  embodied 
the  great  Aryan  god  of  the  oak  ;  and  as  an  oak-god  he  would  mate 
with  the  oak -goddess,  whether  she  went  by  the  name  of  Egeria 
or  Diana.  Their  union,  however  consummated,  would  be  deemed 
essential  to  the  fertility  of  the  earth  and  the  fecundity  of  man  and 
beast.  Further,  as  the  oak-god  was  also  a  god  of  the  sky,  the  thunder, 
and  the  ram,  so  his  human  representative  would  be  required  like  many 
other  divine  kings,  to  cause  the  clouds  to  gather,  the  thunder  to  peal 
and  the  ram  to  descend  m  due  season,  that  the  fields  and  orchards 
might  bear  fruit  and  the  pastures  be  covered  with  luxuriant  herbage. 
The  reputed  possessor  of  powers  so  exalted  must  have  been  a  very 
important  personage  ;  and  the  remains  of  buildings  and  of  votive 
offerings  which  have  been  found  on  the  site  of  the  sanctuary  combine 
with  the  testimony  of  classical  writers  to  prove  that  in  later  times  it 
was  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  popular  shrines  in  Italy.  Even  in 
the  old  days,  when  the  champaign  country  around  was  still  parcelled 
out  among  the  petty  tribes  who  composed  the  Latin  League,  the  sacred 
grove  is  known  to  have  been  an  object  of  their  common  reverence  and 
care..  And  just  as  the  kings  of  Cambodia  used  to  send  offerings  to  the 
mystic  kings  of  Fire  and  Water  far  in  the  dim  depths  of  the  tropical 
forest,  so,  we  may  well  believe,  from  all  sides  of  the  broad  Latian  plain 
the  eyes  and  footsteps  of  Italian  pilgrims  turned  to  the  quarter  where 
standing  sharply  out  against  the  faint  blue  line  of  the  Apennines  or  the 
deeper  blue  of  the  distant  sea,  the  Alban  Mountain  rose  before  them 
the  home  of  the  mysterious  priest  of  Nemi,  the  King  of  the  Wood! 

1  here,  among  the  green  woods  and  beside  the  still  waters  of  the  lonely 
hills,  the  ancient  Aryan  worship  of  the  god  of  the  oak,  the  thunder 
and  the  dripping  sky  lingered  in  its  early,  almost  Druidical  form,  long 
alter  a  great  political  and  intellectual  revolution  had  shifted  the  capital 
of  Latin  religion  from  the  forest  to  the  city,  from  Nemi  to  Rome. 


i68 


THE  BURDEN  OF  ROYALTY 


CII. 


CHAPTER  XVII 


THE  BURDEN  OF  ROYALTY 

5  i.  Royal  and  Priestly  Taboos.— At  a  certain  stage  of  early  society  the 
king  or  priest  is  often  thought  to  be  endowed  with  supernatural  powers 
or  to  be  an  incarnation  of  a  deity,  and  consistently  with  this  belief  the 
course  of  nature  is  supposed  to  be  more  or  less  under  his  control,  and 
he  is  held  responsible  for  bad  weather,  failure  of  the  crops,  and  similar 
calamities.  To  some  extent  it  appears  to  be  assumed  that  the  kings 
power  over  nature,  like  that  over  his  subjects  and  slaves,  is  exerted 
through  definite  acts  of  will ;  and  therefore  if  drought,  famine,  pestilence, 
or  storms  arise,  the  people  attribute  the  misfortune  to  the  negligence  or 
guilt  of  their  king,  and  punish  him  accordingly  with  stripes  and  bonds, 
or  if  he  remains  obdurate,  with  deposition  and  death.  Sometimes, 
however,  the  course  of  nature,  while  regarded  as  dependent  on  the  king, 
is  supposed  to  be  partly  independent  of  his  will.  His  person  is  con¬ 
sidered,  if  we  may  express  it  so,  as  the  dynamical  centre  of  the  universe 
from  which  lines  of  force  radiate  to  all  quarters  of  the  heaven  ;  so  that 
any  motion  of  his— the  turning  of  his  head,  the  lifting  of  his  hand 
instantaneously  affects  and  may  seriously  disturb  some  part  of  nature. 
He  is  the  point  of  support  on  which  hangs  the  balance  of  the  world  and 
the  slightest  irregularity  on  his  part  may  overthrow  the  delicate 
equipoise.  The  greatest  care  must,  therefore,  be  taken  both  by  and  of 
him  •  and  his  whole  life,  down  to  its  minutest  details,  must  be  so 
regulated  that  no  act  of  his,  voluntary  or  involuntary,  may  disarrange 
or  upset  the  established  order  of  nature.  Of  this  class  of  monarchs  the 
Mikado  or  Dairi,  the  spiritual  emperor  of  Japan,  is  or  rather  used  to  e 
a  typical  example.  He  is  an  incarnation  of  the  sun  goddess  the  deity 
who  rules  the  universe,  gods  and  men  included  ;  once  a  year  all  the  gods 
wait  upon  him  and  spend  a  month  at  his  court.  During  that  month, 
the  name  of  which  means  “  without  gods/'  no  one  frequents  the  temp  es, 
for  they  are  believed  to  be  deserted.  The  Mikado  receives  from  his 
people  and  assumes  in  his  official  proclamations  and  decrees  the  title 
of  “  manifest  or  incarnate  deity/’  and  he  claims  a  general  authority  over 
the  gods  of  Japan.  For  example,  in  an  official  decree  of  the  year  64b 
the  emperor  is  described  as  “  the  incarnate  god  who  governs  the 

universe.”  ,  ,  f  ... 

The  following  description  of  the  Mikado  s  mode  of  life  was  written 

about  two  hundred  years  ago  :  . 

“  Even  to  this  day  the  princes  descended  of  this  family,  moie 

particularly  those  who  sit  on  the  throne,  are  looked  upon  as  persons 
most  holy  in  themselves,  and  as  Popes  by  birth.  And,  m  order  to 
preserve  these  advantageous  notions  in  the  minds  of  their  subjects,  they 
are  obliged  to  take  an  uncommon  care  of  their  sacred  persons,  and  to  do 
such  things,  which,  examined  according  to  the  customs  of  other  nations, 
would  be  thought  ridiculous  and  impertinent.  It  will  not  be  improper 


XVII 


ROYAL  AND  PRIESTLY  TABOOS  169 

to  give  a  few  instances  of  it.  He  thinks  that  it  would  be  very  prejudicial 
to  his  dignity  and  holiness  to  touch  the  ground  with  his  feet  ;  for  this 
reason,  when  he  intends  to  go  anywhere,  he  must  be  carried  thither  on 
men’s  shoulders.  Much  less  will  they  suffer  that  he  should  expose  his 
sacied  person  to  the  open  air,  and  the  sun  is  not  thought  worthy  to 
shine  on  his  head.  There  is  such  a  holiness  ascribed  to  all  the  parts  of 
his  body  that  he  dares  to  cut  off  neither  his  hair,  nor  his  beard,  nor  his 
nails. .  However,  lest  he  should  grow  too  dirty,  they  may  clean  him  in 
t  e  night  when  he  is  asleep  ;  because,  they  say,  that  which  is  taken 
irom  his  body  at  that  time,  hath  been  stolen  from  him,  and  that  such  a 
theft  doth  not  prejudice  his  holiness  or  dignity.  In  ancient  times,  he 
was  obliged  to  sit  on  the  throne  for  some  hours  every  morning,  with  the 
imperial  crown  on  his  head,  but  to  sit  altogether  like  a  statue,  without 
stirring  either  hands  or  feet,  head  or  eyes,  nor  indeed  any  part  of  his 
body,  because,  by  this  means,  it  was  thought  that  he  could  preserve 
peace  and  tranquillity  in  his  empire  ;  for  if,  unfortunately,  he  turned 
himself  on  one  side  or  the  other,  or  if  he  looked  a  good  while  towards 
any  part  of  his  dominions,  it  was  apprehended  that  war,  famine  fire  or 
some  other  great  misfortune  was  near  at  hand  to  desolate  the  country 
But  it  having  been  afterwards  discovered,  that  the  imperial  crown  was 
the  palladium,  which  by  its  immobility  could  preserve  peace  in  the 
empire,  it  was  thought  expedient  to  deliver  his  imperial  person,  con¬ 
secrated  only  to  idleness  and  pleasures,  from  this  burthensome  duty 
and  therefore  the  crown  is  at  present  placed  on  the  throne  for  some 
hours  every  morning.  His  victuals  must  be  dressed  every  time  in  new 
pots,  and  served  at  table  in  new  dishes  :  both  are  very  clean  and  neat, 
but  made  only  of  common  clay  ;  that  without  any  considerable  expense 
they  may  be  laid  aside,  or  broke,  after  they  have  served  once.  They 
are  generally  broke,  for  fear  they  should  come  into  the  hands  of  laymen 
tor  they  believe  religiously,  that  if  any  layman  should  presume  to  eat 
his  food  out  of  these  sacred  dishes,  it  would  swell  and  inflame  his  mouth 
and  throat.  The  like  ill  effect  is  dreaded  from  the  Dairi’s  sacred  habits  • 
for  they  believe  that  if  a  layman  should  wear  them,  without  the 
mperor  s  express  leave  or  command,  they  would  occasion  swelling's 
and  pains  in  all  parts  of  his  body.”  To  the  same  effect  an  earlier 
account  of  the  Mikado  says  :  “  It  was  considered  as  a  shameful  degrada¬ 
tion  for  him  even  to  touch  the  ground  with  his  foot.  The  sun  and  moon 
were  not  even  permitted  to  shine  upon  his  head.  None  of  the  super¬ 
fluities  of  the  body  were  ever  taken  from  him,  neither  his  hair,  his  beard 
nor  ms  nails  were  cut.  Whatever  he  eat  was  dressed  in  new  vessels.” 

Similar  priestly  or  rather  divine  kings  are  found,  at  a  lower  level  of 
barbarism,  on  the  west  coast  of  Africa.  At  Shark  Point  near  Cape 
Hadron,  m  Lower  Guinea,  lives  the  priestly  king  Kukulu,  alone  in  a 
wood.  He  may  not  touch  a  woman  nor  leave  his  house  ;  indeed  he 
may  not  even  quit  his  chair,  in  which  he  is  obliged  to  sleep  sitting,  for  if 
he  lay  down  no  wind  would  arise  and  navigation  would  be  stopped. 
He  regulates  storms,  and  in  general  maintains  a  wholesome  and  equable 
state  of  the  atmosphere.  On  Mount  Agu  in  Togo  there  lives  a  fetish 


CH. 


I7o  THE  BURDEN  OF  ROYALTY 

or  spirit  called  Bagba,  who  is  of  great  importance  for  the  whole  of  the 
surrounding  country.  The  power  of  giving  or  withholding  ram  is 
ascribed  to  him,  and  he  is  lord  of  the  winds,  including  the  Harmattan, 
the  dry,  hot  wind  which  blows  from  the  interior.  His  priest  dwells  m  a 
house  on  the  highest  peak  of  the  mountain,  where  he  keeps  the  winds 
bottled  up  in  huge  jars.  Applications  for  rain,  too,  are  made  to  him, 
and  he  does  a  good  business  in  amulets,  which  consist  of  the  teeth  and 
claws  of  leopards.  Yet  though  his  power  is  great  and  he  is  indeed  the 
real  chief  of  the  land,  the  rule  of  the  fetish  forbids  him  ever  to  leave  the 
mountain,  and  he  must  spend  the  whole  of  his  life  on  its  summit.  Only 
once  a  year  may  he  come  down  to  make  purchases  in  the  market ,  but 
even  then  he  may  not  set  foot  in  the  hut  of  any  mortal  man,  and  must 
return  to  his  place  of  exile  the  same  day.  The  business  of  government 
in  the  villages  is  conducted  by  subordinate  chiefs,  who  are  appointed  by 
him  In  the  West  African  kingdom  of  Congo  there  was  a  supreme 
pontiff  called  Chitome  or  Chitombe,  whom  the  negroes  regarded  as  a  god 
on  earth  and  all-powerful  in  heaven.  Hence  before  they  would  taste 
the  new  crops  they  offered  him  the  first-fruits,  feaiing  that  manifold 
misfortunes  would  befall  them  if  they  broke  this  rule.  When  he  left 
his  residence  to  visit  other  places  within  his  jurisdiction,  all  married 
people  had  to  observe  strict  continence  the  whole  time  he  was  out ; 
for  it  was  supposed  that  any  act  of  incontinence  would  prove  fatal  to 
him.  And  if  he  were  to  die  a  natural  death,  they  thought  that  the 
world  would  perish,  and  the  earth,  which  he  alone  sustained  by  his 
power  and  merit,  would  immediately  be  annihilated.  Amongst  the 
semi-barbarous  nations  of  the  New  World,  at  the  date  of  the  Spanish 
conquest  there  were  found  hierarchies  or  theocracies  like  those  of 
Japan  ;  in  particular,  the  high  pontiff  of  the  Zapotecs  appears  to  have 
presented  a  close  parallel  to  the  Mikado.  A  powerful  rival  to  the  king 
himself,  this  spiritual  lord  governed  Yopaa,  one  of  the  chief  cities  of  the 
kingdom,  with  absolute  dominion.  It  is  impossible,  we  are  told,  to 
overrate  the  reverence  in  which  he  was  held.  He  was  looked  on  as  a 
god  whom  the  earth  was  not  worthy  to  hold  nor  the  sun  to  shine  upon. 
He  profaned  his  sanctity  if  he  even  touched  the  ground  with  his  foot. 
The  officers  who  bore  his  palanquin  on  their  shoulders  were  members  of 
the  highest  families  :  he  hardly  deigned  to  look  on  anything  around 
him  ;  and  all  who  met  him  fell  with  their  faces  to  the  earth,  fearing  that 
death  would  overtake  them  if  they  saw  even  his  shadow.  A  rule  of 
continence  was  regularly  imposed  on  the  Zapotec  priests,  especially 
upon  the  high  pontiff ;  but  “  on  certain  days  in  each  year,  which  were 
generally  celebrated  with  feasts  and  dances,  it  was  customary  for  the 
high  priest  to  become  drunk.  While  in  this  state,  seeming  to  belong 
neither  to  heaven  nor  to  earth,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  the  virgins 
consecrated  to  the  service  of  the  gods  was  brought  to  him.  If  the 
child  she  bore  him  was  a  son,  he  was  brought  up  as  a  prince  of  the  blood, 
and  the  eldest  son  succeeded  his  father  on  the  pontifical  throne.  The 
supernatural  powers  attributed  to  this  pontiff  are  not  specified,  but 
probably  they  resembled  those  of  the  Mikado  and  Chitome. 


XVII 


ROYAL  AND  PRIESTLY  TABOOS  171 

Wherever,  as  in  Japan  and  West  Africa,  it  is  supposed  that  the 
order  of  nature,  and  even  the  existence  of  the  world,  is  bound  up  with 
the  life  of  the  king  or  priest,  it  is  clear  that  he  must  be  regarded  by  his 
subjects  as  a  source  both  of  infinite  blessing  and  of  infinite  danger.  On 
the  one  hand,  the  people  have  to  thank  him  for  the  rain  and  sunshine 
which  foster  the  fruits  of  the  earth,  for  the  wind  which  brings  ships  to 
their  coasts,  and  even  for  the  solid  ground  beneath  their  feet.  But 
what  he  gives  he  can  refuse  ;  and  so  close  is  the  dependence  of  nature 
on  his  pei  son,  so  delicate  the  balance  of  the  system  of  forces  whereof  he 
is  the  centre,  that  the  least  irregularity  on  his  part  may  set  up  a  tremor 
which  shall  shake  the  earth  to  its  foundations.  And  if  nature  may  be 
disturbed  by  the  slightest  involuntary  act  of  the  king,  it  is  easy  to 
conceive  the  convulsion  which  his  death  might  provoke.  The  natural 
death  of  the  Chitome,  as  we  have  seen,  wTas  thought  to  entail  the 
destruction  of  all  things.  Clearly,  therefore,  out  of  a  regard  for  their 
own  safety,  which  might  be  imperilled  by  any  rash  act  of  the  king,  and 
still  more  by  his  death,  the  people  will  exact  of  their  king  or  priest  a 
strict  conformity  to  those  rules,  the  observance  of  which  is  deemed 
necessary  for  his  own  preservation,  and  consequently  for  the  preserva¬ 
tion  of  his  people  and  the  world.  The  idea  that  early  kingdoms  are 
despotisms  in  which  the  people  exist  only  for  the  sovereign,  is  wholly 
inapplicable  to  the  monarchies  we  are  considering.  On  the  contrary, 
the  sovereign  in  them  exists  only  for  his  subjects  ;  his  life  is  only 
valuable  so  long  as  he  discharges  the  duties  of  his  position  by  ordering 
the  course  of  nature  for  his  peoples  benefit.  So  soon  as  he  fails  to  do 
so,  the  care,  the  devotion,  the  religious  homage  which  they  had  hitherto 
lavished  on  him  cease  and  are  changed  into  hatred  and  contempt  ;  he  is 
dismissed  ignominiously,  and  may  be  thankful  if  he  escapes  with  his  life. 
Worshipped  as  a  god  one  day,  he  is  killed  as  a  criminal  the  next.  But 
in  this  changed  behaviour  of  the  people  there  is  nothing  capricious  or 
inconsistent.  On  the  contrary,  their  conduct  is  entirely  of  a  piece.  If 
their  king  is  their  god,  he  is  or  should  be  also  their  preserver  ;  and  if  he 
will  not  preserve  them,  he  must  make  room  for  another  who  will.  So 
long,  however,  as  he  answers  their  expectations,  there  is  no  limit  to  the 
care  which  they  take  of  him,  and  which  they  compel  him  to  take  of 
himself.  A  king  of  this  sort  lives  hedged  in  by  a  ceremonious  etiquette, 
a  network  of  prohibitions  and  observances,  of  which  the  intention  is 
not  to  contribute  to  his  dignity,  much  less  to  his  comfort,  but  to 
restrain  him  from  conduct  which,  by  disturbing  the  harmony  of  nature, 
might  involve  himself,  his  people,  and  the  universe  in  one  common 
catastiophe.  Far  from  adding  to  his  comfort,  these  observances,  by 
trammelling  his  every  act,  annihilate  his  freedom  and  often  render 

the  very  life,  which  it  is  their  object  to  preserve,  a  burden  and  sorrow 
to  him. 

Of  the  supematurally  endowed  kings  of  Loango  it  is  said  that  the 
more  powerful  a  king  is,  the  more  taboos  is  he  bound  to  observe  ;  they 
regulate  all  his  actions,  his  walking  and  his  standing,  his  eating  and 
drinking,  his  sleeping  and  waking.  To  these  restraints  the  heir  to  the 


172 


THE  BURDEN  OF  ROYALTY  ch. 

throne  is  subject  from  infancy  ;  but  as  he  advances  in  life  the  number 
of  abstinences  and  ceremonies  which  he  must  observe  increases,  until 
at  the  moment  that  he  ascends  the  throne  he  is  lost  in  the  ocean  of  rites 
and  taboos.”  In  the  crater  of  an  extinct  volcano,  enclosed  on  all  sides 
by  grassv  slopes,  lie  the  scattered  huts  and  yam-fields  of  Riabba  the 
capital  of  the  native  king  of  Fernando  Po.  This  mysterious  being  lives 
in  the  lowest  depths  of  the  crater,  surrounded  by  a  harem  of  forty 
women,  and  covered,  it  is  said,  with  old  silver  coins.  Naked  savage  as 
he  is  he  yet  exercises  far  more  influence  in  the  island  than  the  Spanish 
governor  at  Santa  Isabel.  In  him  the  conservative  spirit  of  the  Boobies 
or  aboriginal  inhabitants  of  the  island  is,  as  it  were,  incorporate.  e 
has  never  seen  a  white  man  and,  according  to  the  firm  conviction  of  all 
the  Boobies,  the  sight  of  a  pale  face  would  cause  his  instant  death.  He 
cannot  bear  to  look  upon  the  sea  ;  indeed  it  is  said  that  he  may  never 
see  it  even  in  the  distance,  and  that  therefore  he  wears  away  his 
life  with  shackles  on  his  legs  in  the  dim  twilight  of  his  hut.  Ceitain 
it  is  that  he  has  never  set  foot  on  the  beach.  With  the  exception  of 
his  musket  and  knife,  he  uses  nothing  that  comes  from  the  whites  ; 
European  cloth  never  touches  his  person,  and  he  scorns  tobacco,  rum, 

and  even  salt.  t  . 

Among  the  Ewe-speaking  peoples  of  the  Slave  Coast  the  king  is 

at  the  same  time  high  priest.  In  this  quality  he  was,  particularly  in 
former  times,  unapproachable  by  his  subjects.  Only  by  mg  t  was 
he  allowed  to  quit  his  dwelling  in  order  to  bathe  and  so  forth.  None 
but  his  representative,  the  so-called  ‘  visible  king/  with  three  chosen 
elders  might  converse  with  him,  and  even  they  had  to  sit  on  an  ox-hide 
with  their  backs  turned  to  him.  He  might  not  see  any  European  nor 
any  horse,  nor  might  he  look  upon  the  sea,  for  which  reason  he  was 
not  allowed  to  quit  his  capital  even  for  a  few  moments.  These  rules 
have  been  disregarded  in  recent  times.”  The  king  of  Dahomey  himself 
is  subject  to  the  prohibition  of  beholding  the  sea,  and  so  are  the  kings 
of  Loango  and  Great  Ardra  in  Guinea.  The  sea  is  the  fetish  of  the 
Eyeos  to  the  north-west  of  Dahomey,  and  they  and  their  king  are 
threatened  with  death  by  their  priests  if  ever  they  dare  to  look  on  it. 
It  is  believed  that  the  king  of  Cayor  in  Senegal  would  infallibly  die 
within  the  year  if  he  were  to  cross  a  river  or  an  arm  of  the  sea.  In 
Mashonaland  down  to  recent  times  the  chiefs  would  not  cross  certain 
rivers  particularly  the  Rurikwi  and  the  Nyadiri ;  and  the  custom 
was  still  strictly  observed  by  at  least  one  chief  within  recent  years. 
“  On  no  account  will  the  chief  cross  the  river.  If  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  for  him  to  do  so,  he  is  blindfolded  and  carried  across  with 
shouting  and  singing.  Should  he  walk  across,  he  will  go  blind  or  die 
and  certainly  lose  the  chieftainship.”  So  among  the  Mahafalys  and 
Sakalavas  in  the  south  of  Madagascar  some  kings  are  forbidden  to 
sail  on  the  sea  or  to  cross  certain  rivers.  Among  the  Sakalavas  tne 
chief  is  regarded  as  a  sacred  being,  but  “  he  is  held  m  leash  by  a 
crowd  of  restrictions,  which  regulate  his  behaviour  like  that  ol  tne 
emperor  of  China.  He  can  undertake  nothing  whatever  unless  tne 


XVII 


ROYAL  AND  PRIESTLY  TABOOS  i73 

sorcerers  have  declared  the  omens  favourable  :  he  may  not  eat  warm 
food  :  on  certain  days  he  may  not  quit  his  hut ;  and  so  on.”  Among 
some  of  the  hill  tribes  of  Assam  both  the  headman  and  his  wife  have 
to  observe  many  taboos  in  respect  of  food  ;  thus  they  may  not  eat 
buffalo  pork,  dog,  fowl,  or  tomatoes.  The  headman  must  be  chaste 
!  the  husband  of  one  wife,  and  he  must  separate  himself  from  her  on 
the  eve  of  a  general  or  public  observance  of  taboo.  In  one  group  of 
tribes  the  headman  is  forbidden  to  eat  in  a  strange  village,  and  under 
no  provocation  whatever  may  he  utter  a  word  of  abuse.  Apparentlv 
the  people  imagine  that  the  violation  of  any  of  these  taboos  bv  a 
headman  would  bring  down  misfortune  on  the  whole  village 

The  ancient  kings  of  Ireland,  as  well  as  the  kings  of  the’ four  pro¬ 
vinces  of  Leinster,  Munster,  Connaught,  and  Ulster,  were  subject  to 
certain  quaint  prohibitions  or  taboos,  on  the  due  observance  of  which 
the  prosperity  of  the  people  and  the  country,  as  well  as  their  own  was 
supposed  to  depend.  Thus,  for  example,  the  sun  might  not  rise  on 
the  king  of  Ireland  m  his  bed  at  Tara,  the  old  capital  of  Erin  *  he  was 
forbidden  to  alight  on  Wednesday  at  Magh  Breagh,  to  traverse  Magh 
Cuilhnn  after  sunset,  to  incite  his  horse  at  Fan-Chomair,  to  go  in  a 
ship  upon  the  water  the  Monday  after  Bealltaine  (May  Day)  and  to 
leave  the  track  of  his  army  upon  Ath  Maighne  the  Tuesday  after  All- 
liallows  The  king  of  Leinster  might  not  go  round  Tuath  Laighean 
left-nand-wise  on  Wednesday,  nor  sleep  between  the  Dothair  (Dodder) 
and  the  Duibhlmn  with  his  head  inclining  to  one  side,  nor  encamp 
for  nine  days  on  the  plains  of  Cualann,  nor  travel  the  road  of  Duibhlinn 
on  Monday  nor  ride  a  dirty  black-heeled  horse  across  Magh  Maistean. 

he  king  of  Munster  was  prohibited  from  enjoying  the  feast  of  Loch 
Lem  from  one  Monday  to  another  ;  from  banqueting  by  night  in  the 
beginning  of  harvest  before  Geim  at  Leitreacha  ;  from  encamping  for 
ume  days  upon  the  Siuir  ;  and  from  holding  a  border  meeting  at 
^abhran  The  king  of  Connaught  might  not  conclude  a  treaty  re¬ 
specting  his  ancient  palace  of  Cruachan  after  making  peace  on  All- 
tl allows  Day,  nor  go  in  a  speckled  garment  on  a  grey  speckled  steed 
to  the  heath  of  Dal  Chais,  nor  repair  to  an  assembly  of  women  at 
^eaghais,  nor  sit  in  autumn  on  the  sepulchral  mounds  of  the  wife  of 
T1” n,e’  nor  contend  m  running  with  the  rider  of  a  grey  one-eyed  horse 
Ath  Gallta  between  two  posts.  The  king  of  Ulster  was  forbidden 
x>  attend  the  horse  fair  at  Rath  Line  among  the  youths  of  Dal  Araidhe 
-o  listen  to  the  fluttering  of  the  flocks  of  birds  of  Linn  Saileach  after 
.unset  to  celebrate  the  feast  of  the  bull  of  Daire-mic-Daire,  to  go  into 
agh  Cobha  m  the  month  of  March,  and  to  drink  of  the  water  of  Bo 
Nennmdh  between  two  darknesses.  If  the  kings  of  Ireland  strictly 
L  serve  these  and  many  other  customs,  which  were  enjoined  by 
mmemorial  usage,  it  was  believed  that  they  would  never  meet  with 
nischance  or  misfortune,  and  would  live  for  ninety  years  without 
experiencing  the  decay  of  old  age  ;  that  no  epidemic  or  mortality 
youid  occur  during  their  reigns  ;  and  that  the  seasons  would  be 
avourable  and  the  earth  yield  its  fruit  in  abundance  ;  whereas,  if 


THE  BURDEN  OF  ROYALTY 


CH. 


174 

they  set  the  ancient  usages  at  naught,  the  country  would  be  visited 

with  plague,  famine,  and  bad  weather. 

The  kings  of  Egypt  were  worshipped  as  gods,  and  the  routine  of  their 

daily  life  was  regulated  in  every  detail  by  precise  and  unvarying  rules 
“  The  life  of  the  kings  of  Egypt,”  says  Diodorus,  “  was  not  like  that 
of  other  monarchs  who  are  irresponsible  and  may  do  just  what  they 
choose  ;  on  the  contrary,  everything  was  fixed  for  them  by  law,  not 
only  their  official  duties,  but  even  the  details  of  their  daily  life.  .  . 
The  hours  both  of  day  and  night  were  arranged  at  which  the  king  had 
to  do,  not  what  he  pleased,  but  what  was  prescribed  for  him.  .  .  . 
For  not  only  were  the  times  appointed  at  which  he  should  transact 
public  business  or  sit  in  judgment ;  but  the  very  hours  for  his  walking 
and  bathing  and  sleeping  with  his  wife,  and,  in  short,  performing 
every  act  of  life  were  all  settled.  Custom  enjoined  a  simple  diet  the 
only  flesh  he  might  eat  was  veal  and  goose,  and  he  might  only  drink 
a  prescribed  quantity  of  wine.”  However,  there  is  reason  to  think 
that  these  rules  were  observed,  not  by  the  ancient  Pharaohs,  but  by 
the  priestly  kings  who  reigned  at  Thebes  and  in  Ethiopia  at  the  c  ose 

of  the  twentieth  dynasty.  .  ,  . 

Of  the  taboos  imposed  on  priests  we  may  see  a  striking  example  in 

the  rules  of  life  prescribed  for  the  Flamen  Dialis  at  Rome,  who  has  been 
interpreted  as  a  living  image  of  Jupiter,  or  a  human  embodimen  0 
the  sky-spirit.  They  were  such  as  the  following:  The  Flamen 
Dialis  might  not  ride  or  even  touch  a  horse,  nor  see  an  army  under 
arms  nor  wear  a  ring  which  was  not  broken,  nor  have  a  knot  on  any 
part  of  his  garments  ;  no  fire  except  a  sacred  fire  might  be  taken  out 
of  his  house  ;  he  might  not  touch  wheaten  flour  or  leavened  bread 
he  might  not  touch  or  even  name  a  goat,  a  dog,  raw  meat,  beans  an 
ivy  •  he  might  not  walk  under  a  vine  ;  the  feet  of  his  bed  had  to  be 
daubed  with  mud  ;  his  hair  could  be  cut  only  by  a  free  man  and  with 
a  bronze  knife,  and  his  hair  and  nails  when  cut  had  to  be  buried  under 
a  lucky  tree  ;  he  might  not  touch  a  dead  body  nor  enter  a  place  where 
one  was  burned  ;  he  might  not  see  work  being  done  on  holy  days ; 
he  might  not  be  uncovered  in  the  open  air  ;  if  a  man  m  bonds  were 
taken  into  his  house,  the  captive  had  to  be  unbound  and  the  cords 
had  to  be  drawn  up  through  a  hole  in  the  roof  and  so  let  down  into  e 
street.  His  wife,  the  Flaminica,  had  to  observe  nearly  the  same  rules, 
and  others  of  her  own  besides.  She  might  not  ascend  more  than  three 
steps  of  the  kind  of  staircase  called  Greek  ;  at  a  certain  festival  s  e 
might  not  comb  her  hair  ;  the  leather  of  her  shoes  might  not  be  made 
from  a  beast  that  had  died  a  natural  death,  but  only  from  one  that 
had  been  slain  or  sacrificed  ;  if  she  heard  thunder  she  was  tabooed 

till  she  had  offered  an  expiatory  sacrifice.  .  , 

Among  the  Grebo  people  of  Sierra  Leone  there  is  a  pontiff  vdio 

bears  the  title  of  Bodia  and  has  been  compared,  on  somewhat  slender 
grounds,  to  the  high  priest  of  the  Jews.  He  is  appointed  m  accordance 
with  the  behest  of  an  oracle.  At  an  elaborate  ceremony  of  mstahat  on 
he  is  anointed,  a  ring  is  put  on  his  ankle  as  a  badge  of  office,  an 


XVII 


SPIRITUAL  AND  TEMPORAL  POWER 


175 

door-posts  of  his  house  are  sprinkled  with  the  blood  of  a  sacrificed 
goat.  He  has  charge  of  the  public  talismans  and  idols,  which  he  feed* 
with  nee  and  oil  every  new  moon  ;  and  he  sacrifices  on  behalf  of  £ 
town  to  the  dead  and  to  demons.  Nominally  his  power  is  very  great 
but  m  Practice  it  is  very  limited  ;  for  he  dare  not  defy  public  Opinion' 
and  he  is  held  responsible,  even  with  his  life,  for  any  adversity  that 
befalls  the  country  It  is  expected  of  him  that  he  should  cause  the 
earth  to  bung  forth  abundantly,  the  people  to  be  healthy,  war  to  be 
driven  far  away  and  witchcraft  to  be  kept  in  abeyance.7  His  life  is 
trammelled  by  the  observance  of  certain  restrictions  or  taboos  Thus 

k,,m.ar0,t  sIee.p  ln, a“y  house  but  his  own  official  residence  which  is 
called  the  anointed  house  ”  with  reference  to  the  ceremony  of  anoint- 

me  him  at  inauguration.  He  may  not  drink  water  on  the  highway 
He  may  not  eat  while  a  corpse  is  in  the  town,  and  he  may  not  mourn 
or  the  dead.  If  he  dies  while  in  office,  he  must  be  buried  at  dead  of 

h'U  ’  J,CW  maT  ‘ea!  of  hls  burial>  and  none  may  mourn  for  him  when 
his  death  is  made  public.  Should  he  have  fallen  a  victim  to  the  pSn 

be  bn  -ieH  drankmg  a  decoctlon  of  sassywood,  as  it  is  called,  hePmust 
be  buried  under  a  running  stream  of  water. 

Among  the  Todas  of  Southern  India  the  holy  milkman  who  acts 
as  priest  of  the  sacred  dairy,  is  subject  to  a  variety  of  irksome  and 
burdensome  restrictions  during  the  whole  time  of  his  incumbency 
which  may  last  many  years.  Thus  he  must  live  at  the  sacrS  dairy 

and  llla>r  neJ'er  Vlsit  hls  home  or  any  ordinary  village.  He  must  be 
celibate;  if  he  is  married  he  must  leave  his  wife.  On  no  account  may 
any  ordinary  person  touch  the  holy  milkman  or  the  holy  dairy  •  such 
a  touch  would  so  defile  his  holiness  that  he  would  forfeit  hfs 'office 
is  only  on  two  days  a  week,  namely  Mondays  and  Thursdays  that 
a  mere  layman  may  even  approach  the  milkman  ;  on  other  days  if 
he  has  any  business  with  him,  he  must  stand  at  a  distance  (some  sav 

*  “i*  "d  shr  h»  uTtaSSJ 

pace.  Further  the  holy  milkman  never  cuts  his  hair  or  pares  his 
nails  so  long  as  he  holds  office  ;  he  never  crosses  a  river  by  a  bridge 
but  wades  through  a  ford  and  only  certain  fords  ;  if  a  death  occfrs 
n  his  clan,  he  may  not  attend  any  of  the  funeral  ceremonies  unless 

manlo  rthaTSfhlS  °ffiCe  a”d  descends  from  the  exalted  rank  of  milk- 
man  to  that  of  a  mere  common  mortal.  Indeed  it  appears  that  in 

any  Sero/L^T  ^  ^  V  rather  the  pails’  °f  °®ce  whenever 

restraint  are  la  d  ?ar‘ed  thi®  life‘  Howew'  these  heavy 

restramts  are  laid  m  their  entirety  only  on  milkmen  of  the  very  highest 

-0  Jj' i*>iWrCe  °fthe  SPiritual  from  the  Temporal  Power.— The  burden- 
tSnatumrXAT'rP  ‘°  the  r0yal  °r  priestly  office  Pr°duced 

aence  tended  tn  Til  •  ^  T  me”  refuSed  t0  accept  the  °ffice.  which 

ts  weight  ,  r  ^  'i}  °  abeyance  ;  or  accepting  it,  they  sank  under 
nervef S  I  *  spirltless  creatures,  cloistered  recluses,  from  whose 
)f  men  theIelns  of  government  slipped  into  the  firmer  grasp 

31  men  wh0  were  often  content  to  wield  the  reality  of  sovereignty 


THE  BURDEN  OF  ROYALTY 


CH. 


176 

without  its  name.  In  some  countries  this  rift  m  the  supreme  power 
deepened  into  a  total  and  permanent  separation  of  the  spiritual  and 
temporal  powers,  the  old  royal  house  retaining  their  purely  re Lgious 
functions,  while  the  civil  government  passed  into  the  hands  t  a 

}  To  take  examples.  In  a  previous  part  of  this  work  we  saw  that 
in  Cambodia  it  is  often  necessary  to  force  tire  kingships  of  Fire  and 
Water  upon  the  reluctant  successors,  and  that  m  Savage  Island 
monarchy  actually  came  to  an  end  because  at  last  no  one  could  be 
induced  to  accept  the  dangerous  distinction.  In  some  parts  < of  West 
Africa  when  the  king  dies,  a  family  council  is  secretly  held  to  deter¬ 
miners  successor.  He  on  whom  the  choice  falls  is  suddenly  seized, 
bound,  and  thrown  into  the  fetish-house,  where  he  is  kept  m  durance 
till  he  consents  to  accept  the  crown.  Sometimes  the  heir  finds  means 
of  evading  the  honour  which  it  is  sought  to  thrust  upon  him  ;  a  ferocious 
chief  has  been  known  to  go  about  constantly  armed  resolute  to  resist 
bv  force  any  attempt  to  set  him  on  the  throne.  The  savage  Tim rnes 
of  Sierra  Leone,  who  elect  their  king,  reserve  to  themselves  the  right 
of  beating  him  on  the  eve  of  his  coronation  ;  and  they  avail  themselves 
of  this  constitutional  privilege  with  such  hearty  goodwill  that  some- 
tunes  the  unhappy  monarch  does  not  long  survive  his  elevation  to 
the  throne  Hence  when  the  leading  chiefs  have  a  spite  at  a  man 
and  wish  to  rid  themselves  of  him,  they  elect  him  king.  Formerly, 
beforl  a  man  was  proclaimed  king  of  Sierra  Leone,  it  used  o  be  th 
custom  to  load  him  with  chains  and  thrash  him.  Then  the  fetters 
were  knocked  off,  the  kingly  robe  was  placed  on  him,  and  he  re“lv" 
in  his  hands  the  symbol  of  royal  dignity,  which  was  nothing  but  the 
axe  of  the  executioner.  It  is  not  therefore  surprising  to  read  that  in 
Sierra  Leone,  where  such  customs  have  prevailed,  except  among  1 

Sm  few  kings  native,  of 

govern.  So  different  are  their  ideas  from  ours,  that  very  few  are 
solicitous  of  the  honour,  and  competition  is  very  seldom  heard  of. 

The  Mikados  of  Japan  seem  early  to  have  resorted  to  the  expedie 
of  transferring  the  honours  and  burdens  of  supreme  powei  to  their 
Mant  children  ;  and  the  rise  of  the  Tycoons,  long  the  temporal 
sovereigns  of  the  country,  is  traced  to  the  abdication  of  a  certain 
Mikado§  in  favour  of  his  three-year-old  son.  The  sovereignty  havi  g 
been  wrested  by  a  usurper  from  the  infant  prince,  the  cause  of  die 
Mikado  was  championed  by  Yoritomo,  a  man  of  spirit  and  conduc  , 
who  overthrew  the  usurper  and  restored  to  the  Mikado  the  shadow 
while  he  retained  for  himself  the  substance,  of  power  He  bequeathed 
to  his  descendants  the  dignity  he  had  won,  and  thus  became  the 
founder  of  the  line  of  Tycoons.  Down  to  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century  the  Tycoons  were  active  and  efficient  rulers  ,  but  t  < 
fate  overtook  them  which  had  befallen  the  Mikado*  Immeshed  m 
the  same  inextricable  web  of  custom  and  law,  they  degenerated  1 
mere  puppets,  hardly  stirring  from  their  palaces  and  occupie 
perpetual  round  of  empty  ceremonies,  while  the  real  business 


XVII 


SPIRITUAL  AND  TEMPORAL  POWER 


177 

government  was  managed  by  the  council  of  state.  In  Tonquin  the 
monarchy  ran  a  similar  course.  Living  like  his  predecessors  in 
effeminacy  and  sloth,  the  king  was  driven  from  the  throne  by  an 
ambitious  adventurer  named  Mack,  who  from  a  fisherman  had  risen 
to  be  Grand  Mandarin.  But  the  king's  brother  Tring  put  down  the 
usurper  and  restored  the  king,  retaining,  however,  for  himself  and 

the  kH  eh  th6  dlgmty°f  §eneral  of  a11  the  forces.  Thenceforward 
e  kings,  though  invested  with  the  title  and  pomp  of  sovereignty 

ceased  to  govern.  While  they  lived  secluded  in  their  palaces  aU 
real  political  power  was  wielded  by  the  hereditary  generals! 

n  langaia,  a  Polynesian  island,  religious  and  civil  authority  were 
o  ged  111  separate  hands,  spiritual  functions  being  discharged  by  a  line 
of  hereditary  kings,  while  the  temporal  government  was  entrusted  from 
time  to  time  to  a  victorious  war-chief,  whose  investiture,  however 
iad  "  completed  by  the  king.  Similarly  in  Tonga  besides  the 
civil  king  whose  right  to  the  throne  was  partly  hereditary  and  party 
derived  from  his  warlike  reputation  and  the  number  of  his  fighting 
men,  there  was  a  great  divine  chief  who  ranked  above  the  king  and 
the  other  chiefs  in  virtue  of  his  supposed  descent  from  one  of  the 
chief  gods.  Once  a  year  the  first-fruits  of  the  ground  were  offered 
to  him  at  a  solemn  ceremony,  and  it  was  believed  that  if  these  offer- 
mgs  were  not  made  the  vengeance  of  the  gods  would  fall  in  a 
signal  manner  on  the  people.  Peculiar  forms  of  speech,  such  as 
weie  applied  to  no  one  else,  were  used  in  speaking  of  him,  and  every- 
mg  that  he  chanced  to  touch  became  sacred  or  tabooed  When 
he  and  the  king  met,  the  monarch  had  to  sit  down  on  the  ground  in 
;  token  of  respect  until  his  holiness  had  passed  by.  Yet  though  he 
enjoyed  the  highest  veneration  by  reason  of  his  divine  origin  this 
sacred  personage  possessed  no  political  authority,  and  if  he  ventured 
o  meddle  with  affairs  of  state  it  was  at  the  risk  of  receiving  a  rebuff 
rom  the  king,  to  whom  the  real  power  belonged,  and  who  finally 
succeeded  in  ridding  himself  of  his  spiritual  rival. 

In  some  parts  of  Western  Africa  two  kings  reign  side  by  side  a 
fetish  or  religious  king  and  a  civil  king,  but  the  fetish  king  is  really 
supreme  He  controls  the  weather  and  so  forth,  and  can  put  a  stop 

pasTthatw" g'  Th  “r  ®  lays  h.ls  red  staff  on  the  ground,  no  one  may 
pass  that  way.  This  division  of  power  between  a  sacred  and  a  secular 

ruler  is  to  be  met  with  wherever  the  true  negro  culture  has  been  left 

as  3Ut  W a6r!  I*1®  negr°  f°rm  °f  society  has  been  disturbed, 

as  m  Dahomey  and  Ashantee,  there  is  a  tendency  to  consolidate  the 
two  powers  m  a  single  king. 

In  some  parts  of  the  East  Indian  island  of  Timor  we  meet  with  a 
partition  °f  power  like  that  which  is  represented  by  the  civil  king 
and  the  fetish  king  of  Western  Africa.  Some  of  the  Timorese  tribe! 
recognise  two  rajahs,  the  ordinary  or  civil  rajah,  who  governs  the 
people,  and  the  fetish  or  taboo  rajah,  who  is  charged  with  the  control 

r  „!Tyth“S  th,at  concerns  the  earth  and  its  products.  This  latter 
uier  has  the  right  of  declaring  anything  taboo  ;  his  permission  must 

N 


178 


THE  PERILS  OF  THE  SOUL 


CH. 


be  obtained  before  new  land  may  be  brought 

he  must  perform  certain  necessary  ceremonies  when  the  work  is  U  ng 

carried  out  If  drought  or  blight  threatens  the  crops,  his  help  is 

invoked  to  save  them.  Though  he  ranks  below  civil  ra, ah  h 

everrises  a  momentous  influence  on  the  course  of  events,  for  his  secular 

coCue  is  bound  to  consult  him  in  all  important  matters.  In  some 

of  the§neighbouring  islands,  such  as  Rotti  and  eastern  Flores,  a  spmtua 
°1  the  neignoou  g  ’  ised  under  various  native  names,  which 

SfUL  L'd  of  tie  ground”  Similarly  in  the  Mekeo  district  of 

British  New  Guinea  there  is  a  double  chieftainship.  T  le  P®°P  ® 

divided  into  two  groups  according  to  families  and  ea<*  of  th  g  P 

has  its  chief  One  of  the  two  is  the  war  chief,  the  other  is  ttie  taD 

chief  The  office  of  the  latter  is  hereditary  ; '  his  duty  is  to  impose 

ffaboo  on  any  of  the  crops,  such  as  the  coco-nuts  and  areca  nuts 

whenever  he  thinks  it  desirable  to  prohibit  their  use. .  In  his  offi ce 

we  may  perhaps  detect  the  beginning  of  a  priestly  dynasty  b  t 

vet  his  functions  appear  to  be  more  magical  than  re  g  ,  & 

concerned  with  the  Control  of  the  harvests  rather  than  with  the  pro- 

pitiation  of  higher  powers. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


THE  PERILS  OF  THE  SOUL 


S  1  The  Soul  as  a  Mannikin.- The  foregoing  examples  have  taught 
L  that  the  office  of  a  sacred  king  or  priest  is  often  hedged  in  by  a 
series  of  burdensome  restrictions  or  taboos,  of  which  a  principal  purpos 
aoDears  to  be  to  preserve  the  life  of  the  divine  man  for  the  good  of  his 
people  But  if  the  object  of  the  taboos  is  to  save  his  life,  the  question 
bises  How  is  their  observance  supposed  to  effect  this  end  .  To 
understand  this  we  must  know  the  nature  of  the  danger  which  threaten 
the  king’s  life,  and  which  it  is  the  intention  of  these  curious  restnctio  : 
S  guard  against.  We  must,  therefore,  ask  :  What  does  ear  y  man 
understand  by  death  ?  To  what  causes  does  he  attribute  it  .  And 

how  does  he  think  it  may  be  guarded  against  ? 

As  the  savage  commonly  explains  the  processes  of  inanimate  nature 
bv  supposing  that  they  are  produced  by  living  beings  working  in  or 
behinVthe  phenomena,  so  he  explains  the  phenomena  of  life  itself. 

H  an  animal  lives  and  moves,  it  can  only  be,  he  thinks,  because  there 
is  a  little  animal  inside  which  moves  it  :  if  a  man  lives  and  mo  , 
can  only  be  because  he  has  a  little  man  or  animal  inside  who  moves  him. 
The  animal  inside  the  animal,  the  man  inside  the  mar A  ; 
And  as  the  activity  of  an  animal  or  man  is  explained  by  the  p 
of  the  soul,  so  the  ‘repose  of  sleep  or  death  is  explained  by ^  absence  , 
sleep  or  trance  being  the  tempoiaiy,  death  being  t  P- 
absence  of  the  soul.  Hence  if  death  be  the  permanent  absence  of  th 


, 


xvm  the  soul  as  a  MANNIKIN  i79 

soul,  the  way  to  guard  against  it  is  either  to  prevent  the  soul  from 
eavmg  the  body,  or,  if  it  does  depart,  to  ensure  that  it  shall  return. 
I  he  precautions  adopted  by  savages  to  secure  one  or  other  of  these 
ends  take  the  form  of  certain  prohibitions  or  taboos,  which  are  nothing 
but  rules  intended  to  ensure  either  the  continued  presence  or  the 
return  of  the  soul.  In  short,  they  are  life-preservers  or  life-guards, 
these  general  statements  will  now  be  illustrated  by  examples. 

„  T  ^dressing  some  Australian  blacks,  a  European  missionary  said 

„  *  am  not  °ne'as  y°u  think,  but  two.”  Upon  this  they  laughed! 

You  may  laugh  as  much  as  you  like,”  continued  the  missionary, 

1  teli  you  that  l  am  two  in  one  ;  this  great  body  that  you  see  is  one  ; 
within  that  there  is  another  little  one  which  is  not  visible.  The  great 
body  dies,  and  is  buried,  but  the  little  body  flies  away  when  the  great 
one  dies.  To  this  some  of  the  blacks  replied,  “  Yes,  yes.  We  also 
are  two  we  also  have  a  little  body  within  the  breast.”  On  being 
asked  where  the  little  body  went  after  death,  some  said  it  went  behind 
the  bush  others  said  it  went  into  the  sea,  and  some  said  they  did  not 
know.  The  Hurons  thought  that  the  soul  had  a  head  and  bodV 
arms  and  legs  ;  m  short,  that  it  was  a  complete  little  model  of  the  man 
umself.  The  Esquimaux  believe  that  “  the  soul  exhibits  the  same 
shape  as  the  body  it  belongs  to,  but  is  of  a  more  subtle  and  ethereal 
nature.  _  According  to  the  Nootkas  the  soul  has  the  shape  of  a  tinv 
man  ;  its  seat  is  the  crown  of  the  head.  So  long  as  it  stands  erect, 
its  owner  is  hale  and  hearty  ;  but  when  from  any  cause  it  loses  its 
upright  position,  he  loses  his  senses.  Among  the  Indian  tribes  of  the 
ower  Fraser  River,  man  is  held  to  have  four  souls,  of  which  the 
principal  one  has  the  form  of  a  mannikin,  while  the  other  three  are 
shadows  of  it.  The  Malays  conceive  the  human  soul  as  a  little  man 
mostly  invisible  and  of  the  bigness  of  a  thumb,  who  corresponds 
exactly  m  shape,  proportion,  and  even  in  complexion  to  the  man  in 
whose  body  he  resides.  This  mannikin  is  of  a  thin  unsubstantial 
nature,  though  not  so  impalpable  but  that  it  may  cause  displacement 
on  entering  a  physical  object,  and  it  can  flit  quickly  from  place  to  place  * 
it  is  temporarily  absent  from  the  body  in  sleep,  trance,  and  disease’ 
and  permanently  absent  after  death. 

So  exact  is  the  resemblance  of  the  mannikin  to  the  man,  in  other 
words,  of  the  soul  to  the  body,  that,  as  there  are  fat  bodies’ and  thin 
°^\so  there  are  fat  souls  and  thin  souls  ;  as  there  are  heavy  bodies 
and  light  bodies,  long  bodies  and  short  bodies,  so  there  are  heavy  souls 
and  light  souls,  long  souls  and  short  souls.  The  people  of  Nias  think 
at^very  man,  befoie  he  is  born,  is  asked  how  long  or  how  heavy  a 
soul  he  would  like,  and  a  soul  of  the  desired  weight  or  length  is  measured 
out  to  him.  The  heaviest  soul  ever  given  out  weighs  about  ten 
grammes.  The  length  of  a  man’s  life  is  proportioned  to  the  length  of 
his  soul ;  children  who  die  young  had  short  souls.  The  Fijian  con¬ 
ception  of  the  soul  as  a  tiny  human  being  comes  clearly  out  in  the 
customs  observed  at  the  death  of  a  chief  among  the  Nakelo  tribe. 
When  a  chief  dies,  certain  men,  who  are  the  hereditary  undertakers, 


i  So 


THE  PERILS  OF  THE  SOUL 


CH. 


call  him,  as  he  lies,  oiled  and  ornamented,  on  fine  mats,  saying,  "  Rise, 
sir  the  chief,  and  let  us  be  going.  The  day  has  come  over  the  land. 
Then  they  conduct  him  to  the  river  side,  where  the  ghostly  ferryman 
comes  to 'ferry  Nakelo  ghosts  across  the  stream.  As  they  thus  attend 
the  chief  on  his  last  journey,  they  hold  their  great  fans  close  to  the 
ground  to  shelter  him,  because,  as  one  of  them  explained  to  a  mission¬ 
ary  “  His  soul  is  only  a  little  child.”  People  in  the  Punjaub  who 
tattoo  themselves  believe  that  at  death  the  soul,  the  little  entire 
man  or  woman  ”  inside  the  mortal  frame,  will  go  to  heaven  blazoned 
with  the  same  tattoo  patterns  which  adorned  the  body  m  life.  Some¬ 
times,  however,  as  we  shall  see,  the  human  soul  is  conceived  not  in 

human  but  in  animal  form. 

S  2.  Absence  and  Recall  of  the  Sold.— The  soul  is  commonly  supposed 
to  escape  by  the  natural  openings  of  the  body,  especially  the  mouth 
and  nostrils.  Hence  in  Celebes  they  sometimes  fasten  fish-hooks  to  a 
sick  man’s  nose,  navel,  and  feet,  so  that  if  his  soul  should  try  to  escape 
it  may  be  hooked  and  held  fast.  A  Turik  on  the  Baram  River,  m 
Borneo,  refused  to  part  with  some  hook-like  stones,  because  they,  as  it 
were,  hooked  his  soul  to  his  body,  and  so  prevented  the  spiritual 
portion  of  him  from  becoming  detached  from  the  material.  W  hen  a 
Sea  Dyak  sorcerer  or  medicine-man  is  initiated,  his  fingers  are  supposed 
to  be  furnished  with  fish-hooks,  with  which  he  will  thereafter  clutch 
the  human  soul  in  the  act  of  flying  away,  and  restore  it  to  the  bo  y 
of  the  sufferer.  But  hooks,  it  is  plain,  may  be  used  to  catch  the  souls 
of  enemies  as  well  as  of  friends.  Acting  on  this  principle  head-hunters 
in  Borneo  hang  wooden  hooks  beside  the  skulls  of  their  slain  enemies 
in  the  belief  that  this  helps  them  on  their  forays  to  hook  in  fresh 
heads.  One  of  the  implements  of  a  Haida  medicine-man  is  a  hollow 
bone,  in  which  he  bottles  up  departing  souls,  and  so  restores  them  to 
their’  owners.  When  any  one  yawns  in  their  presence  the  Hindoos 
always  snap  their  thumbs,  believing  that  this  will  hinder  the  soul  from 
issuing  through  the  open  mouth.  The  Marquesans  used  to  hold  the 
mouth  and  nose  of  a  dying  man,  in  order  to  keep  him  in  life  by  prevent¬ 
ing  his  soul  from  escaping  ;  the  same  custom  is  reported  of  the  New 
Caledonians  ;  and  with  the  like  intention  the  Bagobos  of  the  Philippine 
Islands  put  rings  of  brass  wire  on  the  wrists  or  ankles  of  their  sick.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  Itonamas  of  South  America  seal  up  the  eyes,  nosy, 
and  mouth  of  a  dying  person,  in  case  his  ghost  should  get  out  and 
carry  off  others  ;  and  for  a  similar  reason  the  people  of  Nias,  who 
fear  the  spirits  of  the  recently  deceased  and  identify  them  with  the 
breath,  seek  to  confine  the  vagrant  soul  in  its  earthly  tabernacle  by 
bunging  up  the  nose  or  tying  up  the  jaws  of  the  corpse.  Before  leaving 
a  corpse  the  Wakelbura  of  Australia  used  to  place  hot  coals  in  its 
ears  in  order  to  keep  the  ghost  in  the  body,  until  they  had  got  such 
a  good  start  that  he  could  not  overtake  them.  In  Southern  Celebes, 
to  hinder  the  escape  of  a  woman’s  soul  in  childbed,  the  nurse  ties  a 
band  as  tightly  as  possible  round  the  body  of  the  expectant  mother. 
The  Minangkabauers  of  Sumatra  observe  a  similar  custom  ;  a  skein  of 


XVIII  ABSENCE  AND  RECALL  OF  THE  SOUL  181 

thread  or  a  string  is  sometimes  fastened  round  the  wrist  or  loins  of  a 
woman  m  childbed,  so  that  when  her  soul  seeks  to  depart  in  her  hour 
of  travail  it  may  find  the  egress  barred.  And  lest  the  soul  of  a  babe 
should  escape  and  be  lost  as  soon  as  it  is  born,  the  Alfoors  of  Celebes 
when  a  birth  is  about  to  take  place,  are  careful  to  close  every  open¬ 
ing  m  the  house,  even  the  keyhole  ;  and  they  stop  up  every  chink 
and  cranny  in  the  walls.  Also  they  tie  up  the  mouths  of  all 
animals  inside  and  outside  the*  house,  for  fear  one  of  them  might 
swallow  the  child’s  soul.  For  a  similar  reason  all  persons  present 
m  house,  even  the  mother  herself,  are  obliged  to  keep  their 
mouths  shut  the  whole  time  the  birth  is  taking  place.  When  the 
(hI.<:^10n  ^as  Put>  Wliy  they  did  not  hold  their  noses  also,  lest  the 
child  s  soul  should  get  into  one  of  them  ?  the  answer  was  that  breath 
bemg  exhaled  as  well  as  inhaled  through  the  nostrils,  the  soul  would  be 
expelled  before  it  could  have  time  to  settle  down.  Popular  expressions 
m  the  language  of  civilised  peoples,  such  as  to  have  one’s  heart  in 
onls  nl0uth1’  or  the  soul  on  the  hps  or  in  the  nose,  show  how  natural 

1S  1  rfjdeai1that  ^e. llfe  0r  SOul  may  escaPe  hy  the  mouth  or  nostrils. 

Ulten  the  soul  is  conceived  as  a  bird  ready  to  take  flight.  This 

conception  has  probably  left  traces  in  most  languages,  and  it  lingers 
fu  a  niftaPh°r  m  poetry.  The  Malays  carry  out  the  conception  of 
the  bird-soul  m  a  number  of  odd  ways.  If  the  soul  is  a  bird  on  the 
wmg,  it  may  be  attracted  by  rice,  and  so  either  prevented  from  flying 
away  or  lured  back  again  from  its  perilous  flight.  Thus  in  Java  when 
a  child  is  placed  on  the  ground  for  the  first  time  (a  moment  which 
uncultured  people  seem  to  regard  as  especially  dangerous),  it  is  put 
m  a  hen-coop  and  the  mother  makes  a  clucking  sound,  as  if  she  were 
calling  hens.  And  in  Sintang,  a  district  of  Borneo,  when  a  person 
whether  man,  woman,  or  child,  has  fallen  out  of  a  house  or  off  a  tree' 
and  has  been  brought  home,  his  wife  or  other  kinswoman  goes  as 
speedily  as  possible  to  the  spot  where  the  accident  happened,  and  there 
which  has  been  coloured  yellow,  while  she  utters  the  words, 
Cluck  !  cluck !  soul !  So-and-so  is  in  his  house  again.  Cluck ! 
cluck  .  soul  !  Then  she  gathers  up  the  rice  in  a  basket,  carries  it 
to  the  sufferer,  and  drops  the  grains  from  her  hand  on  his  head,  saying 
again  Cluck!  cluck!  soul!”  Here  the  intention  clearly  is  to 
decoy  back  the  loitering  bird-soul  and  replace  it  in  the  head  of  its  owner. 

d  he  soul  of  a  sleeper  is  supposed  to  wander  away  from  his  body 
and  actually  to  visit  the  places,  to  see  the  persons,  and  to  perform  the 
acts  of  which  he  dreams.  For  example,  when  an  Indian  of  Brazil  or 
Uuiana  wakes  up  from  a  sound  sleep,  he  is  firmly  convinced  that  his 
soul  has  really  been  away  hunting,  fishing,  felling  trees,  or  whatever 
e  se  he  has  dreamed  of  doing,  while  all  the  time  his  body  has  been 
lying  motionless  in  his  hammock.  A  whole  Bororo  village  has  been 
thrown  into  a  panic  and  nearly  deserted  because  somebody  had  dreamed 
that  he  saw  enemies  stealthily  approaching  it.  A  Macusi  Indian  in 
weak  health,  who  dreamed  that  his  employer  had  made  him  haul  the 
canoe  up  a  series  of  difficult  cataracts,  bitterly  reproached  his  master 


THE  PERILS  OF  THE  SOUL 


CH. 


l82 

next  morning  for  his  want  of  consideration  in  thus  making  a  poor 
"  valid  go  out  and  toil  during  the  night.  The  Indians  of  the  Gran 
Chaco  are  often  heard  to  relate  the  most  incredible  stories  as  things 
which  they  have  themselves  seen  and  heard;  hence  sti angers  wio 
do  not  know  them  intimately  say  in  their  haste  that  these  Indians  are 
liars.  In  point  of  fact  the  Indians  are  firmly  convinced  of  the  truth 
of  what  they  relate  ;  for  these  wonderful  adventures  are  simply  their 
dreams,  which  they  do  not  distinguish  from  waking  realities. 

Now  the  absence  of  the  soul  in  sleep  has  its  dangers,  for  it  irom 
any  cause  the  soul  should  be  permanently  detained  away  from  the 
body  the  person  thus  deprived  of  the  vital  principle  must  die  Ihere 
is  a  German  belief  that  the  soul  escapes  from  a  sleeper  s  mouth  in  the 
form  of  a  white  mouse  or  a  little  bird,  and  that  to  prevent  the  return  0 
the  bird  or  animal  would  be  fatal  to  the  sleeper.  Hence  in  Transylvania 
they  say  that  you  should  not  let  a  child  sleep  with  its  mouth  open, 
or  its  soul  will  slip  out  in  the  shape  of  a  mouse,  and  the  child  will  never 
wake.  Many  causes  may  detain  the  sleeper’s  soul.  Thus,  his  sou 
may  meet  the  soul  of  another  sleeper  and  the  two  souls  may  fight  i  d 
a  Guinea  negro  wakens  with  sore  bones  in  the  morning,  he  thinks  that 
his  soul  has  been  thrashed  by  another  soul  in  sleep.  Or  it  may  meet 
the  soul  of  a  person  just  deceased  and  be  carried  off  by  it ;  .  hence  m 
the  Aru  Islands  the  inmates  of  a  house  will  not  sleep  the  night  alter 
a  death  has  taken  place  in  it,  because  the  soul  of  the  deceased  is  sup¬ 
posed  to  be  still  in  the  house  and  they  fear  to  meet  it  m  a  dream. 
Again  the  soul  of  the  sleeper  may  be  prevented  by  an  accident  or  y 
physical  force  from  returning  to  his  body.  When  a  Dyak  dreams  of 
falling  into  the  water,  he  supposes  that  this  accident  has  really  befallen 
his  spirit,  and  he  sends  for  a  wizard,  who  fishes  for  the  spirit  with  a 
hand-net  in  a  basin  of  water  till  he  catches  it  and  restores  it  to  its 
owner.  The  Santals  tell  how  a  man  fell  asleep,  and  growing  very 
thirsty,  his  soul,  in  the  form  of  a  lizard,  left  his  body  and  entered  a 
pitcher  of  water  to  drink.  Just  then  the  owner  of  the  pitcher  happened 
to  cover  it  ;  so  the  soul  could  not  return  to  the  body  and  the  man 
died.  While  his  friends  were  preparing  to  burn  the  body  some  one 
uncovered  the  pitcher  to  get  water.  The  lizard  thus  escaped  and 
returned  to  the  body,  which  immediately  revived  ;  so  the  man  rose 
up  and  asked  his  friends  why  they  were  weeping.  They  told  him 
they  thought  he  was  dead  and  were  about  to  burn  his  body.  He  said 
he  had  been  down  a  well  to  get  water,  but  had  found  it  haid  to  get  ou 

and  had  just  returned.  So  they  saw  it  all. 

It  is  a  common  rule  with  primitive  people  not  to  waken  a  sleeper 
because  his  soul  is  away  and  might  not  have  time  to  get  back  ;  so  it 
the  man  wakened  without  his  soul,  he  would  fall  sick.  If  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  rouse  a  sleeper,  it  must  be  done  very  gradually,  to  allow 
the  soul  time  to  return.  A  Fijian  in  Matuku,  suddenly  wakened  from 
a  nap  by  somebody  treading  on  his  foot,  has  been  heard  bawling  alter 
his  soul  and  imploring  it  to  return.  He  had  just  been  dreaming  that 
he  was  far  away  in  Tonga,  and  great  was  his  alarm  on  suddenly  waken- 


XVIII 


ABSENCE  AND  RECALL  OF  THE  SOUL  183 

ing  to  find  his  body  in  Matuku.  Death  stared  him  in  the  face  unless 
his  soul  could  be  induced  to  speed  at  once  across  the  sea  and  reanimate 
its  deserted  tenement.  The  man  would  probably  have  died  of  fright 
if  a  missionary  had  not  been  at  hand  to  allay  his  terror. 

Still  more  dangerous  is  it  in  the  opinion  of  primitive  man  to  move 
a  sleeper  01  alter  his  appearance,  for  if  this  were  done  the  soul  on  its 
return  might  not  be  able  to  find  or  recognise  its  body,  and  so  the 
person  would  die.  The  Minangkabauers  deem  it  highly  improper  to 
blacken  or  dirty  the  face  of  a  sleeper,  lest  the  absent  soul  should 
shrink  from  re-entering  a  body  thus  disfigured.  Patani  Malays  fancy 
that  if  a  person’s  face  be  painted  while  he  sleeps,  the  soul  which  has 
gone  out  of  him  will  not  recognise  him,  and  he  will  sleep  on  till  his  face 
is  washed.  In  Bombay  it  is  thought  equivalent  to  murder  to  change 
the  aspect  of  a  sleeper,  as  by  painting  his  face  in  fantastic  colours  or 
giving  moustaches  to  a  sleeping  woman.  For  when  the  soul  returns 
it  will  not  know  its  own  body,  and  the  person  will  die. 

But  in  order  that  a  man  s  soul  should  quit  his  body,  it  is  not  neces¬ 
sary  that  he  should  be  asleep.  It  may  quit  him  in  his  waking  hours, 
and  then  sickness,  insanity,  or  death  will  be  the  result.  Thus  a  man 
of  the  Wurunjeri  tribe  in  Australia  lay  at  his  last  gasp  because  his 
spirit  had  departed  from  him.  A  medicine-man  went  in  pursuit 
and  caught  the  spirit  by  the  middle  just  as  it  was  about  to  plunge 
into  the  sunset  glow,  which  is  the  light  cast  by  the  souls  of  the 
dead  as  they  pass  in  and  out  of  the  under-world,  where  the  sun 
goes  to  rest.  Having  captured  the  vagrant  spirit,  the  doctor  brought 
it  back  under  his  opossum  rug,  laid  himself  down  on  the  dying 
man,  and  put  the  soul  back  into  him,  so  that  after  a  time  he 
revived.  The  Karens  of  Burma  are  perpetually  anxious  about  their 
souls,  lest  these  should  go  roving  from  their  bodies,  leaving  the 
owners  to  die.  When  a  man  has  reason  to  fear  that  his  soul  is 
about  to  take  this  fatal  step,  a  ceremony  is  performed  to  retain  or 
recall  it,  in  which  the  whole  family  must  take  part.  A  meal  is  prepared 
consisting  of  a  cock  and  hen,  a  special  kind  of  rice,  and  a  bunch  of 
bananas.  Then  the  head  of  the  family  takes  the  bowl  which  is  used 
to  skim  rice,  and  knocking  with  it  thrice  on  the  top  of  the  house- 
ladder  says  :  “  Prrrroo  !  Come  back,  soul,  do  not  tarry  outside  ! 
If  it  rains,  you  will  be  wet.  If  the  sun  shines,  you  will  be  hot.  The 
gnats  will  sting  you,  the  leeches  will  bite  you,  the  tigers  will  devour  you, 
the  thunder  will  crush  you.  Prrrroo  !  Come  back,  soul !  Here  it 
will  be  well  with  you.  You  shall  want  for  nothing.  Come  and  eat 
under  shelter  from  the  wind  and  the  storm.”  After  that  the  family 
partakes  of  the  meal,  and  the  ceremony  ends  with  everybody  tying 
their  right  wrist  with  a  string  which  has  been  charmed  by  a  sorcerer. 
Similarly  the  Lolos  of  South-western  China  believe  that  the  soul 
leaves  the  body  in  chronic  illness.  In  that  case  they  read  a  sort 
of  elaborate  litany,  calling  on  the  soul  by  name  and  beseeching  it 
to  return  from  the  hills,  the  vales,  the  rivers,  the  forests,  the  fields, 
or  from  wherever  it  may  be  straying.  At  the  same  time  cups  of  water. 


THE  PERILS  OF  THE  SOUL 


CH. 


184 


wine,  and  rice  are  set  at  the  door  for  the  refreshment  of  the  weary 
wandering  spirit.  When  the  ceremony  is  over,  they  tie  a  red  cord 
round  the  arm  of  the  sick  man  to  tether  the  soul,  and  this  cord  is  worn 
by  him  until  it  decays  and  drops  off. 

Some  of  the  Congo  tribes  believe  that  when  a  man  is  ill,  his  soul 
has  left  his  body  and  is  wandering  at  large.  The  aid  of  the  sorcerer 
is  then  called  in  to  capture  the  vagrant  spirit  and  restore  it  to  the 
invalid.  Generally  the  physician  declares  that  he  has  successfully 
chased  the  soul  into  the  branch  of  a  tree.  The  whole  town  thereupon 
turns  out  and  accompanies  the  doctor  to  the  tree,  where  the  strongest 
men  are  deputed  to  break  off  the  branch  in  which  the  soul  of  the  sick 
man  is  supposed  to  be  lodged.  This  they  do  and  carry  the  branch 
back  to  the  town,  insinuating  by  their  gestures  that  the  burden  is  heavy 
and  hard  to  bear.  When  the  branch  has  been  brought  to  the  sick 
man’s  hut,  he  is  placed  in  an  upright  position  by  its  side,  and  the 
sorcerer  performs  the  enchantments  by  which  the  soul  is  believed  to 
be  restored  to  its  owner. 

Pining,  sickness,  great  fright,  and  death  are  ascribed  by  the  Bataks 
of  Sumatra  to  the  absence  of  the  soul  from  the  body.  At  first  they  try 
to  beckon  the  wanderer  back,  and  to  lure  him,  like  a  fowl,  by  strewing 
rice.  Then  the  following  form  of  words  is  commonly  repeated : 
“  Come  back,  O  soul,  whether  thou  art  lingering  in  the  wood,  or  on 
the  hills,  or  in  the  dale.  See,  I  call  thee  with  a  toemba  bras,  with  an 
egg  of  the  fowl  Rajah  moelija,  with  the  eleven  healing  leaves.  Detain 
it  not,  let  it  come  straight  here,  detain  it  not,  neither  in  the  wood, 
nor  on  the  hill,  nor  in  the  dale.  That  may  not  be.  O  come  straight 
home  !  ”  Once  when  a  popular  traveller  was  leaving  a  Kay  an  village, 
the  mothers,  fearing  that  their  children’s  souls  might  follow  him  on  his 
journey,  brought  him  the  boards  on  which  they  carry  their  infants 
and  begged  him  to  pray  that  the  souls  of  the  little  ones  would  return 
to  the  familiar  boards  and  not  go  away  with  him  into  the  far  country. 
To  each  board  was  fastened  a  looped  string  for  the  purpose  of  tethering 
the  vagrant  spirits,  and  through  the  loop  each  baby  was  made  to  pass  a 
chubby  finger  to  make  sure  that  its  tiny  soul  would  not  wander  away. 

In  an  Indian  story  a  king  conveys  his  soul  into  the  dead  body  of 
a  Brahman,  and  a  hunchback  conveys  his  soul  into  the  deserted  body 
of  the  king.  The  hunchback  is  now  king  and  the  king  is  a  Brahman. 
However,  the,  hunchback  is  induced  to  show  his  skill  by  transferring 
his  soul  to  the  dead  body  of  a  parrot,  and  the  king  seizes  the  oppor¬ 
tunity  to  regain  possession  of  his  own  body.  A  tale  of  the  same  type, 
with  variations  of  detail,  reappears  among  the  Malays.  A  king  has 
incautiously  transferred  his  soul  to  an  ape,  upon  which  the  vizier 
adroitly  inserts  his  own  soul  into  the  king’s  body  and  so  takes  posses¬ 
sion  of  the  queen  and  the  kingdom,  while  the  true  king  languishes  at 
court  in  the  outward  semblance  of  an  ape.  But  one  day  the  false 
king,  who  played  for  high  stakes,  was  watching  a  combat  of  rams, 
and  it  happened  that  the  animal  on  which  he  had  laid  his  money 
fell  down  dead.  All  efforts  to  restore  animation  proved  unavailing 


XVIII  ABSENCE  AND  RECALL  OF  THE  SOUL  185 

till  the  false  king  with  the  instinct  of  a  true  sportsman,  transferred 

frav^The11  e  ?  t  b°dX  °f,  th,6  d6CeaSed  ram-  and  *us  renewed  the 
tray  The  leal  king  m  the  body  of  the  ape  saw  his  chance,  and  with 

great  presence  of  mind  darted  back  into  his  own  body,  which  the 

usurper  'ill  vucated.  So  he  came  to  his  own  again,  and  the 

SinXlv  the  r  T  !  mt7  Wlth  the  fate  he  richly  deserved, 

larly  the  Greeks  told  how  the  soul  of  Hermotimus  of  Clazomenae 

of  whaVhe  had  5°^  ^  kL  and  Wide’  bringing  back  intelligence 

ot  what  he  had  seen  on  his  rambles  to  his  friends  at  home  ;  until  one 

v,  w  en  his  spirit  was  abroad,  his  enemies  contrived  to  seize  his 
deserted  body  and  committed  it  to  the  flames. 

a  fThf  ^partufe  °f  the  soul  is  not  always  voluntary.  It  may  be 

Hence  tirff  b°dy,  itS  ^  by  ghosts’  °r  sorcerers 

Hence,  when  a  funeral  is  passing  the  house,  the  Karens  tie  their 

children  with  a  special  kind  of  string  to  ^particular  part  of  the  house 

lest  the  souls  of  the  children  should  leave  their  bodies  and  go  into  the 

corpse  which  is  passing.  The  children  are  kept  tied  in  this  way  until 

the  corpse  is  out  of  sight.  And  after  the  corpse  has  been  laid  b  the 

?  ave,  but  before  the  earth  has  been  shovelled  in,  the  mourners  and 

lenvthwHe"®6  6T1Vf  rTd  thC  graV6’  each  with  a  bamb0°  split 
lengthwise  m  one  hand  and  a  little  stick  in  the  other  ;  each  man 

Groove  of1Sthea  b  K  mt°  ^  graVe’  and  drawing  the  stlck  ^ng  the 
gioove  of  the  bamboo  points  out  to  his  soul  that  in  this  way  it  may 

easily  climb  up  out  of  the  tomb.  While  the  earth  is  being  shovelled 

themeandmso°°h  l®1*-  °“ !  °f  the  Way'  lest  the  souls  shouId  be  in 
m,  and  so  should  be  inadvertently  buried  with  the  earth  as  it  is 

being  thrown  into  the  grave  ;  and  when  the  people  leave  the  spot 

they  cany  away  the  bamboos,  begging  their  souls  to  come  with  them 

wit’h  +f’  °r+tiet'fnlJlg  fr°m  the  grave  each  Karen  Provides  himself 
th  three  little  hooks  made  of  branches  of  trees,  and  calling  his  spirit 

0  follow  him,  at  short  intervals,  as  he  returns,  he  makes  a  motion  as 

if  hooking  it,  and  then  thrusts  the  hook  into  the  ground.  This  is 

one  to  Preynt  the  soul  of  the  living  from  staying  behind  with  the 

and  are  fill'  ti  1Wh“  the  Kar°-Bataks  have  buried  somebody 

„  tn  i6  ng^r-thlT  grave’  a  sorceress  runs  about  beating  the  air 
ith  a  stick.  This  she  does  in  order  to  drive  away  the  souls  of  the 

survivors,  for  if  one  of  these  souls  happened  to  slip  into  the  grave  and 
to  be  covered  up  with  earth,  its  owner  would  die. 

In  Uea,  one  of  the  Loyalty  Islands,  the  souls  of  the  dead  seem  to 
have  been  credited  with  the  power  of  stealing  the  souls  of  the  living 
lor  when  a  man  was  sick  the  soul-doctor  would  go  with  a  large  troop 
3f  men  and  women  to  the  graveyard.  Here  the  men  played  on  flutes 
rnd  the  women  whistled  softly  to  lure  the  soul  home  After  this 
rad  gone  on  for  some  time  they  formed  in  procession  and  moved 
lornewards  the  flutes  playing  and  the  women  whistling  all  the  wav 
■vhile  they  led  back  the  wandering  soul  and  drove  it  gently  along 

«th  open  palms  On  entering  the  patient’s  dwelling  they  commanded 
.ue  soul  in  a  loud  voice  to  enter  his  body. 


THE  PERILS  OF  THE  SOUL 


CH. 


186 

Often  the  abduction  of  a  man’s  soul  is  set  down  to  demons.  Thus 
fits  and  convulsions  are  generally  ascribed  by  the  Chinese  to  the  agency 
of  certain  mischievous  spirits  who  love  to  draw  men  s  souls  out  o 
their  bodies.  At  Amoy  the  spirits  who  serve  babies  and  children  in 
this  way  rejoice  in  the  high-sounding  titles  of  “  celestial  agencies 
bestriding  galloping  horses  ”  and  “  literary  graduates  residing  a  - 
wav  up  in  the  sky.”  When  an  infant  is  writhing  m  convulsions  the 
frightened  mother  hastens  to  the  roof  of  the  house,  and,  waving  about 
a  bamboo  pole  to  which  one  of  the  child’s  garments  is  attached,  cries 
out  several  times,  “  My  child  So-and-so,  come  back,  return  home 
Meantime,  another  inmate  of  the  house  bangs  away  at  a  gong  m  the 
hope  of  attracting  the  attention  of  the  strayed  soul,  which  is  supposed 
to  recognise  the  familiar  garment  and  to  slip  into  it  The  garmen 
containing  the  soul  is  then  placed  on  or  beside  the  child,  and  if  t 
child  does  not  die  recovery  is  sure  to  follow,  sooner  or  later.  Similarly 
some  Indians  catch  a  man’s  lost  soul  in  his  boots  and  restoie  it  to  his 

body  by  putting  his  feet  into  them.  ,  A  , 

In  the  Moluccas  when  a  man  is  unwell  it  is  thought  that  some 

devil  has  carried  away  his  soul  to  the  tree,  mountain,  where 

he  (the  devil)  resides.  A  sorcerer  having  pointed  out  the  devil  s 
abode,  the  friends  of  the  patient  carry  thither  cooked  rice,  fruit  ns  , 
raw  eggs,  a  hen,  a  chicken,  a  silken  robe,  gold,  armlets,  and  so  forth. 
Having  set  out  the  food  in  order  they  pray,  saying  :  We  come  to 

offer  to  you,  O  devil,  this  offering  of  food,  clothes,  gold,  and  so  on  , 
take  it  and  release  the  soul  of  the  patient  for  whom  we  pray  Let 
it  return  to  his  body,  and  he  who  now  is  sick  shall  be  made  whole. 
Then  they  eat  a  little  and  let  the  hen  loose  as  a  ransom  for  the  sou 
of  the  patient ;  also  they  put  down  the  raw  eggs  ;  but  the  silken 
robe  the  gold,  and  the  armlets  they  take  home  with  them  _  As  soon 
as  they  are  come  to  the  house  they  place  a  flat  bowl  containing  the 
offerings  which  have  been  brought  back  at  the  sick  man  s  head  an 
say  to  him  :  “  Now  is  your  soul  released,  and  you  shall  fare  well  and 

live  to  grey  hairs  on  the  earth.’  .  ,  A 

Demons  are  especially  feared  by  persons  who  have  just  enter 

a  new  house.  Hence  at  a  house-warming  among  the  Alfoors  oi  Mma- 
hassa  in  Celebes  the  priest  performs  a  ceremony  for  the  purpose  ot 
restoring  their  souls  to  the  inmates.  He  hangs  up  a  bag  at  the  place 
of  sacrifice  and  then  goes  through  a  list  of  the  gods  There  are  so 
many  of  them  that  this  takes  him  the  whole  night  through  without 
stopping.  In  the  morning  he  offers  the  gods  an  egg  and  some  rice. 
Bv  this  time  the  souls  of  the  household  are  supposed  to  be  gathered 
in  the  bag.  So  the  priest  takes  the  bag,  and  holding  it  on  the  head 
of  the  master  of  the  house,  says,  “  Here  you  have  your  soul  ;  go  (soul) 
to-morrow  away  again.”  He  then  does  the  same,  saying  the  same 
words  to  the  housewife  and  all  the  other  members  of  the  family. 
Amongst  the  same  Alfoors  one  way  of  recovering  a  sick  man  s  sou 
is  to  let  down  a  bowl  by  a  belt  out  of  a  window  and  fish  for  the  soul 
till  it  is  caught  in  the  bowl  and  hauled  up.  And  among  the  same  peop  e, 


XVIII  ABSENCE  AND  RECALL  OF  THE  SOUL  187 

when  a  priest  is  bringing  back  a  sick  man’s  soul  which  he  has  caught 
in  a  cloth,  he  is  preceded  by  a  girl  holding  the  large  leaf  of  a  certain 
palm  over  his  head  as  an  umbrella  to  keep  him  and  the  soul  from 
getting  wet,  in  case  it  should  rain  ;  and  he  is  followed  by  a  man 
brandishing  a  sword  to  deter  other  soulsdrom  any  attempt  at  rescuing 
the  captured  spirit. 

Sometimes  the  lost  soul  is  brought  back  in  a  visible  shape.  The 
Salish  or  Flathead  Indians  of  Oregon  believe  that  a  man’s  soul  may  be 
separated  for  a  time  from  his  body  without  causing  death  and  without 
the  man  being  aware  of  his  loss.  It  is  necessary,  however,  that  the 
lost  soul  should  be  soon  found  and  restored  to  its  owner  or  he  will  die. 
The  name  of  the  man  who  has  lost  his  soul  is  revealed  in  a  dream  to  the 
medicine-man,  who  hastens  to  inform  the  sufferer  of  his  loss.  Generally 
a  number  of  men  have  sustained  a  like  loss  at  the  same  time  ;  all  their 
names  are  revealed  to  the  medicine-man,  and  all  employ  him  to  recover 
their  souls.  The  whole  night  long  these  soulless  men  go  about  the 
village  from  lodge  to  lodge,  dancing  and  singing.  Towards  daybreak 
they  go  into  a  separate  lodge,  which  is  closed  up  so  as  to  be  totally  dark. 
A  small  hole  is  then  made  in  the  roof,  through  which  the  medicine-man, 
with  a  bunch  of  feathers,  brushes  in  the  souls,  in  the  shape  of  bits  of  bone 
and  the  like,  which  he  receives  on  a  piece  of  matting.  A  fire  is  next 
kindled,  by  the  light  of  which  the  medicine-man  sorts  out  the  souls. 
First  he  puts  aside  the  souls  of  dead  people,  of  which  there  are  usually 
several ;  for  if  he  were  to  give  the  soul  of  a  dead  person  to  a  living  man, 
the  man  would  die  instantly.  Next  he  picks  out  the  souls  of  all  the 
persons  present,  and  making  them  all  to  sit  down  before  him,  he  takes 
the  soul  of  each,  in  the  shape  of  a  splinter  of  bone,  wood,  or  shell,  and 
placing  it  on  the  owner’s  head,  pats  it  with  many  prayers  and  con¬ 
tortions  till  it  descends  into  the  heart  and  so  resumes  its  proper  place. 

Again,  souls  may  be  extracted  from  their  bodies  or  detained  on  their 
wanderings  not  only  by  ghosts  and  demons  but  also  by  men,  especially 
by  sorcerers.  In  Fiji,  if  a  criminal  refused  to  confess,  the  chief  sent 
for  a  scarf  with  which  “  to  catch  away  the  soul  of  the  rogue.”  At  the 
sight  or  even  at  the  mention  of  the  scarf  the  culprit  generally  made  a 
clean  breast.  For  it  he  did  not,  the  scarf  would  be  waved  over  his  head 
till  his  soul  was  caught  in  it,  when  it  would  be  carefully  folded  up  and 
nailed  to  the  end  of  a  chief’s  canoe  ;  and  for  want  of  his  soul  the  criminal 
would  pine  and  die.  The  sorcerers  of  Danger  Island  used  to  set  snares 
for  souls.  The  snares  were  made  of  stout  cinet,  about  fifteen  to  thirty 
feet  long,  with  loops  on  either  side  of  different  sizes,  to  suit  the  different 
sizes  of  souls  ;  for  fat  souls  there  were  large  loops,  for  thin  souls  there 
were  small  ones.  When  a  man  was  sick  against  whom  the  sorcerers  had 
a  grudge,  they  set  up  these  soul-snares  near  his  house  and  watched  for 
the  flight  of  his  soul.  If  in  the  shape  of  a  bird  or  an  insect  it  was  caught 
in  the  snare,  the  man  would  infallibly  die.  In  some  parts  of  West  Africa, 
indeed,  wizards  are  continually  setting  traps  to  catch  souls  that  wander 
from  their  bodies  in  sleep  ;  and  when  they  have  caught  one,  they  tie  it 
up  over  the  fire,  and  as  it  shrivels  in  the  heat  the  owner  sickens.  This 


x88  THE  PERILS  OF  THE  SOUL  ch. 

is  done,  not  out  of  any  grudge  towards  the  sufferer,  but  purely  as  a 
matter  *  of  business.  The  wizard  does  not  care  whose  soul  he  has 
captured,  and  will  readily  restore  it  to  its  owner,  if  only  he  is  paid  for 
doing  so/  Some  sorcerers  keep  regular  asylums  for  strayed  souls,  and 
anybody  who  has  lost  or  mislaid  his  own  soul  can  always  have  another 
one  from  the  asylum  on  payment  of  the  usual  fee.  No  blame  whatever 
attaches  to  men  who  keep  these  private  asylums  or  set  traps  for  passing 
souls  ;  it  is  their  profession,  and  in  the  exercise  of  it  they  are  actuated 
by  no  harsh  or  unkindly  feelings.  But  there  are  also  wretches  who 
from  pure  spite  or  for  the  sake  of  lucre  set  and  bait  traps  with  the 
deliberate  purpose  of  catching  the  soul  of  a  particular  man  ,  and  in  the 
bottom  of  the  pot,  hidden  by  the  bait,  are  knives  and  sharp  hooks  which 
tear  and  rend  the  poor  soul,  either  killing  it  outright  or  mauling  it  so  as 
to  impair  the  health  of  its  owner  when  it  succeeds  in  escaping  and 
returning  to  him.  Miss  Kingsley  knew  a  Kruman  who  became  very 
anxious  about  his  soul,  because  for  several  nights  he  had  smelt  in  his 
dreams  the  savoury  smell  of  smoked  crawfish  seasoned  with  red  pepper. 
Clearly  some  ill-wisher  had  set  a  trap  baited  with  this  dainty  for  his 
dream-soul,  intending  to  do  him  grievous  bodily,  or  rather  spiritual, 
harm  ;  and  for  the  next  few  nights  great  pains  were  taken  to  keep  his 
soul  from  straying  abroad  in  his  sleep.  In  the  sweltering  heat  of  the 
tropical  night  he  lay  sweating  and  snorting  under  a  blanket,  his  nose 
and  mouth  tied  up  with  a  handkerchief  to  prevent  the  escape  of  his 
precious  soul.  In  Hawaii  there  were  sorcerers  who  caught  souls  of 
living  people,  shut  them  up  in  calabashes,  and  gave  them  to  people 
to  eat.  By  squeezing  a  captured  soul  in  their  hands  they  discovered 
the  place  where  people  had  been  secretly  buried. 

Nowhere  perhaps  is  the  art  of  abducting  human  souls  more  care¬ 
fully  cultivated  or  carried  to  higher  perfection  than  in  the  Malay 
Peninsula.  Here  the  methods  by  which  the  wizard  works  his  will 
are  various,  and  so  too  are  his  motives.  Sometimes  he  desires  to 
destroy  an  enemy,  sometimes  to  win  the  love  of  a  cold  or  bashful 
beauty.  Thus,  to  take  an  instance  of  the  latter  sort  of  charm,  the 
following  are  the  directions  given  for  securing  the  soul  of  one  whom 
you  wish  to  render  distraught.  When  the  moon,  just  risen,  looks  red 
above  the  eastern  horizon,  go  out,  and  standing  in  the  moonlight, 
with  the  big  toe  of  your  right  foot  on  the  big  toe  of  your  left,  make  a 
speaking-trumpet  of  your  right  hand  and  recite  through  it  the  following 

words  : 

“  OM.  I  loose  my  shaft,  I  loose  it  and  the  moon  clouds  over, 

I  loose  it,  and  the  sun  is  extinguished. 

I  loose  it,  and  the  stars  burn  dim. 

But  it  is  not  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  that  1  shoot  at, 

It  is  the  stalk  of  the  heart  of  that  child  of  the  congregation, 

So-and-so. 

Cluck  !  cluck  !  soul  of  So-and-so,  come  and  walk  with  me. 

Come  and  sit  with  me, 

Come  and  sleep  and  share  my  pillow. 

Cluck  !  cluck  !  soul.” 


XVIII 


THE  SOUL  AS  SHADOW  AND  REFLECTION 


189 

Repeat  thiS  thrice  and  after  every  repetition  blow  through  your 

0  ow  fist.  Or  you  may  catch  the  soul  in  your  turban,  thus.  Go 

out  on  the  night  of  the  full  moon  and  the  two  succeeding  nights  •  sit 

down  on  an  ant-hill  facing  the  moon,  burn  incense,  and  rfc  te  the 
following  incantation  : 


“  1  bring  you  a  betel  leaf  to  chew, 

Dab  the  lime  on  to  it,  Prince  Ferocious, 

For  Somebody,  Prince  Distraction’s 
daughter,  to  chew. 

Somebody  at  sunrise  be  distraught  for 
love  of  me, 

Somebody  at  sunset  be  distraught  for 
love  of  me. 

As  you  remember  your  parents, 
remember  me  ; 

As  you  remember  your  house  and 
house-ladder ,  remember  me  ; 

When  thunder  rumbles,  remember  me  ; 

When  wind  whistles ,  remember  me  ; 


When  the  heavens  rain,  remember  me  ; 

When  cocks  crow,  remember  me  ,■ 

When  the  dial-bird  tells  its  tales, 
remember  me  ; 

When  you  look  up  at  the  sun,  remember 
me  ; 

When  you  look  up  at  the  moon, 
remember  me, 

For  in  that  self-same  moon  I  am  there. 

Cluck  !  cluck  !  soul  of  Somebody  come 
hither  to  me. 

I  do  not  mean  to  let  you  have  my  soul, 

Let  your  soul  come  hither  to  mine.” 


Now  wave  the  end  of  your  turban  towards  the  moon  seven  times  each 
night  Go  home  and  put  it  under  your  pillow,  and  if  Tu  want  to 
wear  it  m  the  daytime,  burn  incense  and  say,  “  It  is  not  a  turban  that 
I  carry  m  my  girdle,  but  the  soul  of  Somebody.” 

•JhlI,ndl!?S  °f  the  NaSS  River’  in  British  Columbia,  are  impressed 
with  a  belief  that  a  physician  may  swallow  his  patient’s  soul  by  mistake 

A  doctor  who  is  believed  to  have  done  so  is  made  by  the  other  members 

o  the  faculty  to  stand  over  the  patient,  while  one  of  them  thrusts  his 

fingers  down  he  doctor’s  throat,  another  kneads  him  in  the  stomach 

vi  h  his  knuckles,  and  a  third  slaps  him  on  the  back.  If  the  soul  is 

•not  m  him  after  all,  and  if  the  same  process  has  been  repeated  upon 

all  the  medical  men  without  success,  it  is  concluded  that  the  soul  must 

be  in  the  head-doctors  box.  A  party  of  doctors,  therefore  waits 

upon  him  at  his  house  and  requests  him  to  produce  his  box  ’  When 

ae  has  done  so  and  arranged  its  contents  on  a  new  mat,  they  take  the 

iole  fn°theeflCnUorP1UTS  Am  h°ld  h™  Up  by  the  heels  with  hi/head  in  a 
iiole  in  the  floor.  In  this  position  they  wash  his  head  and  “  anv 

nan’s  head  "“noT  lAtAT^”  ^  P°Ured  Up0n  the  sic^ 

aa  s  ';aL  No  doubt  the  lost  soul  is  in  the  water. 

5  3-  1 he  Soul  as  a  Shadow  and  a  Reflection.— But  the  spiritual 

aval?  “0t  —  which 

avage.  Often  he  regards  his  shadow  or  reflection  as  his  soul  or  at 

events  as  a  vital  part  of  himself,  and  as  such  it  is  necessarilv  a 

AwT  eelT;  t0  him'  A"-  “  U  k  tlampIed  "P0n’  st™ck,  -  stabbed^ 
eThJ  f1  the n  ]Ury  aS  lf  “  were  done  t0  bis  person  ;  and  if  it  is 
etached  from  him  entirely  (as  he  believes  that  it  may  be)  he  will 

ran  ill  hv  st  hi knd  h°f  u  ®U  there  are  maSicians  who  can  make  a 
an  ill  by  stabbing  his  shadow  with  a  pike  or  hacking  it  with  a  sword 

irneSvSktaoraNhad  dfStr?yed  ^  Buddhists  in  India, T  is  said  thlt  he 
urneyed  to  Nepaul,  where  he  had  some  difference  of  opinion  with 

be  Grand  Lama.  To  prove  his  supernatural  powers,  he  soared  Tnto 


THE  PERILS  OF  THE  SOUL 


CH. 


T9° 

,  •  p  ±.  nc;  p0  mounted  up,  the  Grand  Lama,  perceiving  his 

shadow"  swaying  and  wavering  on  the  ground,  struck  his  knife  mto  it 

some"  stones  of  a  remarkably  long 
s,n  re  which  go  by  t£  name  of  “  eating  ghosts  ”  because  certain 

ssss*. 

nearcs  Un  reu  e  «  endangered  by  allowing  his  shadow 

SSf is  r  * 

Animals  are  to  some  extent  in  the  same  predicament  A  small  snail 
which  frequents  the  neighbourhood  of  the  limestone  hills  in  era  , 
beSed TLck  the  blood  of  cattle  through  the r .shadows  ^  hence^the 

beasts  grow  shadow,  it  deprived 

supposed  thatin^Arab^,^if  a hyaen^^  _  ^  ^  ,f  a dog_  standing  a 

roof  in  the  moonlight  cast  a  shadow  on  the  ground  and  a  hyaena  trod  on 
it  the  dog  would  fall  down  as  if  dragged  with  a  rope  Clearly  m ^ these 
cases  the  shadow  if  not  equivalent  to  the  soul,  is  at  least  regarded  as 
a  hving  part  of  the  man  or  the  animal  so  that  injury  done  to  the 
l  odnw  is  felt  bv  the  person  or  animal  as  if  it  were  done  to  his  body. 

Conversely^  if the  shadow  is  a  vital  part  of  a  man  or  an  animal 
it  mav  under  certain  circumstances  be  as  hazardous  to  be  touched  by 
u  sU  would  be  to  come  into  contact  with  the  person  or  animal. 

womenS  in^  gener^^buf8  especially1  liis°mSher un-taw*  "hus^p 

we^  cautioned  not  to  let  a  womand  shadow  fait  ““ 

“fto” ».  n.riy“Sd“  fright  because  the  ah,do«of  » 


XVIII  THE  SOUL  AS  SHADOW  AND  REFLECTION  191 

in-law  are  amongst  the  most  familiar  facts  of  anthropology.  In  the 
Yum  tribes  of  New  South  Wales  the  rule  which  forbade  a  man  to 
hold  any  communication  with  his  Wife’s  mother  was  very  strict.  He 
might  not  look  at  her  or  even  in  her  direction.  It  was  a  ground  of 

caL°he  hndISto  ,  lappefd  to  fall  on  his  mother-in-law  :  in  that 
case  he  had  to  leave  his  wife,  and  she  returned  to  her  parents.  In 

New  Britain  the  native  imagination  fails  to  conceive  the  extent  and 

speaking  to  h  .ca  a™,tles  wblch  would  result  from  a  man's  accidentally 
speaking  to  his  wife  s  mother ;  suicide  of  one  or  both  would  probably 

be  the  only  course  open  to  them.  The  most  solemn  form  of  oath  a 
New  Bnton  can  take  is.  Sir,  if  I  am  not  telling  the  truth  I  hone  I 
may^ shake  hands  with  my  mother-in-law.”  ’  P 

Where  the  shadow  is  regarded  as  so  intimately  bound  up  with  the 

exneft  fharatn  tbat  .ltsfloss  ePai,Is  debility  or  death,  it  is  natural  to 
p  ct  that  its  diminution  should  be  regarded  with  solicitude  and 

apprehension,  as  betokening  a  corresponding  decrease  in  the  vital 

energy  of  its  owner.  In  Amboyna  and  Uliase,  two  islands  near 

the  equator,  where  necessarily  there  is  little  or  no  shadow  cast  at 

noon  the  people  make  it  a  rule  not  to  go  out  of  the  house  at  mid- 

ay  because  they  fancy  that  by  doing  so  a  man  may  lose  the  shadow 

of  his  soul.  The  Mangaians  tell  of  a  mighty  warrior,  Tukaitawa 

whose  strength  waxed  and  waned  with  the  length  of  his  shadow.  In 

e  morning  when  his  shadow  fell  longest,  his  strength  was  greatest  ; 

ut  as  the  shadow  shortened  towards  noon  his  strength  ebbed  with 

-tdtle>uaCt  f  at  "00n3t  reached  its  lowest  point ;  then,  as  the  shadow 
H  etched  out  in  the  afternoon,  his  strength  returned.  A  certain  hero 
discovered  the  secret  of  Tukaitawa’s  strength  and  slew  him  at  noon. 
The  savage  Besisis  of  the  Malay  Peninsula  fear  to  bury  their  dead  at 
noon,  because  they  fancy  that  the  shortness  of  their  shadows  at  that 
tiour  would  sympathetically  shorten  their  own  lives. 

Nowhere,  perhaps,  does  the  equivalence  of  the  shadow  to  the  life 
f  soul  come  out  more  clearly  than  in  some  customs  practised  to  this 
fay  m  South-eastern  Europe.  In  modern  Greece,  when  the  foundation 
f  a  new  building  is  being  laid,  it  is  the  custom  to  kill  a  cock,  a  ram 

and  t,°.let  lts  blood  flow  on  the  foundation-stone,  under 
vhich  the  animal  is  afterwards  buried.  The  object  of  the  sacrifice 

niliT,  -nreng  and  ,StabiHty  to  the  buildinS'  sometimes, 
stead  of  killing  an  animal,  the  builder  entices  a  man  to  the  foundation- 

;fone,  secretly  measures  his  body,  or  a  part  of  it,  or  his  shadow,  and 

ies  the  measure  under  the  foundation-stone  ;  or  he  lays  the  founda- 

ion-stone  upon  the  man’s  shadow.  It  is  believed  that  the  man  will 

le  within  the  year.  The  Roumanians  of  Transylvania  think  that  he 

diose  shadow  is  thus  immured  will  die  within  forty  days  ;  so  persons 

lassmg  y  a  building  which  is  in  course  of  erection  may  hear  a  warning 

im  KBIWarf  lef  th6y  take  thy  shadow  !  ”  Not  Ion§  ago  ‘here  were 
till  shadow-tiaders  whose  business  it  was  to  provide  architects  with 

he  shadows  necessary  for  securing  their  walls.  In  these  cases  the 

easure  ot  the  shadow  is  looked  on  as  equivalent  to  the  shadow  itself. 


CH. 


ig2  THE  PERILS  OF  THE  SOUL 

and  to  bury  it  is  to  bury  the  life  or  soul  of  the  man,  who,  deprived  of 
it,  must  die.  Thus  the  custom  is  a  substitute  for  the  old  practice  of 
immuring  a  living  person  in  the  walls,  or  crushing  him  under  the 
foundation-stone  of  a  new  building,  in  order  to  give  strength  an 
durability  to  the  structure,  or  more  definitely  in  ordci  that  the  angry 
ghost  may  haunt  the  place  and  guard  it  against  the  intrusion  of  enemies. 

As  some  peoples  believe  a  man’s  soul  to  be  in  his  shadow,  so  other 
(or  the  same)  peoples  believe  it  to  be  in  his  reflection  in  water  or  a 
mirror.  Thus  “  the  Andamanese  do  not  regard  their  shadows  but  their 
reflections  (in  any  mirror)  as  their  souls.”  When  the  Motumotu  of  Lew 
Guinea  first  saw  their  likenesses  in  a  looking-glass,  they  thought  that  their 
reflections  were  their  souls.  In  New  Caledonia  the  old  men  are  of 
opinion  that  a  person’s  reflection  in  water  or  a  mirror  is  his  soul  ; 
but  the  younger  men,  taught  by  the  Catholic  priests,  maintain  t  at 
it  is  a  reflection  and  nothing  more,  just  like  the  reflection  of  palm-trees 
in  the  water.  The  reflection-soul,  being  external  to  the  man,  is 
exposed  to  much  the  same  dangers  as  the  shadow-soul.  The  Zulus 
will  not  look  into  a  dark  pool  because  they  think  there  is  a^  beast  m  it 
which  will  take  away  their  reflections,  so  that  they  die.  The  Basutos 
say  that  crocodiles  have  the  power  of  thus  killing  a  man  by  dragging 
his  reflection  under  water.  When  one  of  them  dies  suddenly  and  from 
no  apparent  cause,  his  relatives  will  allege  that  a  crocodile  must  have 
taken  his  shadow  some  time  when  he  crossed  a  stream.  In  b  addle 
Island,  Melanesia,  there  is  a  pool  “  into  which  if  any  one  looks  he 
dies ;  the  malignant  spirit  takes  hold  upon  his  life  by  means  of  his 

reflection  on  the  water.”  . 

We  can  now  understand  why  it  was  a  maxim  both  m  ancient 

India  and  ancient  Greece  not  to  look  at  one’s  reflection  in  water,  and 
why  the  Greeks  regarded  it  as  an  omen  of  death  if  a  man  dreamed  ol 
seeing  himself  so  reflected.  They  feared  that  the  water-spints  would 
drag  "the  person’s  reflection  or  soul  under  water,  leaving  him  soulless 
to  perish  This  was  probably  the  origin  of  the  classical  story  of  the 
beautiful  Narcissus,  who  languished  and  died  through  seeing  his 

reflection  in  the  water.  .  ,  . 

Further,  we  can  now  explain  the  widespread  custom  ol  covering 

up  mirrors  or  turning  them  to  the  wall  after  a  death  has  taken  place 
in  the  house.  It  is  feared  that  the  soul,  projected  out  of  the  person 
in  the  shape  of  his  reflection  in  the  mirror,  may  be  carried  off  by  the 
ghost  of  the  departed,  which  is  commonly  supposed  to  linger  about 
the  house  till  the  burial.  The  custom  is  thus  exactly  parallel  to  the 
Aru  custom  of  not  sleeping  in  a  house  after  a  death  for  fear  that  the 
soul,  projected  out  of  the  body  in  a  dream,  may  meet  the  ghost  and 
be  carried  off  by  it.  The  reason  why  sick  people. should  not  see  them¬ 
selves  in  a  mirror,  and  why  the  mirror  in  a  sick-room  is  therefore 
covered  up,  is  also  plain  ;  in  time  of  sickness,  when  the  soul  might 
take  flight  so  easily,  it  is  particularly  dangerous  to  project  it  out  ol 
the  body  by  means  of  the  reflection  in  a  mirror.  The  rule  is  therefore 
precisely  parallel  to  the  rule  observed  by  some  peoples  of  not  allowing 


xvni  THE  SOUL  AS  SHADOW  AND  REFLECTION  i93 

i  Iw?  Reoplc  to  sIeeP  ;  for  in  sleep  the  soul  is  projected  out  of  the  bodv 
and  there  is  always  a  risk  that  it  may  not  return  '’ 

...  TP  shadows  and  reflections,  so  with  portraits  ;  they  are  often 

j  +V  Tf-  f°  COntam  the  soul  of  the  person  portrayed.  People  who  hold 
is  belief  are  naturally  loth  to  have  their  likenesses  taken  ;  for  if  the 

poi  trait  is  the  soul,  or  at  least  a  vital  part  of  the  person  portrayed  who- 

theo^DinaTof  B®  p°r,tralt  wldbe  able  to  exercise  a  fatal  influence  over 
e  original  of  it.  Thus  the  Esquimaux  of  Bering  Strait  believe  fW 

persons  dealing  m  witchcraft  have  the  power  of  stealing  a  person’s  shade 

so  that  without  it  he  will  pine  away  and  die.  Once  at  a  village  on  the 

lower  \  ukon  River  an  explorer  had  set  up  his  camera  to  get  a  picture 

of  the  people  as  they  were  moving  about  among  their  houses.  While 

he  was  focussing  the  instrument,  the  headman  of  the  village  came  un 

and  insisted  on  peepmg  under  the  cloth.  Being  allowed  to  do  so,  he 

gazed  intently  for  a  minute  at  the  moving  figures  on  the  ground  gl’ass 

then  suddenly  withdrew  his  head  and  bawled  at  the  top  of  his  voice 

to  toe  people,  He  has  all  of  your  shades  in  this  box.”  A  panic 

ensued  among  the  group,  and  in  an  instant  they  disappeared  helter- 

skelter  into  their  houses.  The  Tepehuanes  of  Mexico  stood  in  mortal 

teiTor  of  the  camera,  and  five  days’  persuasion  was  necessary  to  induce 

cm  to  pose  foi  it.  When  at  last  they  consented,  they  looked  like 

criminals  about  to  be  executed.  They  believed  that  by  photographing 

people  the  artist  could  carry  off  their  souls  and  devour  them  at  hif 

leisure  moments.  They  said  that,  when  the  pictures  reached  his 

country,  they  would  die  or  some  other  evil  would  befall  them.  When 

1-r.  Latat  and  some  companions  were  exploring  the  Bara  country  on 

the  west  coast  of  Madagascar,  the  people  suddenly  became  hostile. 

he  day  befoie  the  travellers,  not  without  difficulty,  had  photographed 

1 10ra!  f amily >  and  now  found  themselves  accused  of  taking  the 
souls  of  the  natives  for  the  purpose  of  selling  them  when  they  returned 
o  France.  Denial  was  vain  ;  in  compliance  with  the  custom  of  the 
country  they  were  obliged  to  catch  the  souls,  which  were  then  put  into 
i  basket  and  ordered  by  Dr.  Catat  to  return  to  their  respective  owners. 

Some  villagers  m  Sikhim  betrayed  a  lively  horror  and  hid  awav 
vhenever  the  lens  of  a  camera,  or  “  the  evil  eye  of  the  box  ”  as  they 

^riedfn,-WaS  t+Urned  on  them-  They  thought  it  took  away  their  souls 
.  71  t  ieir  Plctures>  and  so  put  it  in  the  power  of  the  owner  of  the 
Pictures  to  cast  spells  on  them,  and  they  alleged  that  a  photograph  of 
he  scenery  blighted  the  landscape.  Until  the  reign  of  the  late  King 
>1  Siam  no  Siamese  coins  were  ever  stamped  with  the  image  of  the 
-mg,  for  at  that  time  there  was  a  strong  prejudice  against  the  making 
i  portraits  m  any  medium.  Europeans  who  travel  into  the  jungle 
ave,  even  at  the  present  time,  only  to  point  a  camera  at  a  crowd  "to 
Tocure  its  instant  dispersion.  When  a  copy  of  the  face  of  a  person 
>  made  and  taken  away  from  him,  a  portion  of  his  life  goes  with  the 

i  U ?] eSS  the  sovereign  had  been  blessed  with  the  years  of  a 
ietnusaleh  he  could  scarcely  have  permitted  his  life  to  be  distributed 
i  small  pieces  together  with  the  coins  of  the  realm.” 


o 


4  TABOOED  ACTS  CH' 

Beliefs  of  the  same  sort  still  linger  in  various  parts  of  Europe 
Not  very  many  years  ago  some  old  women  in  the  Greek  island  of 
Carpathus  were  very  angry  at  having  their  likenesses  drawn,  thinking 
that  hi  consequence  they  would  pine  and  die.  .  There  are  persons  in 
the  West  of  Scotland  “  who  refuse  to  have  their  likenesses  taken  lest 
it  prove  unlucky  ;  and  give  as  instances  the  cases  of  several  of  their 
friends  who  never  had  a  day’s  health  after  being  photographed. 


CHAPTER  XIX 


TABOOED  ACTS 


S  i  Taboos  on  Intercourse  with  Strangers.— So  much  for  the  primitive 
conceptions  of  the  soul  and  the  dangers  to  which  it  is  exposed.  These 
conceptions  are  not  limited  to  one  people  or  country  ;  with  variations 
of  detail  they  are  found  all  over  the  world,  and  survive,  as  we  have 
seen  in  modern  Europe.  Beliefs  so  deep-seated  and  so  widespread 
must  necessarily  have  contributed  to  shape  the  mould  m  which  the 
early  kingship  was  cast.  For  if  every  person  was  at  such  pains  to  save 
his  own  soul  from  the  perils  which  threatened  it  on  so  many  sides  how 
much  more  carefully  must  he  have  been  guarded  upon  whose  life  hung 
the  welfare  and  even  the  existence  of  the  whole  people  and  whom 
therefore  it  was  the  common  interest  of  all  to  preserve  .  There  ore 
we  should  expect  to  find  the  king’s  life  protected  by  a  system  of  pre¬ 
cautions  or  safeguards  still  more  numerous  and  minute  than  those 
which  in  primitive  society  every  man  adopts  for  the  safety  of  his  own 
soul.  Now  in  point  of  fact  the  life  of  the  early  kings  is  regulated,  as 
we  have  seen  and  shall  see  more  fully  presently,  by  a  very  exact  code 
of  rules.  May  we  not  then  conjecture  that  these  rules  are  in  fact  the 
very  safeguards  which  we  should  expect  to  find  adopted  for  the  pro¬ 
tection  of  the  king’s  life  ?  An  examination  of  the  rules  themselves 
confirms  this  conjecture.  For  from  this  it  appears  that  some  of  the 
rules  observed  by  the  kings  are  identical  with  those  observed  by  private  - 
persons  out  of  regard  for  the  safety  of  their  souls  ;  and  even  of  those 
which  seem  peculiar  to  the  king,  many,  if  not  all,  are  most  readily 
explained  on  the  hypothesis  that  they  are  nothing  but  safeguards  or 
lifeguards  of  the  king.  I  will  now  enumerate  some  of  these  royal  rules 
or  taboos,  offering  on  each  of  them  such  comments  and  explanations 
as  may  serve  to  set  the  original  intention  of  the  rule  in  its  proper  light. 

As  the  object  of  the  royal  taboos  is  to  isolate  the  king  from  all 
sources  of  danger,  their  general  effect  is  to  compel  him  to  live  in  a 
state  of  seclusion,  more  or  less  complete,  according  to  the  number  an 
stringency  of  the  rules  he  observes.  Now  of  all  sources  of  danger  none 
are  more  dreaded  by  the  savage  than  magic  and  witchcraft  and  he 
suspects  all  strangers  of  practising  these  black  arts.  To  guard  again 
the  baneful  influence  exerted  voluntarily  or  involuntarily  by  stianf®r 
is  therefore  an  elementary  dictate  of  savage  prudence.  Hence  betore 


XIX  TABOOS  ON  INTERCOURSE  WITH  STRANGERS  i95 

strangers  are  allowed  to  enter  a  district,  or  at  least  before  thev  are 
permitted  to  mingle  freely  with  the  inhabitants,  certain  ceremonies 
,  are  often  pei  formed  by  the  natives  of  the  country  for  the  purpose  of 
isarmmg  the  strangers  of  their  magical  powers,  of  counteracting  the 
banefu1  influence  which  is  believed  to  emanate  from  them,  or  of  dis¬ 
infecting,  so  to  speak,  the  tainted  atmosphere  by  which  thev  are 

Tus&TlI  Fm6  Surro™ded'  Thus>  when  the  ambassadors  sent  by 
jj  ,  n  II,  ’  F™p®r0j  of  .the  East,  to  conclude  a  peace  with  the  Turks 
had  reached  their  destination,  they  were  received  by  shamans  who 
subjected  them  to  a  ceremonial  purification  for  the  purpose  of  exorcis¬ 
ing  all  harmful  influence.  Having  deposited  the  goods  brought  by  the 
ambassadors  in  an  open  place,  these  wizards  carried  burning  branches 
of  incense  round  them,  while  they  rang  a  bell  and  beat  on  a  tambourine 
snorting  and  falling  into  a  state  of  frenzy  in  their  efforts  to  dispel 
he  powers  of  evil  Afterwards  they  purified  the  ambassadors  them- 
selves  by  leading  them  through  the  flames.  In  the  island  of  Nanumea 
(South  Pacific)  strangers  from  ships  or  from  other  islands  were  not 
allowed  to  communicate  with  the  people  until  they  all,  or  a  few  as  re- 
presentat'ves  of  the  rest,  had  been  taken  to  each  of  the  four  temples 
m  the  is  and,  and  prayers  offered  that  the  god  would  avert  any  disease 
or  treachery  which  these  strangers  might  have  brought  with  them. 

eat  offerings  were  also  laid  upon  the  altars,  accompanied  by  songs 
and  dances  in  honour  of  the  god.  While  these  ceremonies  were  going  on 
all  the  people  except  the  priests  and  their  attendants  kept  out  of  sight’ 
Amongst  the  Ot  Danoms  of  Borneo  it  is  the  custom  that  strangers  enter¬ 
ing  the  teintory  should  pay  to  the  natives  a  certain  sum,  which  is 
spent  in  the  sacrifice  of  buffaloes  or  pigs  to  the  spirits  of  the  land  and 
water  m  order  to  reconcile  them  to  the  presence  of  the  strangers,  and 
to  induce  them  not  to  withdraw  their  favour  from  the  people  of  the 
country  but  to  bless  the  rice-harvest,  and  so  forth.  The  men  of  a 
certain  district  m  Borneo,  fearing  to  look  upon  a  European  traveller 
lest  he  should  make  them  ill,  warned  their  wives  and  children  not  to 
go  near  him.  Those  who  could  not  restrain  their  curiosity  killed 

blld  ■  .^PeaS|  thf  fYP  SpiritS  and  smeared  themselves  with  the 
blooii  More  dreaded,  says  a  traveller  in  Central  Borneo  “  than 

the  evil  spirits  of  the  neighbourhood  are  the  evil  spirits  from  a  distance 

w  ich  accompany  travellers.  When  a  company  from  the  middle 

Mahakam  river  visited  me  among  the  Blu-u  Kayans  in  the  year  1807 

”°  J°“an  s^wed  herself  outside  her  house  without  a  burning  bundle 

fpleJndmg  bark,  the  stinking  smoke  of  which  drives  away  evil  spirits  ” 

.  Crevaux  was  travelling  in  South  America  he  entered  a  village 

ot  the  Apalai  Indians.  A  few  moments  after  his  arrival  some  of  the 

Indians  brought  him  a  number  of  large  black  ants,  of  a  species  whose 

te  is  painful,  fastened  on  palm  leaves.  Then  all  the  people  of  the 

W  ,a?e’  without  distinction  of  age  or  sex,  presented  themselves  to  him 

and  he  had  to  sting  them  all  with  the  ants  on  their  faces,  thighs  and 

othta  parts  of  their  bodies.  Sometimes,  when  he  applied  the  ants  too 

nderly,  they  called  out  “  More  !  more  !  ”  and  were  not  satisfied  till 


ig6 


TABOOED  ACTS 


CH. 


their  skin  was  thickly  studded  with  tiny  swellings  like  what  might 
have  been  produced  by  whipping  them  with  nettles.  The  object  of 
this  ceremony  is  made  plain  by  the  custom  observed  in  Amboyna  and 
Uliase  of  sprinkling  sick  people  with  pungent  spices,  such  as  ginger 
and  cloves,  chewed  fine,  in  order  by  the  prickling  sensation  to  drive 
away  the  demon  of  disease  which  may  be  clinging  to  their  persons. 
In  Java  a  popular  cure  for  gout  or  rheumatism  is  to  rub  Spanish  pepper 
into  the  nails  of  the  fingers  and  toes  of  the  sufferer ;  the  pungency  of 
the  pepper  is  supposed  to  be  too  much  for  the  gout  or  rheumatism, 
who  accordingly  departs  in  haste.  So  on  the  Slave  Coast  the  mother 
of  a  sick  child'sometimes  believes  that  an  evil  spirit  has  taken  possession 
of  the  child’s  body,  and  in  order  to  drive  him  out,  she  makes  small  cuts 
in  the  body  of  the  little  sufferer  and  inserts  green  peppers  or  spices  in 
the  wounds,  believing  that  she  will  thereby  hurt  the  evil  spirit  and 
force  him  to  be  gone.  The  poor  child  naturally  screams  with  pain, 
but  the  mother  hardens  her  heart  in  the  belief  that  the  demon  is 

suffering  equally. 

It  is  probable  that  the  same  dread  of  strangers,  rather  than  any 
desire  to  do  them  honour,  is  the  motive  of  certain  ceremonies  which 
are  sometimes  observed  at  their  reception,  but  of  which  the  intention 
is  not  directly  stated.  In  the  Ongtong  Java  Islands,  which  are  in¬ 
habited  by  Polynesians,  the  priests  or  sorcerers  seem  to  wield  great 
influence.  Their  main  business  is  to  summon  or  exorcise  spirits  lor 
the  purpose  of  averting  or  dispelling  sickness,  and  of  procuring  favour¬ 
able  winds,  a  good  catch  of  fish,  and  so  on.  When  strangers  land  on 
the  islands,  they  are  first  of  all  received  by  the  sorcerers,  sprinkled 
with  water,  anointed  with  oil,  and  girt  with  dried  pandanus  leaves. 
At  the  same  time  sand  and  water  are  freely  thrown  about  m  all  direc¬ 
tions,  and  the  newcomer  and  his  boat  are  wiped  with  green  leaves. 
After  this  ceremony  the  strangers  are  introduced  by  the  sorcerers  to 
the  chief.  In  Afghanistan  and  in  some  parts  of  Persia  the  travel  er, 
before  he  enters  a  village,  is  frequently  received  with  a  sacrifice  of 
animal  life  or  food,  or  of  fire  and  incense.  The  Afghan  Boundary 
Mission,  in  passing  by  villages  in  Afghanistan,  was  often  met  with 
fire  and  incense.  Sometimes  a  tray  of  lighted  embers  is  thrown  under 
the  hoofs  of  the  traveller’s  horse,  with  the  words,  “You  are  welcome 
On  entering  a  village  in  Central  Africa  Emin  Pasha  was  received  with 
the  sacrifice  of  two  goats  ;  their  blood  was  sprinkled  on  the  path  and 
the  chief  stepped  over  the  blood  to  greet  Emin.  Sometimes  the  dread 
of  strangers  and  their  magic  is  too  great  to  allow  of  their  reception  on 
any  terms.  Thus  when  Speke  arrived  at  a  certain  village,  the  natives 
shut  their  doors  against  him,  “  because  they  had  never  before  seen  a 
white  man  nor  the  tin  boxes  that  the  men  were  carrying  :  VV  ho 
knows,’  they  said,  ‘  but  that  these  very  boxes  are  the  plundering 
Watuta  transformed  and  come  to  kill  us  ?  You  cannot  be  admitted. 
No  persuasion  could  avail  with  them,  and  the  party  had  to  proceed  to 

the  next  village.”  .  .  ^  ,  • 

The  fear  thus  entertained  of  alien  visitors  is  often  mutual.  Entering 


XIX  TABOOS  ON  INTERCOURSE  WITH  STRANGERS  197 

,land, the  savaSe  feels  that  he  is  treading  enchanted  ground 
and  he  takes  steps  to  guard  against  the  demons  that  haunt  it  and  the 

K*  ai‘tS  °f‘  US  “habitants-  on  going  to  a  strange  land 

the  Maoris  performed  certain  ceremonies  to  make  it  “common  ”  lest 

MaHlght  have  beei?  Previously  “  sacred.”  When  Baron  Miklucho- 
nnt  lTtraS  aPProachllng  a  Vlllage  on  the  Maclay  Coast  of  New  Guinea, 
one  of  the  natives  who  accompanied  him  broke  a  branch  from  a  tree 
an  going  aside  whispered  to  it  for  a  while  ;  then  stepping  up  to  each 
member  of  the  party,  one  after  another,  he  spat  something  upon  Ws 

the  W,tgaVH  K™  ul0WS  With  the  branch-  Lastly-  he  went  into 

foiest  and  buried  the  branch  under  withered  leaves  in  the  thickest 

pax.  o  e  Jungle.  This  ceremony  was  believed  to  protect  the  party 

against  all  treachery  and  danger  in  the  village  they  were  approaching. 

e  idea  probably  was  that  the  malignant  influences  were  drawn  off 

rom  the  persons  into  the  branch  and  buried  with  it  in  the  depths  of 

e  forest.  In  Australia,  when  a  strange  tribe  has  been  invited  into 

a  istnct  and  is  approaching  the  encampment  of  the  tribe  which  owns 

the  and,  the  strangers  carry  lighted  bark  or  burning  sticks  in  their 

W i)Urp0Se,  th6y  Say’  °f  clearinS  and  Purifying  the  air." 
When  the  Toradjas  are  on  a  head-hunting  expedition  and  have  entered 

the  enemy  s  country,  they  may  not  eat  any  fruits  which  the  foe  has 

panted  nor  any  animal  which  he  has  reared  until  they  have  first 

aS  by  burnin£  a  house  °r  kifling  a  man. 
They  think  that  if  they  broke  this  rule  they  would  receive  something 

??  u  0U(-  °r  sPlrl^uai  essence  of  the  enemy  into  themselves,  which 
would  destroy  the  mystic  virtue  of  their  talismans. 

Again,  it  is  believed  that  a  man  who  has  been  on  a  journey 
may  have  contracted  some  magic  evil  from  the  strangers  with  whom 

a  has  associated-  Hence,  on  returning  home,  before  he  is  re¬ 
admitted  to  the  society  of  his  tribe  and  friends,  he  has  to  undergo 
certam  purificatory  ceremonies.  Thus  the  Bechuanas  “  cleanse  or 
punfy  themselves  after  journeys  by  shaving  their  heads,  etc.,  lest  they 
s  ould  have  contracted  from  strangers  some  evil  by  witchcraft  or 
soi  eery  In  some  parts  of  western  Africa,  when  a  man  returns  home 
alter  a  long  absence,  before  he  is  allowed  to  visit  his  wife,  he  must  wash 
his  person  with  a  particular  fluid,  and  receive  from  the  sorcerer  a  certain 
maik  on  his  forehead,  m  order  to  counteract  any  magic  spell  which  a 
stranger  woman  may  have  cast  on  him  in  his  absence,  and  which  might 
be  communicated  through  him  to  the  women  of  his  village.  Two 

00  ambassadors>  who  had  been  sent  to  England  by  a  native  prince 
and  had  returned  to  India,  were  considered  to  have  so  polluted  them¬ 
selves  by  contact  with  strangers  that  nothing  but  being  born  again 
could  restore  them  to  purity.  “  For  the  purpose  of  regeneration  it 
;  irected  to  make  an  image  of  pure  gold  of  the  female  power  of 
ature,  m  the  shape  either  of  a  woman  or  of  a  cow.  In  this  statue  the 
person  to  be  regenerated  is  enclosed,  and  dragged  through  the  usual 
c  lanne  .  sa  statue  of  pure  gold  and  of  proper  dimensions  would  be 
00  expensive,  it  is  sufficient  to  make  an  image  of  the  sacred  Yoni, 


TABOOED  ACTS 


CH. 


198 


through  which  the  person  to  be  regenerated  is  to  pass.”  Such  an 
image  of  pure  gold  was  made  at  the  prince’s  command,  and  his  ambas¬ 
sadors  were  born  again  by  being  dragged  through  it. 

When  precautions  like  these  are  taken  on  behalf  of  the  people  in 
general  against  the  malignant  influence  supposed  to  be  exercised  by 
strangers,  it  is  no  wonder  that  special  measures  are  adopted  to  protect 
the  king  from  the  same  insidious  danger.  In  the  middle  ages  the 
envoys  who  visited  a  Tartar  Khan  were  obliged  to  pass  between  two 
fires  before  they  were  admitted  to  his  presence,  and  the  gifts  they 
brought  were  also  carried  between  the  fires.  The  reason  assigned  for 
the  custom  was  that  the  fire  purged  away  any  magic  influence  which 
the  strangers  might  mean  to  exercise  over  the  Khan.  When  subject 
chiefs  come  with  their  retinues  to  visit  Kalamba  (the  most  powerful 
chief  of  the  Bashilange  in  the  Congo  Basin)  for  the  first  time  or  after 
being  rebellious,  they  have  to  bathe,  men  and  women  together,  m  two 
brooks  on  two  successive  days,  passing  the  nights  under  the  open  sky 
in  the  market-place.  After  the  second  bath  they  pioceed,  entirely 
naked  to  the  house  of  Kalamba,  who  makes  a  long  white  mark  on  the 
breast  and  forehead  of  each  of  them.  Then  they  return  to  the  market¬ 
place  and  dress,  after  which  they  undergo  the  pepper  ordeal.  .  Pepper 
is  dropped  into  the  eyes  of  each  of  them,  and  while  this  is  being  done 
the  sufferer  has  to  make  a  confession  of  all  his  sins,,  to  answer  all 
questions  that  may  be  put  to  him,  and  to  take  certain  vows.  This 
ends  the  ceremony,  and  the  strangers  are  now  free  to  take  up  their 
quarters  in  the  town  for  as  long  as  they  choose  to  remain. 

§  2.  Taboos  on  Eating  and  Drinking.— hi  the  opinion  of  savages 
the  acts  of  eating  and  drinking  are  attended  with  special  danger  ;  for 
at  these  times  the  soul  may  escape  from  the  mouth,  or  be  extracted 
by  the  magic  arts  of  an  enemy  present.  Among  the  Ewe-speaking 
peoples  of  the  Slave  Coast  “  the  common  belief  seems  to  be  that  the 
indwelling  spirit  leaves  the  body  and  returns  to  it  through  the  mouth  , 
hence,  should  it  have  gone  out,  it  behoves  a  man  to  be  careful  about 
opening  his  mouth,  lest  a  homeless  spirit  should  take  advantage  of 
the  opportunity  and  enter  his  body.  This,  it  appeals,  is  considered 
most  likely  to  take  place  while  the  man  is  eating.”  Precautions  are 
therefore  adopted  to  guard  against  these  dangers.  Thus  of  the  Bataks 
it  is  said  that  “  since  the  soul  can  leave  the  body,  they  always  take 
care  to  prevent  their  soul  from  straying  on  occasions  when  they  have 
most  need  of  it.  But  it  is  only  possible  to  prevent  the  soul  from  stray¬ 
ing  when  one  is  in  the  house.  At  feasts  one  may  find  the  whole  house 
shut  up,  in  order  that  the  soul  may  stay  and  enjoy  the  good  things  set 
before  it.”  The  Zafimanelo  in  Madagascar  lock  their  doors  when  they 
eat,  and  hardly  any  one  ever  sees  them  eating.  The  Warua  will  not 
allow  any  one  to  see  them  eating  and  drinking,  being  doubly  particular 
that  no  person  of  the  opposite  sex  shall  see  them  doing  so.  I  had 
to  pay  a  man  to  let  me  see  him  drink  ;  I  could  not  make  a  man  let 
a  woman  see  him  drink.”  When  offered  a  drink  they  often  ask  that 
a  cloth  may  be  held  up  to  hide  them  whilst  drinking. 


XIX 


TABOOS  ON  SHOWING  THE  FACE  i99 

If  these  are  the  ordinary  precautions  taken  by  common  people, 
the  precautions  taken  by  kings  are  extraordinary.  The  king  of 
Loango  may  not  be  seen  eating  or  drinking  by  man  or  beast  under 
pain  of  death.  A  favourite  dog  having  broken  into  the  room  where 
the  king  was  dining,  the  king  ordered  it  to  be  killed  on  the  spot.  Once 
the  king  s  own  son,  a  boy  of  twelve  years  old,  inadvertently  saw  the 
king  drink.  Immediately  the  king  ordered  him  to  be  finely  apparelled 
and  feasted,  after  which  he  commanded  him  to  be  cut  in  quarters,  and 
carried  about  the  city  with  a  proclamation  that  he  had  seen  the' king 
drink.  “  When  the  king  has  a  mind  to  drink,  he  has  a  cup  of  wine 
brought ;  he  that  brings  it  has  a  bell  in  his  hand,  and  as  soon  as  he 
has  delivered  the  cup  to  the  king,  he  turns  his  face  from  him  and  rings 
the  bell,  on  which  all  present  fall  down  with  their  faces  to  the  ground, 
and  continue  so  till  the  king  has  drunk.  ...  His  eating  is  much  in 
the  same  style,  for  which  he  has  a  house  on  purpose,  where  his  victuals 
are  set  upon  a  bensa  or  table  :  which  he  goes  to,  and  shuts  the  door  : 
when  he  has  done,  he  knocks  and  comes  out.  So  that  none  ever  see 
the  king  eat  or  drink.  For  it  is  believed  that  if  any  one  should,  the 
king  shall  immediately  die.”  The  remnants  of  his  food  are  buried, 
doubtless  to  prevent  them  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  sorcerers, 
who  by  means  of  these  fragments  might  cast  a  fatal  spell  over  the 
monarch.  The  rules  observed  by  the  neighbouring  king  of  Cacongo 
were  similar  ;  it  was  thought  that  the  king  would  die  if  any  of  his 
subjects  were  to  see  him  drink.  It  is  a  capital  offence  to  see  the  king 
of  Dahomey  at  his  meals.  When  he  drinks  in  public,  as  he  does  on 
extraordinary  occasions,  he  hides  himself  behind  a  curtain,  or  hand¬ 
kerchiefs  are  held  up  round  his  head,  and  all  the  people  throw  them¬ 
selves  with  their  faces  to  the  earth.  When  the  king  of  Bunyoro  in 
Central  Africa  went  to  drink  milk  in  the  dairy,  every  man  must  leave 
the  royal  enclosure  and  all  the  women  had  to  cover  their  heads  till  the 
king  returned.  No  one  might  see  him  drink.  One  wife  accompanied 
him  to  the  dairy  and  handed  him  the  milk-pot,  but  she  turned  away 
her  face  while  he  drained  it. 

§3.  Taboos  on  showing  the  Face. — In  some  of  the  preceding  cases 
the  intention  of  eating  and  drinking  in  strict  seclusion  may  perhaps 
be  to  hinder  evil  influences  from  entering  the  body  rather  than  to 
prevent  the  escape  of  the  soul.  This  certainly  is  the  motive  of  some 
drinking  customs  observed  by  natives  of  the  Congo  region.  Thus 
we  are  told  of  these  people  that  “  there  is  hardly  a  native  who  would 
dare  to  swallow  a  liquid  without  first  conjuring  the  spirits.  One  of 
them  rings  a  bell  all  the  time  he  is  drinking  ;  another  crouches  down 
and  places  his  left  hand  on  the  earth  ;  another  veils  his  head  ;  another 
puts  a  stalk  of  grass  or  a  leaf  in  his  hair,  or  marks  his  forehead  with 
a  line  of  clay.  This  fetish  custom  assumes  very  varied  forms.  To 
explain  them,  the  black  is  satisfied  to  say  that  they  are  an  energetic 
mode  of  conjuring  spirits.”  In  this  part  of  the  world  a  chief  will 
commonly  ring  a  bell  at  each  draught  of  beer  which  he  swallows, 
and  at  the  same  moment  a  lad  stationed  in  front  of  him  brandishes 


200 


TABOOED  ACTS 


CH. 


a  spear  “  to  keep  at  bay  the  spirits  which  might  try  to  sneak  into  the 
old  chiefs  body  by  the  same  road  as  the  beer.”  The  same  motive  of 
warding  off  .evil  spirits  probably  explains  the  custom  observed  by 
some  African  sultans  of  veiling  their  faces.  The  Sultan  of  Darfur 
wraps  up  his  face  with  a  piece  of  white  muslin,  which  goes  round  his 
head  several  times,  covering  his  mouth  and  nose  first,  and  then  his 
forehead,  so  that  only  his  eyes  are  visible.  The  same  custom  of  veiling 
the  face  as  a  mark  of  sovereignty  is  said  to  be  observed  in  other  parts 
of  Central  Africa.  The  Sultan  of  Wadai  always  speaks  from  behind 
a  curtain  ;  no  one  sees  his  face  except  his  intimates  and  a  few  favoured 
persons. 

§  4.  Taboos  on  quitting  the  House. — By  an  extension  of  the  like 
precaution  kings  are  sometimes  forbidden  ever  to  leave  their  palaces  ; 
or,  if  they  are  allowed  to  do  so,  their  subjects  are  forbidden  to  see  them 
abroad.  The  fetish  king  of  Benin,  who  was  worshipped  as  a  deity  by 
his  subjects,  might  not  quit  his  palace.  After  his  coronation  the  king 
of  Loango  is  confined  to  his  palace,  which  he  may  not  leave.  The 
king  of  Onitsha  “  does  not  step  out  of  his  house  into  the  town  unless 
a  human  sacrifice  is  made  to  propitiate  the  gods  :  on  this  account  he 
never  goes  out  beyond  the  precincts  of  his  premises/'  Indeed  we  are 
told  that  he  may  not  quit  his  palace  under  pain  of  death  or  of  giving 
up  one  or  more  slaves  to  be  executed  in  his  presence.  As  the  wealth 
of  the  country  is  measured  in  slaves,  the  king  takes  good  care  not 
to  infringe  the  law.  Yet  once  a  year  at  the  Feast  of  A’ams  the  king  is 
allowed,  and  even  required  by  custom,  to  dance  before  his  people 
outside  the  high  mud  wall  of  the  palace.  In  dancing  he  carries  a 
great  weight,  generally  a  sack  of  earth,  on  his  back  to  prove  that  he  is 
still  able  to  support  the  burden  and  cares  of  state.  Were  he  unable 
to  discharge  this  duty,  he  would  be  immediately  deposed  and  perhaps 
stoned.  The  kings  of  Ethiopia  were  worshipped  as  gods,  but  were 
mostly  kept  shut  up  in  their  palaces.  On  the  mountainous  coast  of 
Pontus  there  dwelt  in  antiquity  a  rude  and  warlike  people  named  the 
Mosyni  or  Mosynoeci,  through  whose  rugged  country  the  Ten  Thousand 
marched  on  their  famous  retreat  from  Asia  to  Europe.  These  bar¬ 
barians  kept  their  king  in  close  custody  at  the  top  of  a  high  tower,  from 
which  after  his  election  he  was  never  more  allowed  to  descend.  Here 
he  dispensed  justice  to  his  people  ;  but  if  he  offended  them,  they 
punished  him  by  stopping  his  rations  for  a  whole  day,  or  even  starving 
him  to  death.  The  kings  of  Sabaea  or  Sheba,  the  spice  country 
of  Arabia,  were  not  allowed  to  go  out  of  their  palaces  ;  if  they  did  so, 
the  mob  stoned  them  to  death.  But  at  the  top  of  the  palace  there 
was  a  window  with  a  chain  attached  to  it.  If  any  man  deemed  he 
had  suffered  wrong,  he  pulled  the  chain,  and  the  king  perceived  him 
and  called  him  in  and  gave  judgment. 

§5.  Taboos  on  leaving  Food  over. — Again,  magic  mischief  may  be 
wrought  upon  a  man  through  the  remains  of  the  food  he  has  partaken 
of,  or  the  dishes  out  of  which  he  has  eaten.  On  the  principles  of 
sympathetic  magic  a  real  connexion  continues  to  subsist  between  the 


XIX 


TABOOS  ON  LEAVING  FOOD  OVER 


201 


food  which  a  man  has  in  his  stomach  and  the  refuse  of  it  which  he  has 

n  urelheeate;  A  ^  ^  refee  y0U  can  simultaneously 

]  rc  the  eater.  Among  the  Narrmyen  of  South  Australia  every  adult 

s  constantly  on  the  look-out  for  bones  of  beasts,  birds,  or  fish  of  which 

ckSofth!”  eatK  by  S0meb0dy> in  order  to  construct  a  deadly 
charm  out  of  them  Every  one  is  therefore  careful  to  burn  the  bones 

°  1  sorcerer  STV,o1Cofthe  eaten’  !eSt  they  sll0uld  fal1  into  the  hands 
ot  a  sorcerer.  Too  often,  however,  the  sorcerer  succeeds  in  getting  hold 

of  fit*  a  ,  Te,+und  Whe,n  he  does  so  he  believes  that  he  has  the  power 

the  Inimal  To  Tth  i™"’  woman-  or  child  who  ate  the  flesh  of 

ochre  aTrffi.J  i P  f  ®  -Charn?  “  operation  he  makes  a  paste  of  red 

flei  of  ’  tS  m  U  the  eye  of  a  cod  and  a  smaU  P^ce  of  the 

flesh  of  a  corpse,  and  having  rolled  the  compound  into  a  ball  sticks  it 

on  the  top  of  the  bone.  After  being  left  for  some  time  in  the  bosom  of 

with  cormntiof  °th  **  ^  1  ™ay  denve  a  deadly  Potency  by  contact 
with  corruption  the  magical  implement  is  set  up  in  the  ground  near 

ire,  and  as  the  ball  melts,  so  the  person  against  whom  the  charm 

is  directed  wastes  with  disease  ;  if  the  ball  is  felted  quTe  away Te 

fff  Wi  dl6'  ,  Wh?n  the  bewitched  man  learns  of  the  spell  that  is 
g  cast  upon  him,  he  endeavours  to  buy  the  bone  from  the  sorcerer 

rihrf  f  lak,  I  ‘‘t  ®  br6akS  f®  f 1 arm  by  Growing  the  bone  into  a 

the  hands  f  Vvf  f ®  leavlnf  of  their  food,  lest  these  should  fallfnto 
the  hands  of  the  disease-makers.  For  if  a  disease-maker  finds  the 

remnants  of  a  meal,  say  the  skin  of  a  banana,  he  picks  it  up  and  burns 

it  slowly  in  the  fire.  As  it  burns,  the  person  who  ate  the  banana  falls 

nd  sends  to  the  disease-maker,  offering  him  presents  if  he  will  stop 

cfeT8  ft banana  skm-  In  New  Guinea  the  natives  take  the  utmost 

if  tf  deSf  °v  Cf C6al  th®  husks  and  other  remains  of  their  food, 

hese  should  be  found  by  their  enemies  and  used  by  them  for  the 

hfjf  deSt™C‘‘0n  of  the  ea-tors.  Hence  they  bum' their  leavings 
hrow  them  into  the  sea,  or  otherwise  put  them  out  of  harm’s  way. 

which  tbA-lkC  ft  n°  bt’  °f  sorcery>  no  one  may  touch  the  food 

n  the  found®  °[  ff"80  ®aV®S  his  pIate  ;  St  is  buried  in  a  hole 

toe  ground.  And  no  one  may  drink  out  of  the  king’s  vessel.  In 

md"  nfty  f®  f  USed  immediately  to  break  the  shells  of  eggs 

ind  of  snails  which  they  had  eaten,  in  order  to  prevent  enemies  from 

naking  magic  with  them.  The  common  practice,  still  observed  among 
s  of  brenking  egg-shells  after  the  eggs  have  been  eaten  may  very  weh 
lave  originated  m  the  same  superstition. 

The  superstitious  fear  of  the  magic  that  may  be  wrought  on  a  man 

lanvff  leaVlnf  f  hiS  f  °d  haS  had  the  be'ncficial  effect  of  inducing 

orruntieff5  t0  deSti?y  refase  whlch'  lf  left  to  rot>  might  through  its 
nd  death  if  prOV,ed  a  reab  not  a  merely  imaginary,  source  of  disease 
enefitefh  IS  d  °nf  the  Samtary  condition  of  a  tribe  which  has 
read  the  fuperstltlon  ;  curiously  enough  the  same  baseless 

h  ,  the  same  false  notion  of  causation,  has  indirectly  strengthened 
be  moral  bonds  of  hospitality,  honour,  and  good  faith  among  men 


TABOOED  PERSONS 


CH. 


202 

who  entertain  it.  For  it  is  obvious  that  no  one  who  intends  to  harm 
a  man  by  working  magic  on  the  refuse  of  his  food  will  himself  partake 
of  that  food,  because  if  he  did  so  he  would,  on  the  principles  of  sym- 
nathetic  magic,  suffer  equally  with  Ins  enemy  from  any  injury  done  to 
the  refuse.  This  is  the  idea  which  in  primitive  society  lends  sanctity 
to  the  bond  produced  by  eating  together  ;  by  participation  m  the  same 
food  two  men  give,  as  it  were,  hostages  for  their  good  behaviour  ,  eac 
guarantees  the  other  that  he  will  devise  no  mischief  against  him,  since, 
being  physically  united  with  him  by  the  common  food  m  their  stomachs 
anv  harm  he  might  do  to  his  fellow  would  recoil  on  his  own  head  with 
predsely  the  same  force  with  which  it  fell  on  the  head  of  his  victim 
In  strict  logic,  however,  the  sympathetic  bond  lasts  only  so  long  as  the 
food  is  in  the  stomach  of  each  of  the  parties.  Hence  the  covenan 
formed  by  eating  together  is  less  solemn  and  durable  than  the  covenant 
formed  by  transfusing  the  blood  of  the  covenanting  parties  into  each 
other’s  veins,  for  this  transfusion  seems  to  knit  them  together  for  life. 


CHAPTER  XX 


TABOOED  PERSONS 


s  I.  Chiefs  and  Kings  tabooed.— We  have  seen  that  the  Mikado  s  food 
was  cooked  every  day  in  new  pots  and  served  up  m  new  dishes  both 
pots  and  dishes  were  of  common  clay,  m  order  that  they  might  be 
broken  or  laid  aside  .after  they  had  been  once  used.  They  were 
generally  broken,  for  it  was  believed  that  if  any  one  else  ate  his  food 
out  of  these  sacred  dishes,  his  mouth  and  throat  would  become  swollen 
and  inflamed.  The  same  ill  effect  was  thought  to  be  experienced  by 
anv  one  who  should  wear  the  Mikado’s  clothes  without  his  leave  ;  he 
would  have  swellings  and  pains  all  over  his  body  In  Fiji  there  is 
a  special  name  (kana  lama)  for  the  disease  supposed  to  be  caused  y 
eating  out  of  a  chief’s  dishes  or  wearing  his  clothes.  The  throat 
and  body  swell,  and  the  impious  person  dies.  I  had  a  fine  mat  given 
to  me  by  a  man  who  durst  not  use  it  because  Thakombau  s  eldest  son 
had  sat  upon  it.  There  was  always  a  family  or  clan  of  commoners 
who  were  exempt  from  this  danger.  I  was  talking  about  this  once  to 
Thakombau.  ‘  Oh  yes,’  said  he.  ‘  Here,  So-and-so  !  come  and  scratc 
mv  back.’  The  man  scratched  ;  he  was  one  of  those  who  could  do  it 
with  impunity.”  The  name  of  the  men  thus  highly  privileged  was  Na 
nduka  ni,  or  the  dirt  of  the  chief. 

In  the  evil  effects  thus  supposed  to  follow  upon  the  use  of  the  vessels 
or  clothes  of  the  Mikado  and  a  Fijian  chief  we  see  that  other  side  of  the 
god-man’s  character  to  which  attention  has  been  already  called.  I  he 
divine  person  is  a  source  of  Hanger  as  well  as  of  blessing  ;  he  must  no 
only  be  guarded,  he  must  also  be  guarded  against.  His  sacred  organ¬ 
ism,  so  delicate  that  a  touch  may  disorder  it,  is  also,  as  it  were, 


XX 


CHIEFS  AND  KINGS  TABOOED  203 

electrically  charged  with  a  powerful  magical  or  spiritual  force  which 
may  dischaige  itself  with  fatal  effect  on  whatever  comes  in  contact 
with  it.  Accordingly  the  isolation  of  the  man-god  is  quite  as  necessary 
tor  the  safety  of  others  as  for  his  own.  His  magical  virtue  is  in  the 
strictest  sense  of  the  word  contagious  :  his  divinity  is  a  fire,  which, 
under  proper  restraints,  confers  endless  blessings,  but,  if  rashly  touched 
or  allowed  to  break  bounds,  burns  and  destroys  what  it  touches. 
Hence  the  disastious  effects  supposed  to  attend  a  breach  of  taboo  ;  the 

offender  has  thiust  his  hand  into  the  divine  fire,  which  shrivels  up  and 
consumes  him  on  the  spot. 

The  Nubas,  for  example,  who  inhabit  the  wooded  and  fertile  rano'e 
of  Jebel  Nuba  in  Eastern  Africa,  believe  that  they  would  die  if  they 
entered  the  house  of  their  priestly  king ;  however,  they  can  evade  the 
penalty  of  their  intrusion  by  baring  the  left  shoulder  and  getting 
the  king  to  lay  his  hand  on  it.  And  were  any  man  to  sit  on  a  stone 
which  the  king  has  consecrated  to  his  own  use,  the  transgressor 
would  die  within  the  year.  The  Cazembes  of  Angola  regard  their  king 
as  so  holy  that  no  one  can  touch  him  without  being  killed  by  the 
magical  power  which  pervades  his  sacred  person.  But  since  contact 
with  him  is  sometimes  unavoidable,  they  have  devised  a  means  whereby 
the  sinner  can  escape  with  his  life.  Kneeling  down  before  the  king  he 
touches  the  back  of  the  royal  hand  with  the  back  of  his  own,  then  snaps 
his  fingers  ,  afterwards  he  lays  the  palm  of  his  hand  on  the  palm  of  the 
king  s  hand,  then  snaps  his  fingers  again.  This  ceremony  is  repeated 
four  or  five  times,  and  averts  the  imminent  danger  of  death.  In 
Tonga  it  was  believed  that  if  any  one  fed  himself  with  his  own  hands 
after  touching  the  sacred  person  of  a  superior  chief  or  anything  that 
belonged  to  him,  he  would  swell  up  and  die  ;  the  sanctity  of  the  chief, 
like  a  virulent  poison,  infected  the  hands  of  his  inferior,  and,  being 
communicated  through  them  to  the  food,  proved  fatal  to  the  eater. 
A  commoner  who  had  incurred  this  danger  could  disinfect  himself 
by  performing  a  certain  ceremony,  which  consisted  in  touching  the 
sole  of  a  chief’s  foot  with  the  palm  and  back  of  each  of  his  hands, 
and  afterwards  rinsing  his  hands  in  water.  If  there  was  no  water 
near,  he  rubbed  his  hands  with  the  juicy  stem  of  a  plantain  or  banana. 
Alter  that  he  was  free  to  feed  himself  with  his  own  hands  without 
danger  of  being  attacked  by  the  malady  which  would  otherwise  follow 
from  eating  with  tabooed  or  sanctified  hands.  But  until  the  ceremony 
ot  expiation  or  disinfection  had  been  performed,  if  he  wished  to  eat, 
he  had  either  to  get  some  one  to  feed  him,  or  else  to  go  down  on  his 
nees  and  pick  up  the  food  from  the  ground  with  his  mouth  like  a 
east.  He  might  not  even  use  a  toothpick  himself,  but  might  guide 
the  hand  of  another  person  holding  the  toothpick.  The  Tongans  were 
subject  to  induration  of  the  liver  and  certain  forms  of  scrofula,  which 
hey  often  attributed  to  a  failure  to  perform  the  requisite  expiation 
a  ter  having  inadvertently  touched  a  chief  or  his  belongings.  Hence 
j.  „ey  often  went  through  the  ceremony  as  a  precaution,  without  know¬ 
ing  that  they  had  done  anything  to  call  for  it.  The  king  of  Tonga 


TABOOED  PERSONS 


CII 


204 


could  not  refuse  to  play  his  part  in  the  rite  by  presenting  his  foot  to 
such  as  desired  to  touch  it,  even  when  they  applied  to  him  at  an  in¬ 
convenient  time.  A  fat  unwieldy  king,  who  perceived  his  subjects 
approaching  with  this  intention,  while  he  chanced  to  be  taking  his 
walks  abroad,  has  been  sometimes  seen  to  waddle  as  fast  as  his  legs 
could  carry  him  out  of  their  way,  in  order  to  escape  the  importunate 
and  not  wholly  disinterested  expression  of  their  homage.  If  any  one 
fancied  he  might  have  already  unwittingly  eaten  with  tabooed  hands, 
he  sat  down  before  the  chief,  and,  taking  the  chief’s  foot,  pressed  it 
against  his  own  stomach,  that  the  food  in  his  belly  might  not  injure 
him,  and  that  he  might  not  swell  up  and  die.  Since  scrofula  was 
regarded  by  the  Tongans  as  a  result  of  eating  with  tabooed  hands,  we 
may  conjecture  that  persons  who  suffered  from  it  among  them  often 
resorted  to  the  touch  or  pressure  of  the  king’s  foot  as  a  cure  for  their 
malady.  The  analogy  of  the  custom  with  the  old  English  practice  of 
bringing  scrofulous  patients  to  the  king  to  be  healed  by  his  touch  is 
sufficiently  obvious,  and  suggests,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out  else¬ 
where,  that  among  our  own  remote  ancestors  scrofula  may  have 
obtained  its  name  of  the  King’s  Evil  from  a  belief,  like  that  of  the 
Tongans,  that  it  was  caused  as  well  as  cured  by  contact  with  the  divine 
majesty  of  kings. 

In  New  Zealand  the  dread  of  the  sanctity  of  chiefs  was  at  least  as 
great  as  in  Tonga.  Their  ghostly  power,  derived  from  an  ancestral 
spirit,  diffused  itself  by  contagion  over  everything  they  touched,  and 
could  strike  dead  all  who  rashly  or  unwittingly  meddled  with  it.  For 
instance,  it  once  happened  that  a  New  Zealand  chief  of  high  rank  and 
great  sanctity  had  left  the  remains  of  his  dinner  by  the  wayside.  A 
slave,  a  stout,  hungry  fellow,  coming  up  after  the  chief  had  gone,  saw 
the  unfinished  dinner,  and  ate  it  up  without  asking  questions.  Hardly 
had  he  finished  when  he  was  informed  by  a  horror-stricken  spectator 
that  the  food  of  which  he  had  eaten  was  the  chief’s.  “  I  knew  the 
unfortunate  delinquent  well.  He  was  remarkable  for  courage,  and 
had  signalised  himself  in  the  wars  of  the  tribe,”  but  “  no  sooner  did 
he  hear  the  fatal  news  than  he  was  seized  by  the  most  extraordinary 
convulsions  and  cramp  in  the  stomach,  which  never  ceased  till  he  died, 
about  sundown  the  same  day.  He  was  a  strong  man,  in  the  prime  of 
life,  and  if  any  pakeha  [European]  freethinker  should  have  said  he 
was  not  killed  by  the  tapu  of  the  chief,  which  had  been  communicated 
to  the  food  by  contact,  he  would  have  been  listened  to  with  feelings  of 
contempt  for  his  ignorance  and  inability  to  understand  plain  and  direct 
evidence.”  This  is  not  a  solitary  case.  A  Maori  woman  having  eaten 
of  some  fruit,  and  being  afterwards  told  that  the  fruit  had  been  taken 
from  a  tabooed  place,  exclaimed  that  the  spirit  of  the  chief,  whose 
sanctity  had  been  thus  profaned,  would  kill  her.  This  was  in  the 
afternoon,  and  next  day  by  twelve  o’clock  she  was  dead.  A  Maori 
chief’s  tinder-box  was  once  the  means  of  killing  several  persons  ;  for, 
having  been  lost  by  him,  and  found  by  some  men  who  used  it  to  light 
their  pipes,  they  died  of  fright  on  learning  to  whom  it  had  belonged. 


XX  MOURNERS  TABOOED  205 

So,  too,  the  garments  of  a  high  New  Zealand  chief  will  kill  any  one  else 
who  wears  them.  A  chief  was  observed  by  a  missionary  to  throw  down 
a  precipice  a  blanket  which  he  found  too  heavy  to  carry.  Being  asked 
by  the  missionary  why  he  did  not  leave  it  on  a  tree  for  the  use  of  a 
future  traveller,  the  chief  replied  that  “  it  was  the  fear  of  its  being 
taken  by  another  which  caused  him  to  throw  it  where  he  did,  for  if  it 
were  worn,  his  tapu  ”  (that  is,  his  spiritual  power  communicated  by 
contact  to  the  blanket  and  through  the  blanket  to  the  man)  “  would 
kill  the  person/’  For  a  similar  reason  a  Maori  chief  would  not  blow 
a  fire  with  his  mouth  ;  for  his  sacred  breath  would  communicate  its 
sanctity  to  the  fire,  which  would  pass  it  on  to  the  pot  on  the  fire,  which 
would  pass  it  on  to  the  meat  in  the  pot,  which  would  pass  it  on  to  the 
man  who  ate  the  meat,  which  was  in  the  pot,  which  stood  on  the  fire, 
which  was  breathed  on  by  the  chief;  so  that  the  eater,  infected 
by  the  chief’s  breath  conveyed  through  these  intermediaries,  would 
surely  die. 

Thus  in  the  Polynesian  race,  to  which  the  Maoris  belong,  super¬ 
stition  erected  round  the  persons  of  sacred  chiefs  a  real,  though  at  the 
same  time  purely  imaginary  barrier,  to  transgress  which  actually 
entailed  the  death  of  the  transgressor  whenever  he  became  aware  of 
what  he  had  done.  This  fatal  power  of  the  imagination  working 
through  superstitious  terrors  is  by  no  means  confined  to  one  race  ; 
it  appears  to  be  common  among  savages.  For  example,  among  the 
aborigines  of  Australia  a  native  will  die  after  the  infliction  of  even 
the  most  superficial  wound,  if  only  he  believes  that  the  weapon  which 
inflicted  the  wound  had  been  sung  over  and  thus  endowed  with  magical 
virtue.  He  simply  lies  down,  refuses  food,  and  pines  away.  Similarly 
among  some  of  the  Indian  tribes  of  Brazil,  if  the  medicine-man  pre¬ 
dicted  the  death  of  any  one  who  had  offended  him,  “  the  wretch  took 
to  his  hammock  instantly  in  such  full  expectation  of  dying,  that  he 
would  neither  eat  nor  drink,  and  the  prediction  was  a  sentence  which 
faith  effectually  executed.” 

§  2.  Mourners  tabooed. — Thus  regarding  his  sacred  chiefs  and  kings 
as  charged  with  a  mysterious  spiritual  force  which  so  to  say  explodes 
at  contact,  the  savage  naturally  ranks  them  among  the  dangerous 
classes  of  society,  and  imposes  upon  them  the  same  sort  of  restraints 
that  he  lays  on  manslayers,  menstruous  women,  and  other  persons 
whom  he  looks  upon  with  a  certain  fear  and  horror.  For  example, 
sacred  kings  and  priests  in  Polynesia  were  not  allowed  to  touch  food 
with  their  hands,  and  had  therefore  to  be  fed  by  others  ;  and  as  we 
have  just  seen,  their  vessels,  garments,  and  other  property  might  not 
be  used  by  others  on  pain  of  disease  and  death.  Now  precisely  the 
same  observances  are  exacted  by  some  savages  from  girls  at  their  first 
menstruation,  women  after  childbirth,  homicides,  mourners,  and  all 
persons  who  have  come  into  contact  with  the  dead.  Thus,  for  example, 
to  begin  with  the  last  class  of  persons,  among  the  Maoris  any  one  who 
had  handled  a  corpse,  helped  to  convey  it  to  the  grave,  or  touched  a 
dead  man’s  bones,  was  cut  off  from  all  intercourse  and  almost  all 


206  TABOOED  PERSONS  ch. 

communication  with  mankind.  He  could  not  enter  any  house,  or 
come  into  contact  with  any  person  or  thing,  without  utterly  be¬ 
devilling  them.  He  might  not  even  touch  food  with  his  hands,  which 
had  become  so  frightfully  tabooed  or  unclean  as  to  be  quite  useless. 
Food  would  be  set  for  him  on  the  ground,  and  he  would  then  sit  or 
kneel  down,  and,  with  his  hands  carefully  held  behind  his  back,  would 
gnaw  at  it  as  best  he  could.  In  some  cases  he  would  be  fed  by  another 
person,  who  with  outstretched  arm  contrived  to  do  it  without  touching 
the  tabooed  man  ;  but  the  feeder  was  himself  subjected  to  many 
severe  restrictions,  little  less  onerous  than  those  which  were  imposed 
upon  the  other.  In  almost  every  populous  village  there  lived  a 
degraded  wretch,  the  lowest  of  the  low,  who  earned  a  sony  pittance 
by  thus  waiting  upon  the  defiled.  Clad  in  rags,  daubed  from  head  to 
foot  with  red  ochre  and  stinking  shark  oil,  always  solitary  and  silent, 
generally  old,  haggard,  and  wizened,  often  half  crazed,  he  might  be 
seen  sitting  motionless  all  day  apart  from  the  common  path  or  thorough¬ 
fare  of  the  village,  gazing  with  lack-lustre  eyes  on  the  busy  doings  in 
which  he  might  never  take  a  part.  Twice  a  day  a  dole  of  food  would 
be  thrown  on  the  ground  before  him  to  munch  as  well  as  he  could 
without  the  use  of  his  hands  ;  and  at  night,  huddling  his  greasy  tatters 
about  him,  he  would  crawl  into  some  miserable  lair  of  leaves  and  refuse, 
where,  dirty,  cold,  and  hungry,  he  passed,  in  broken  ghost-haunted 
slumbers,  a  wretched  night  as  a  prelude  to  another  wretched  day. 
Such  was  the  only  human  being  deemed  fit  to  associate  at  arm’s  length 
with  one  who  had  paid  the  last  offices  of  respect  and  friendship  to  the 
dead.  And  when,  the  dismal  term  of  his  seclusion  being  over,  the 
mourner  was  about  to  mix  with  his  fellows  once  more,  all  the  dishes 
he  had  used  in  his  seclusion  were  diligently  smashed,  and  all  the 
garments  he  had  worn  were  carefully  thrown  away,  lest  they  should 
spread  the  contagion  of  his  defilement  among  others,  just  as  the  vessels 
and  clothes  of  sacred  kings  and  chiefs  are  destroyed  or  cast  away  for 
a  similar  reason.  So  complete  in  these  respects  is  the  analogy  which 
the  savage  traces  between  the  spiritual  influences  that  emanate  fiom 
divinities  and  from  the  dead,  between  the  odour  of  sanctity  and  the 
stench  of  corruption. 

The  rule  which  forbids  persons  who  have  been  in  contact  with  the 
dead  to  touch  food  with  their  hands  would  seem  to  have  been  universal 
in  Polynesia.  Thus  in  Samoa  “  those  who  attended  the  deceased  were 
most  careful  not  to  handle  food,  and  for  days  were  fed  by  others  as  if 
they  were  helpless  infants.  Baldness  and  the  loss  of  teeth  were 
supposed  to  be  the  punishment  inflicted  by  the  household  god  if  they 
violated  the  rule.”  Again,  in  Tonga,  “  no  person  can  touch  a  dead 
chief  without  being  taboo’d  for  ten  lunar  months,  except  chiefs,  who 
are  only  taboo’d  for  three,  four,  or  five  months,  according  to  the 
superiority  of  the  dead  chief  ;  except  again  it  be  the  body  of  Tooitonga 
[the  great  divine  chief],  and  then  even  the  greatest  chief  would  be 
taboo’d  ten  months.  .  .  .  During  the  time  a  man  is  taboo  d  he  must  not 
feed  himself  with  his  own  hands,  but  must  be  fed  by  somebody  else : 


XX 


WOMEN  TABOOED  AT  MENSTRUATION  207 

he  must  not  even  use  a  toothpick  himself,  but  must  guide  another 
person  s  hand  holding  the  toothpick.  If  he  is  hungry  and  there 
nc?  one  to  feed  him,  he  must  go  down  upon  his  hands  and  knees, 
pick  up  his  victuals  with  his  mouth  :  and  if  he  infringes  upon  a r-y 
these  rules,  it  is  firmly  expected  that  he  will  swell  up  and  die.” 

Among  the  Shuswap  of  British  Columbia  widows  and  wi^owers 
in  mourning  are  secluded  and  forbidden  to  touch  their  owa  head 
or  body  ;  the  cups  and  cooking  -  vessels  which  they  use  naY  be 
used  by  no  one  else.  They  must  build  a  sweat -house  keside  a 
creek,  sweat  there  all  night  and  bathe  regularly,  after  which  they 
must  rub  their  bodies  with  branches  of  spruce.  The  branches 
may  not  be  used  more  than  once,  and  when  they  have  strved 
their  purpose  they  are  stuck  into  the  ground  all  round  the  hut.  No 
hunter  would  come  near  such  mourners,  for  their  presence  is  unlucky. 
If  their  shadow  were  to  fall  on  any  one,  he  would  be  taken  ill  at  once. 
They  employ  thorn  bushes  for  bed  and  pillow,  in  order  to  keep  away 
the.  ghost  of  the.  deceased  ;  and  thorn  bushes  are  also  laid  all  around 
their  beds.  This  last  precaution  shows  clearly  what  the  spiritual 
danger  is  which  leads  to  the  exclusion  of  such  persons  from  ordinary 
society  ,  it  is  simply  a  fear  of  the  ghost  who  is  supposed  to  be  hovering 
near  them.  In  the  Mekeo  district  of  British  New  Guinea  a  widower 
loses  all  his  civil  rights  and  becomes  a  social  outcast,  an  object  of  fear 
and  horror,  shunned  by  all.  He  may  not  cultivate  a  garden,  nor  show 
himself  in  public,  nor  traverse  the  village,  nor  walk  on  the  roads  and 
paths.  Like  a  wild  beast  he  must  skulk  in  the  long  grass  and  the 
bushes  ,  and  if  he  sees  or  hears  any  one  coming,  especially  a  woman, 
he  must  hide  behind  a  tree  or  a  thicket.  If  he  wishes  to  fish  or  hunt! 
he  must  do  it  alone  and  at  night.  If  he  would  consult  any  one,  even 
the  missionary,  he  does  so  by  stealth  and  at  night ;  he  seems  to  have 
lost  his  voice  and  speaks  only  in  whispers.  Were  he  to  join  a  party 
of  fishers  or  hunters,  his  presence  would  bring  misfortune  on  them  ; 
the  ghost  of  his  dead  wife  would  frighten  away  the  fish  or  the  game! 
He  goes  about  everywhere  and  at  all  times  armed  with  a  tomahawk 
to  defend  himself,  not  only  against  wild  boars  in  the  jungle,  but  against 
the  dreaded  spirit  of  his  departed  spouse,  who  would  do  him  an  ill  turn 
if  she  could  ;  for  all  the  souls  of  the  dead  are  malignant  and  their  only 
delight  is  to  harm  the  living. 

§  3*  I V  omen  tabooed  at  Menstyuation  and  Childbiyth. — In  general, 
we  may  say  that  the  prohibition  to  use  the  vessels,  garments,  and  so 
forth  of  certain  persons,  and  the  effects  supposed  to  follow  an  infraction 
of  the  rule,  are  exactly  the  same  whether  the  persons  to  whom  the 
things  belong  are  sacred  or  what  we  might  call  unclean  and  polluted. 
As  the  garments  which  have  been  touched  by  a  sacred  chief  kill  those 
who  handle  them,  so  do  the  things  which  have  been  touched  by  a 
menstruous  woman.  A11  Australian  black-fellow,  who  discovered 
that  his  wife  had  lain  on  his  blanket  at  her  menstrual  period,  killed 
her  and  died  of  terror  himself  within  a  fortnight.  Hence  Australian 
women  at  these  times  are  forbidden  under  pain  of  death  to  touch  any- 


208 


TABOOED  PERSONS 


CH. 

thing  that  men  use,  or  even  to  walk  on  a  path  that  any  man  frequents. 
They  are  also  secluded  at  childbirth,  and  all  vessels  used  by  them 
during  their  seclusion  are  burned.  In  Uganda  the  pots  which  a  woman 
touches,  while  the  impurity  of  childbirth  or  of  menstruation  is  on  her, 
should  be  destroyed  ;  spears  and  shields  defiled  by  her  touch  are  not 
destroyed  but  only  purified.  “  Among  all  the  Dene  and  most  other 
American  tribes,  hardly  any  other  being  was  the  object  of  so  much 
dread  cs  a  menstruating  woman.  As  soon  as  signs  of  that  condition 
made  tiemselves  apparent  in  a  young  girl  she  was  carefully  segregated 
from  al  but  female  company,  and  had  to  live  by  herself  in  a  small  hut 
away  from  the  gaze  of  the  villagers  or  of  the  male  members  of  the 
roviig  band.  While  in  that  awful  state,  she  had  to  abstain  from 
tovhing  anything  belonging  to  man,  or  the  spoils  of  any  venison  or 
other  animal,  lest  she  would  thereby  pollute  the  same,  and  condemn 
the  hunters  to  failure,  owing  to  the  anger  of  the  game  thus  slighted. 
Dried  fish  formed  her  diet,  and  cold  water,  absorbed  through  a  drinking 
tube,  was  her  only  beverage.  Moreover,  as  the  very  sight  of  her  was 
dangerous  to  society,  a  special  skin  bonnet,  with  fringes  falling  over 
her  face  down  to  her  breast,  hid  her  from  the  public  gaze,  even  some 
time  after  she  had  recovered  her  normal  state.”  Among  the  Bribri 
Indians  of  Costa  Rica  a  menstruous  woman  is  regarded  as  unclean. 
The  only  plates  she  may  use  for  her  food  are  banana  leaves,  which, 
when  she  has  done  with  them,  she  throws  away  in  some  sequestered 
spot ;  for  were  a  cow  to  find  them  and  eat  them,  the  animal  would 
waste  away  and  perish.  And  she  drinks  out  of  a  special  vessel  for  a 
like  reason ;  because  if  any  one  drank  out  of  the  same  cup  after  her, 
he  would  surety  die. 

Among  many  peoples  similar  restrictions  are  imposed  on  women 
in  childbed  and  apparently  for  similar  reasons  ;  at  such  periods  women 
are  supposed  to  be  in  a  dangerous  condition  which  would  infect  any 
person  or  thing  they  might  touch  ;  hence  they  are  put  into  quarantine 
until,  with  the  recovery  of  their  health  and  strength,  the  imaginary 
danger  has  passed  away.  Thus,  in  Tahiti  a  woman  after  childbirth 
was  secluded  for  a  fortnight  or  three  weeks  in  a  temporary  hut  erected 
on  sacred  ground  ;  during  the  time  of  her  seclusion  she  was  debarred 
from  touching  provisions,  and  had  to  be  fed  by  another.  Further,  if 
any  one  else  touched  the  child  at  this  period,  he  was  subjected  to  the 
same  restrictions  as  the  mother  until  the  ceremony  of  her  purification 
had  been  performed.  Similarly  in  the  island  of  Kadiak,  off  Alaska,  a 
woman  about  to  be  delivered  retires  to  a  miserable  low  hovel  built  of 
reeds,  where  she  must  remain  for  twenty  days  after  the  birth  of  her  child, 
whatever  the  season  may  be,  and  she  is  considered  so  unclean  that  no 
one  will  touch  her,  and  food  is  reached  to  her  on  sticks.  The  Bribri 
Indians  regard  the  pollution  of  childbed  as  much  more  dangerous  even 
than  that  of  menstruation.  When  a  woman  feels  her  time  approaching, 
she  informs  her  husband,  who  makes  haste  to  build  a  hut  for  her  in  a 
lonely  spot.  There  she  must  live  alone,  holding  no  converse  with 
anybody  save  her  mother  or  another  woman.  After  her  delivery  the 


XX 


WOMEN  TABOOED  AT  CHILDBIRTH 


209 

mcdicme-man  purifies  her  by  breathing  on  her  and  laying  an  animal 
it  matters  not  what,  upon  her.  But  even  this  ceremony  only  mitigates 
her  uncleanness  into  a  state  considered  to  be  equivalent  to  that  of  a 
menstr nous  woman  ;  and  for  a  full  lunar  month  she  must  live  apart 
from  her  housemates,  observing  the  same  rules  with  regard  to  eatin^ 
and  drinking  as  at  her  monthly  periods.  The  case  is  still  worse,  the 
po  ution  is  still  more  deadly,  if  she  has  had  a  miscarriage  or  has  been 
delivered  of  a  stillborn  child.  In  that  case  she  may  not  go  near  a  living 
soul :  the  mere  contact  with  things  she  has  used  is  exceedingly  danger- 
ous  :  her  food  is  handed  to  her  at  the  end  of  a  long  stick,  this  lasts 
generally  for  three  weeks,  after  which  she  may  go  home,  subject  only 
to  the  restrictions  incident  to  an  ordinary  confinement. 

.  Some  Bantu  tribes  entertain  even  more  exaggerated  notions  of  the 
virulent  infection  spread. by  a  woman  who  has  had  a  miscarriage  and 
has  concealed  it.  An  experienced  observer  of  these  people  tells  us  that 
the  blood  of  childbirth  “  appears  to  the  eyes  of  the  South  Africans 
to  be  tainted  with  a  pollution  still  more  dangerous  than  that  of  the 
menstrual  fluid.  The  husband  is  excluded  from  the  hut  for  eight  davs 
of  the  lying-m  period,  chiefly  from  fear  that  he  might  be  contaminated 
by  this  secretion.  He  dare  not  take  his  child  in  his  arms  for  the  three 
first  months  after  the  birth.  But  the  secretion  of  childbed  is  par¬ 
ticularly  terrible  when  it  is  the  product  of  a  miscarriage,  especiallv 
a  concealed  miscarriage .  In  this  case  it  is  not  merely  the  man  who  is 
threatened  or  killed,  it  is  the  whole  country,  it  is  the  sky  itself  which 
su  ers.  By  a  curious  association  of  ideas  a  physiological  fact  causes 
cosmic  troubles  !  As  for  the  disastrous  effect  which  a  miscarriage 
may  have  on  the  whole  country  I  will  quote  the  words  of  a  medicine¬ 
man  and  ram-maker  of  the  Ba-Pedi  tribe  :  "  When  a  woman  has  had 
a  miscarriage,  when  she  has  allowed  her  blood  to  flow,  and  has  hidden 
the  child,  it  is  enough  to  cause  the  burning  winds  to  blow  and  to  parch 
the  country  with  heat.  The  rain  no  longer  falls,  for  the  country  is  no 
onger  m  order.  When  the  ram  approaches  the  place  where  the  blood 
is,  1  wi  not  dare  to  approach.  It  will  fear  and  remain  at  a  distance 
I  hat  woman  has  committed  a  great  fault.  She  has  spoiled  the  country 
oi  the  chief,  for  she  has  hidden  blood  which  had  not  yet  been  well 
congealed  to  fashion  a  man.  That  blood  is  taboo.  It  should  never 

,  r.lp  011  th<?  road  !  Tlie  chief  will  assemble  his  men  and  say  to  them 
Are  you  m  order  in  your  villages  ?  ’  Some  one  will  answer,  ‘  Such 
and  such  a  woman  was  pregnant  and  we  have  not  yet  seen  the  child 
which  she  has  given  birth  to/  Then  they  go  and  arrest  the  woman, 
i  heyday  to  her,  Show  us  where  you  have  hidden  it/  They  go  and  dig 
at  the  spot,  they  sprinkle  the  hole  with  a  decoction  of  two  sorts  of  roots 
prepared  m  a  special  pot.  They  take  a  little  of  the  earth  of  this  grave 
'they  throw  it  into  the  river,  then  they  bring  back  water  from  the 
river  and  sprinkle  it  where  she  shed  her  blood.  She  herself  must 
was  every  day  with  the  medicine.  Then  the  country  will  be  moistened 
again  (by  rain).  Further,  we  (medicine-men)  summon  the  women  of 
the  country  ;  we  tell  them  to  prepare  a  ball  of  the  earth  which  contains 


210 


CH. 


TABOOED  PERSONS 

the  blood.  They  bring  it  to  us  one  morning.  If  we  wish  to  prepare 
medicine  with  which  to  sprinkle  the  whole  country,  we  crumble  this 
earth  to  powder  ;  at  the  end  of  five  days  we  send  little  boys  and  little 
girls  girls  that  yet  know  nothing  of  women’s  affairs  and  have  not  yet 
had  relations  with  men.  We  put  the  medicine  in  the  horns  of  oxen, 
and  these  children  go  to  all  the  fords,  to  all  the  entrances  of  the  country. 

A  little  girl  turns  up  the  soil  with  her  mattock,  the  others  dip  a  branch 
in  the  horn  and  sprinkle  the  inside  of  the  hole  saying,  ‘  Rain  !  rain  !  ’ 
So  we  remove  the  misfortune  which  the  women  have  brought  on  the 
roads  ;  the  rain  will  be  able  to  come.  The  country  is  purified  !  ” 

s  a.  Warriors  tabooed.- — Once  more,  warriors  are  conceived  by  the 
savage  to  move,  so  to  say,  in  an  atmosphere  of  spiritual  danger  which 
constrains  them  to  practise  a  variety  of  superstitious  observances 
quite  different  in  their  nature  from  those  rational  precautions  which, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  they  adopt  against  foes  of  flesh  and  blood.  The 
general  effect  of  these  observances  is  to  place  the  warrior,  both  before 
and  after  victory,  in  the  same  state  of  seclusion  or  spiritual  quarantine 
in  which,  for  his  own  safety,  primitive  man  puts  his  human  gods 
and  other  dangerous  characters.  Thus  when  the  Maoris  went  out  on 
the  war-path  they  were  sacred  or  taboo  in  the  highest  degree,  and  they 
and  their  friends  at  home  had  to  observe  strictly  many  cuiious  customs 
over  and  above  the  numerous  taboos  of  ordinary  life.  They  became, 
in  the  irreverent  language  of  Europeans  who  knew  them  in  the  old 
fighting  days,  “  tabooed  an  inch  thick  ”  ;  and  as  for  the  leader  of 
the  expedition,  he  was  quite  unapproachable.  Similarly,  when  the 
Israelites  marched  forth  to  war  they  were  bound  by  certain  rules  of 
ceremonial  purity  identical  with  rules  observed  by  Maoris  and 
Australian  black-fellows  on  the  war-path.  The  vessels  they  used  were 
sacred,  and  they  had  to  practise  continence  and  a  custom  of  personal 
cleanliness  of  which  the  original  motive,  if  we  may  judge  from  the 
avowed  motive  of  savages  who  conform  to  the  same  custom,  was  a 
fear  lest  the  enemy  should  obtain  the  refuse  of  their  persons,  and  thus 
be  enabled  to  work  their  destruction  by  magic.  Among  some  Indian 
tribes  of  North  America  a  young  warrior  in  his  first  campaign  had  to 
conform  to  certain  customs,  of  which  two  were  identical  with  the 
observances  imposed  by  the  same  Indians  on  girls  at  their  first  ^ 
menstruation  :  the  vessels  he  ate  and  drank  out  of  might  be  touched 
by  no  other  person,  and  he  was  forbidden  to  scratch  his  head  or  any 
other  part  of  his  body  with  his  fingers  ;  if  he  could  not  help  scratching 
himself,  he  had  to  do  it  with  a  stick.  The  latter  rule,  like  the  one  which 
forbids  a  tabooed  person  to  feed  himself  with  his  own  fingers,  Seems 
to  rest  on  the  supposed  sanctity  or  pollution,  whichever  we  choose  to 
call  it,  of  the  tabooed  hands.  Moreover,  among  these  Indian  tribes 
the  men  on  the  war-path  had  always  to  sleep  at  night  with  their  faces 
turned  towards  their  own  country ;  however  uneasy  the  posture,  they 
might  not  change  it.  They  might  not  sit  upon  the  bare  ground,  noi 
wet  their  feet,  nor  walk  on  a  beaten  path  if  they  could  help  it ;  when 
they  had  no  choice  but  to  walk  on  a  path,  they  sought  to  counteract 


XX 


WARRIORS  TABOOED 


211 

the  ill  effect  of  doing  so  by  doctoring  their  legs  with  certain  medicines 
or  charms  which  they  carried  with  them  for  the  purpose.  No  member 
o  the  party  was  permitted  to  step  over  the  legs,  hands,  or  body  of  any 
lei  member  who  chanced  to  be  sitting  or  lying  on  the  ground  •  and 
it  was  equally  forbidden  to  step  over  his  blanket,  gun  tomahawk  or 
anything  that  belonged  to  him.  If  this  rule  was  inadvertently  broken 
i  became  the  duty  of  the  member  whose  person  or  property  had  been 

dutPvof  °,kn°ck  ‘he.othe1r  member  down,  and  it  was  similarly  the 
duty  of  that  other  to  be  knocked  down  peaceably  and  without  resist¬ 
ance.  The  vessels  out  of  which  the  warriors  ate  their  food  were 
commonly  small  bowls  of  wood  or  birch  bark,  with  marks  to  distinguish 
the  two  sides  ;  in  marching  from  home  the  Indians  invariably  drank 

°^Slde  °f  the  b0Wl’  and  in  ret«rning  they  drank  out  of  the 
other.  When  on  their  way  home  they  came  within  a  day’s  march  of 

the  village,  they  hung  up  all  their  bowls  on  trees,  or  threw  them  away 
on  the  prairie,  doubtless  to  prevent  their  sanctity  or  defilement  from 
being  communicated  with  disastrous  effects  to  their  friends  just  as 
we  have  seen  that  the  vessels  and  clothes  of  the  sacred  Mikido  of 
women  at  childbirth  and  menstruation,  and  of  persons  defiled  bv 

Thl  fi  tWfth  ‘e 6  dea+du ^  destr°yed  or  laid  aside  fifr  a  similar  reason 

he  t&hSt  71  tlmf  thaf  an  Apache  Indian  goes  out  on  the  war-path 
he  is  bound  to  refrain  from  scratching  his  head  with  his  fingers  and 

rom  letting  water  touch  his  lips.  Hence  he  scratches  his  head  with 

a.f : lCik’ aalld  d™ks  thr°ngh  a  hollow  reed  or  cane.  Stick  and  reed  are 
attached  to  the  warrior  s  belt  and  to  each  other  by  a  leathern  thong 
The  ruie  not  to  scratch  their  heads  with  their  fingers,  but  to  use  a 

the  wir1ptathPUrP°Se  mStead’  WaS  regularly  observed  by  Ojebways  on 

thev^winTr!?  v!  Cr?fk  IndianS  and  kindred  tribes  we  are  told 
they  will  not  cohabit  with  women  while  they  are  out  at  war  •  thev 

re  lgiously  abstain  from  every  kind  of  intercourse  even  with  their  own 

wives,  for  the  space  of  three  days  and  nights  before  they  go  to  war 

and  so  after  they  return  home,  because  they  are  to  sanctify  themselves.” 

Among  the  Ba-Pedi  and  Ba-Thonga  tribes  of  South  Africa  not  only 

have  the  warriors  to  abstain  from  women,  but  the  people  left  behind 

in  the  villages  are  also  bound  to  continence  ;  they  think  that  any 

incontinence  on  their  part  would  cause  thorns  to  grow  on  the  ground 

expeditions  ^  Wam0rS’  and  that  success  would  not  attend  the 

Why  exactly  many  savages  have  made  it  a  rule  to  refrain  from 
women  in  time  of  war,  we  cannot  say  for  certain,  but  we  may  conjecture 
that  their  motive  was  a  superstitious  fear  lest,  on  the  principles  of 
sympathetic  magic,  close  contact  with  women  should  infect  them  with 
temmine  weakness  and  cowardice.  Similarly  some  savages  imagine 
at  contact  with  a  woman  in  childbed  enervates  warriors  and  enfeebles 
their  weapons.  Indeed  the  Kayans  of  Central  Borneo  go  so  far  as  to 
hold  that  to  touch  a  loom  or  women’s  clothes  would  so  weaken  a  man 
at  lie  would  have  no  success  in  hunting,  fishing,  and  war.  Hence 


212 


TABOOED  PERSONS  ch. 

it  is  not  merely  sexual  intercourse  with  women  that  the  savage  warrior 
sometimes  shuns  ;  he  is  careful  to  avoid  the  sex  altogether.  Thus 
among  the  hill  tribes  of  Assam,  not  only  are  men  forbidden  to  cohabit 
with  their  wives  during  or  after  a  raid,  but  they  may  not  eat  food  cooked 
by  a  woman ;  nay,  they  should  not  address  a  word  even  to  their  own 
wives.  Once  a  woman,  who  unwittingly  broke  the  rule  by  speaking 
to  her  husband  while  he  was  under  the  war  taboo,  sickened  and  died 
when  she  learned  the  awful  crime  she  had  committed. 

§  5  Manslayers  tabooed. — If  the  reader  still  doubts  whether  the 
rules  of  conduct  which  we  have  just  been  considering  are  based  on 
superstitious  fears  or  dictated  by  a  rational  prudence,  his  doubts 
will  probably  be  dissipated  when  he  learns  that  rules  of  the  same  sort 
are  often  imposed  even  more  stringently  on  warriors  after  the  victory 
has  been  won  and  when  all  fear  of  the  living  corporeal  foe  is  at  an  end. 
In  such  cases  one  motive  for  the  inconvenient  restrictions  laid  on  the 
victors  in  their  hour  of  triumph  is  probably  a  dread  of  the  angry  ghosts 
of  the  slain  ;  and  that  the  fear  of  the  vengeful  ghosts  does  influence 
the  behaviour  of  the  slayers  is  often  expressly  affirmed.  The  general 
effect  of  the  taboos  laid  on  sacred  chiefs,  mourners,  women  at  child¬ 
birth,  men  on  the  war-path,  and  so  on,  is  to  seclude  or  isolate  the 
tabooed  persons  from  ordinary  society,  this  effect  being  attained  by  a 
variety  of  rules,  which  oblige  the  men  or  women  to  live  in  separate 
huts  or  in  the  open  air,  to  shun  the  commerce  of  the  sexes,  to  avoid 
the  use  of  vessels  employed  by  others,  and  so  forth.  Now  the  same 
effect  is  produced  by  similar  means  in  the  case  of  victorious  warriors, 
particularly  such  as  have  actually  shed  the  blood  of  their  enemies. 
In  the  island  of  Timor,  when  a  warlike  expedition  has  returned  in 
triumph  bringing  the  heads  of  the  vanquished  foe,  the  leader  of  the 
expedition  is  forbidden  by  religion  and  custom  to  return  at  once  to  his 
own  house.  A  special  hut  is  prepared  for  him,  in  which  he  has  to 
reside  for  two  months,  undergoing  bodily  and  spiritual  puiification. 
During  this  time  he  may  not  go  to  his  wife  nor  feed  himself ;  the  food 
must  be  put  into  his  mouth  by  another  person.  That  these  observances 
are  dictated  by  fear  of  the  ghosts  of  the  slain  seems  ceitain  ,  for  fiom 
another  account  of  the  ceremonies  performed  on  the  return  of  a 
successful  head-hunter  in  the  same  island  we  learn  that  sacrifices  are 
offered  on  this  occasion  to  appease  the  soul  of  the  man  whose  head 
has  been  taken  ;  the  people  think  that  some  misfortune  would  befall 
the  victor  were  such  offerings  omitted.  Moreover,  a  part  of  the 
ceremony  consists  of  a  dance  accompanied  by  a  song,  in  which  the 
death  of  the  slain  man  is  lamented  and  his  forgiveness  is  entreated. 
“  Be  not  angry,”  they  say,  “  because  your  head  is  here  with  us  ;  had 
we  been  less  lucky,  our  heads  might  now  have  been  exposed  in  your 
village.  We  have  offered  the  sacrifice  to  appease  you.  Your  spirit 
may  now  rest  and  leave  us  at  peace.  Why  were  you  our  enemy  ? 
Would  it  not  have  been  better  that  we  should  remain  friends  ?  Then 
your  blood  would  not  have  been  spilt  and  your  head  would  not  have 
been  cut  off.”  The  people  of  Paloo  in  Central  Celebes  take  the  heads 


xx  MANSLAYERS  TABOOED  2I3 

of  their  enemies  in  war  and  afterwards  propitiate  the  souls  of  the  slain 
m  the  temple. 

Among  the  tribes  at  the  mouth  of  the  Wanigela  River,  in  New 
Guinea,  a  man  who  has  taken  life  is  considered  to  be  impure  until  he 
has  undergone  certain  ceremonies  :  as  soon  as  possible  after  the  deed 
he  cleanses  himself  and  his  weapon.  This  satisfactorily  accomplished 
e  repairs  to  his  village  and  seats  himself  on  the  logs  of  sacrificial 
staging.  No  one  approaches  him  or  takes  any  notice  whatever  of 
him.  A  house  is  prepared  for  him  which  is  put  in  charge  of  two  or 
three  small  boys  as  servants.  He  may  eat  only  toasted  bananas,  and 
oniy  the  centre  portion  of  them — the  ends  being  thrown  away.  On 
the  third  day  of  his  seclusion  a  small  feast  is  prepared  by  his  friends, 
who  also  fashion  some  new  perineal  bands  for  him.  This  is  called 
iviporo.  The  next  day  the  man  dons  all  his  best  ornaments  and  badges 
for  taking  life,  and  sallies  forth  fully  armed  and  parades  the  village. 
The  next  day  a  hunt  is  organised,  and  a  kangaroo  selected  from  the 
game  captured.  It  is  cut  open  and  the  spleen  and  liver  rubbed  over 
the  back  of  the  man.  He  then  walks  solemnly  down  to  the  nearest 
water,  and  standing  straddle-legs  in  it  washes  himself.  All  the  young 
untried  warriors  swim  between  his  legs.  This  is  supposed  to  impart 
courage  and  strength  to  them.  The  following  day,  at  early  dawn,  he 
dashes  out  of  his  house,  fully  armed,  and  calls  aloud  the  name  of’  his 
victim.  Having  satisfied  himself  that  he  has  thoroughly  scared  the 
ghost  of  the  dead  man,  he  returns  to  his  house.  The  beating  of  flooring- 
boards  and  the  lighting  of  fires  is  also  a  certain  method  of  scaring  the 

ghost.  A  day  later  his  purification  is  finished.  He  can  then  enter  his 
wife's  house." 

In  Windessi,  Dutch  New  Guinea,  when  a  party  of  head-hunters  has 
been  successful,  and  they  are  nearing  home,  they  announce  their  ap¬ 
proach  and  success  by  blowing  on  triton  shells.  Their  canoes  are  also 
decked  with  branches.  The  faces  of  the  men  who  have  taken  a  head  are 
blackened  with  charcoal.  If  several  have  taken  part  in  killing  the  same 
victim,  his  head  is  divided  among  them.  They  always  time  their  arrival 
so  as  to  reach  home  in  the  early  morning.  They  come  rowing  to  the 
village  with  a  great  noise,  and  the  women  stand  ready  to  dance  in  the 
verandahs  of  the  houses.  The  canoes  row  past  the  yoowi  sram  or  house 
where  the  young  men  live  ;  and  as  they  pass,  the  murderers  throw  as 
many  pointed  sticks  or  bamboos  at  the  wall  or  the  roof  as  there  were 
enemies  killed.  The  day  is  spent  very  quietly.  Now  and  then  they 
drum  or  blow  on  the  conch  ;  at  other  times  they  beat  the  walls  of  the 
houses  with  loud  shouts  to  drive  away  the  ghosts  of  the  slain.  So  the 
Yabim  of  New  Guinea  believe  that  the  spirit  of  a  murdered  man 
pursues  his  murderer  and  seeks  to  do  him  a  mischief.  Hence  they 
drive  away  the  spirit  with  shouts  and  the  beating  of  drums.  When 
the  Fijians  had  buried  a  man  alive,  as  they  often  did,  they  used  at 
nightfall  to  make  a  great  uproar  by  means  of  bamboos,  trumpet-shells, 
and  so  forth,  for  the  purpose  of  frightening  away  his  ghost,  lest  he 
should  attempt  to  return  to  his  old  home.  And  to  render  his  house 


214 


TABOOED  PERSONS 


CH. 


unattractive  to  him  they  dismantled,  it  and  clothed  it  with  everything 
that  to  their  ideas  seemed  most  repulsive.  On  the  evening  of  the  day 
on  which  they  had  tortured  a  prisoner  to  death,  the  American  Indians 
were  wont  to  run  through  the  village  with  hideous  yells,  beating  with 
sticks  on  the  furniture,  the  walls,  and  the  roofs  of  the  huts  to  prevent 
the  angry  ghost  of  their  victim  from  settling  there  and  taking  vengeance 
for  the  torments  that  his  body  had  endured  at  their  hands.  “  Once/’ 
says  a  traveller,  “  on  approaching  in  the  night  a  village  of  Ottawas,  I 
found  all  the  inhabitants  in  confusion  :  they  were  all  busily  engaged 
in  raising  noises  of  the  loudest  and  most  inharmonious  kind.  Upon 
inquiry,  I  found  that  a  battle  had  been  lately  fought  between  the 
Ottawas  and  the  Kickapoos,  and  that  the  object  of  all  this  noise  was 
to  prevent  the  ghosts  of  the  departed  combatants  from  entering  the 
village.” 

Among  the  Basutos  “  ablution  is  specially  performed  on  return  from 
battle.  It  is  absolutely  necessary  that  the  warriors  should  rid  them¬ 
selves,  as  soon  as  possible,  of  the  blood  they  have  shed,  or  the  shades 
of  their  victims  would  pursue  them  incessantly,  and  disturb  their 
slumbers.  They  go  in  a  procession,  and  in  full  armour,  to  the  nearest 
stream.  At  the  moment  they  enter  the  water  a  diviner,  placed  higher 
up,  throws  some  purifying  substances  into  the  current.  This  is,  how¬ 
ever,  not  strictly  necessary.  The  javelins  and  battle-axes  also  undergo 
the  process  of  washing.”  Among  the  Bageshu  of  East  Africa  a  man  who 
has  killed  another  may  not  return  to  his  own  house  on  the  same  day, 
though  he  may  enter  the  village  and  spend  the  night  in  a  friend  s  house. 
He  kills  a  sheep  and  smears  his  chest,  his  right  arm,  and  his  head  with 
the  contents  of  the  animal’s  stomach.  His  children  are  brought  to  him 
and  he  smears  them  in  like  manner.  Then  he  smears  each  side  of  the 
doorway  with  the  tripe  and  entrails,  and  finally  throws  the  rest  of  the 
stomach  on  the  roof  of  his  house.  For  a  whole  day  he  may  not  touch 
food  with  his  hands,  but  picks  it  up  with  two  sticks  and  so  conveys 
it  to  his  mouth.  His  wife  is  not  under  any  such  restrictions.  She 
may  even  go  to  mourn  for  the  man  whom,  her  husband  has  killed, 
if  she  wishes  to  do  so.  Among  the  Angoni,  to  the  north  of  the 
Zambesi,  warriors  who  have  slain  foes  on  an  expedition  smear  their 
bodies  and  faces  with  ashes,  hang  garments  of  their  victims  on  their 
persons,  and  tie  bark  ropes  round  their  necks,  so  that  the  ends  hang 
down  over  their  shoulders  or  breasts.  This  costume  they  wear  for 
three  days  after  their  return,  and  rising  at  break  of  day  they  run 
through  the  village  uttering  frightful  yells  to  drive  away  the  ghosts 
of  the  slain,  which,  if  they  were  not  thus  banished  from  the  houses, 
might  bring  sickness  and  misfortune  on  the  inmates. 

In  some  of  these  accounts  nothing  is  said  of  an  enforced  seclusion, 
at  least  after  the  ceremonial  cleansing,  but  some  South  African  tribes 
certainly  require  the  slayer  of  a  very  gallant  foe  in  war  to  keep  apart 
from  his  wife  and  family  for  ten  days  after  he  has  washed  his  body  in 
running  water.  He  also  receives  from  the  tribal  doctor  a  medicine 
which  he  chews  with  his  food.  When  a  Nandi  of  East  Africa  has  killed 


XX 


MANSLAYERS  TABOOED 


215 


a  member  of  another  tribe,  he  paints  one  side  of  his  body,  spear,  and 
sword  red,  and  the  other  side  white.  For  four  days  after  the  slaughter 
he  is  considered  unclean  and  may  not  go  home.  He  has  to  build  a  small 
shelter  by  a  river  and  live  there  ;  he  may  not  associate  with  his  wife  or 
sweetheart,  and  he  may  eat  nothing  but  porridge,  beef,  and  goat’s  flesh. 
At  the  end  of  the  fourth  day  he  must  purify  himself  by  taking  a  strong 
purge  made  from  the  bark  of  the  segetet  tree  and  by  drinking  goat’s 
milk  mixed  with  blood.  Among  the  Bantu  tribes  of  Kavirondo,  when  a 
man  has  killed  an  enemy  in  warfare  he  shaves  his  head  on  his  return 
home,  and  his  friends  rub  a  medicine,  which  generally  consists  of 
goat’s  dung,  over  his  body  to  prevent  the  spirit  of  the  slain  man  from 
troubling  him.  Exactly  the  same  custom  is  practised  for  the  same 
reason  by  the  Wageia  of  East  Africa.  With  the  Ja-Luo  of  Kavirondo 
the  custom  is  somewhat  different.  Three  days  after  his  return  from 
the  fight  the  warrior  shaves  his  head.  But  before  he  may  enter  his 
village  he  has  to  hang  a  live  fowl,  head  uppermost,  round  his  neck  ; 
then  the  bird  is  decapitated  and  its  head  left  hanging  round  his  neck! 
Soon  after  his  return  a  feast  is  made  for  the  slain  man,  in  order  that 
his  ghost  may  not  haunt  his  slayer.  In  the  Pelew  Islands,  when  the 
men  return  from  a  warlike  expedition  in  which  they  have  taken  a  life, 
the  young  warriors  who  have  been  out  fighting  for  the  first  time,  and 
all  who  handled  the  slain,  are  shut  up  in  the  large  council-house  and 
become  tabooed.  They  may  not  quit  the  edifice,  nor  bathe,  nor  touch 
a  woman,  nor  eat  fish  ;  their  food  is  limited  to  coco-nuts  and  syrup. 
They  rub  themselves  with  charmed  leaves  and  chew  charmed  betel. 
After  three  days  they  go  together  to  bathe  as  near  as  possible  to  the 
spot  where  the  man  was  killed. 

Among  the  Natchez  Indians  of  North  America  young  braves  who 
had  taken  their  first  scalps  were  obliged  to  observe  certain  rules  of 
abstinence  for  six  months.  They  might  not  sleep  with  their  wives 
nor  eat  flesh  ;  their  only  food  was  fish  and  hasty-pudding.  If  they 
broke  these  rules,  they  believed  that  the  soul  of  the  man  they  had 
killed  would  work  their  death  by  magic,  that  they  would  gain  no  more 
successes  over  the  enemy,  and  that  the  least  wound  inflicted  on  them 
would  prove  mortal.  When  a  Choctaw  had  killed  an  enemy  and  taken 
his  scalp,  he  went  into  mourning  for  a  month,  during  which  he  might 
not  comb  his  hair,  and  if  his  head  itched  he  might  not  scratch  it  except 
with  a  little  stick  which  he  wore  fastened  to  his  wrist  for  the  purpose. 
This  ceremonial  mourning  for  the  enemies  they  had  slain  was  not 
uncommon  among  the  North  American  Indians. 

Thus  we  see  that  warriors  who  have  taken  the  life  of  a  foe  in  battle 
are  temporarily  cut  off  from  free  intercourse  with  their  fellows,  and 
especially  with  their  wives,  and  must  undergo  certain  rites  of  purifica¬ 
tion  before  they  are  readmitted  to  society.  Now  if  the  purpose  of 
their  seclusion  and  of  the  expiatory  rites  which  they  have  to  perform 
is,  as  we  have  been  led  to  believe,  no  other  than  to  shake  off,  frighten, 
or  appease  the  angry  spirit  of  the  slain  man,  we  may  safely  conjecture 
that  the  similar  purification  of  homicides  and  murderers,  who  have 


2l6 


TABOOED  PERSONS 


CH. 


imbrued  their  hands  in  the  blood  of  a  fellow-tribesman,  had  at  first 
the  same  significance,  and  that  the  idea  of  a  moral  or  spiritual  regenera¬ 
tion  symbolised  by  the  washing,  the  fasting,  and  so  on,  was  merely 
a  later  interpretation  put  upon  the  old  custom  by  men  who  had  out¬ 
grown  the  primitive  modes  of  thought  in  which  the  custom  originated. 
The  conjecture  will  be  confirmed  if  we  can  show  that  savages  have  actu¬ 
ally  imposed  certain  restrictions  on  the  murderer  of  a  fellow-tribesman 
from  a  definite  fear  that  he  is  haunted  by  the  ghost  of  his  victim.  This 
we  can  do  with  regard  to  the  Omahas  of  North  America.  Among  these 
Indians  the  kinsmen  of  a  murdered  man  had  the  right  to  put  the 
murderer  to  death,  but  sometimes  they  waived  their  right  in  con¬ 
sideration  of  presents  which  they  consented  to  accept.  When  the 
life  of  the  murderer  was  spared,  he  had  to  observe  certain  stringent 
rules  for  a  period  which  varied  from  two  to  four  years.  He  must  walk 
barefoot,  and  he  might  eat  no  warm  food,  nor  raise  his  voice,  nor  look 
around.  He  was  compelled  to  pull  his  robe  about  him  and  to  have  it 
tied  at  the  neck  even  in  hot  weather  ;  he  might  not  let  it  hang  loose  or 
fly  open.  He  might  not  move  his  hands  about,  but  had  to  keep  them 
close  to  his  body.  He  might  not  comb  his  hair,  and  it  might  not  be 
blown  about  by  the  wind.  When  the  tribe  went  out  hunting,  he  was 
obliged  to  pitch  his  tent  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  rest  of  the 
people  “  lest  the  ghost  of  his  victim  should  raise  a  high  wind,  which 
might  cause  damage/ ’  Only  one  of  his  kindred  was  allowed  to  remain 
with  him  at  his  tent.  No  one  wished  to  eat  with  him,  for  they  said, 
“  If  we  eat  with  him  whom  Wakanda  hates,  Wakanda  will  hate  us.” 
Sometimes  he  wandered  at  night  crying  and  lamenting  his  offence. 
At  the  end  of  his  long  isolation  the  kinsmen  of  the  murdered  man 
heard  his  crying  and  said,  “  It  is  enough.  Begone,  and  walk  among 
the  crowd.  Put  on  moccasins  and  wear  a  good  robe.”  Here  the 
reason  alleged  for  keeping  the  murderer  at  a  considerable  distance 
from  the  hunters  gives  the  clue  to  all  the  other  restrictions  laid  on 
him  :  he  was  haunted  and  therefore  dangerous.  The  ancient  Greeks 
believed  that  the  soul  of  a  man  who  had  just  been  killed  was  wroth 
with  his  slayer  and  troubled  him  ;  wherefore  it  was  needful  even  for 
the  involuntary  homicide  to  depart  from  his  country  for  a  year  until 
the  anger  of  the  dead  man  had  cooled  down  ;  nor  might  the  slayer 
return  until  sacrifice  had  been  offered  and  ceremonies  of  purification 
performed.  If  his  victim  chanced  to  be  a  foreigner,  the  homicide  had 
to  shun  the  native  country  of  the  dead  man  as  well  as  his  own.  The 
legend  of  the  matricide  Orestes,  how  he  roamed  from  place  to  place 
pursued  by  the  Furies  of  his  murdered  mother,  and  none  would  sit 
at  meat  with  him,  or  take  him  in,  till  he  had  been  purified,  reflects 
faithfully  the  real  Greek  dread  of  such  as  were  still  haunted  by  an 
angry  ghost. 

§  6.  Hunters  and  Fishers  tabooed. — In  savage  society  the  hunter 
and  the  fisherman  have  often  to  observe  rules  of  abstinence  and  to 
submit  to  ceremonies  of  purification  of  the  same  sort  as  those  which 
are  obligatory  on  the  warrior  and  the  manslayer  ;  and  though  we  can- 


XX 


HUNTERS  AND  FISHERS  TABOOED 


21 7 

not  in  all  cases  perceive  the  exact  purpose  which  these  rules  and 

““ha*''6  f'PP0/^  to, serve,  we  may  with  some  probably 
assume  that  just  as  the  dread  of  the  spirits  of  his  enemies  is  the  main 
motive  for  the  seclusion  and  purification  of  the  warrior  who  hopes  to 
ke  01  has  already  taken  their  lives,  so  the  huntsman  or  fisherman 

of  theC  SDiritsoUth1  elm'!ar  cu=toms  is  principally  actuated  by  a  fear 
to  bin  P  p 1  the  beaStS>  blrds’  or  fish  which  he  has  killed  or  intends 
For  the  savage  commonly  conceives  animals  to  be  endowed 
with  souls  and  intelligences  like  his  own,  and  hence  he  naturally  treats 

of  the  ^  S11™l  ar  respect.  Just  as  he  attempts  to  appease  the7 ghosts 
the  men  he  has  slain,  so  he  essays  to  propitiate  the  spirits  of  the 

dara%h,ethaS  kl  6u'-  TheSe  ceremonies  °f  propitiation  will  be 
scribed  later  on  in  this  work  ;  here  we  have  to  deal,  first,  with  the 

taboos  observed  by  the  hunter  and  the  fisherman  before  or  during 

the  hunting  and  fishing  seasons,  and,  second,  with  the  ceremonies  of 

with^hefrhr'l11^  haVe  t0  be  practised  by  these  men  on  returning 
with  their  booty  from  a  successful  chase.  6 

While  the  savage  respects,  more  or  less,  the  souls  of  all  animals 
he  treats  with  particular  deference  the  spirits  of  such  as  are  elthei 
especially  useful  to  him  or  formidable  on  account  of  their  size,  strength, 
or  feiocity.  Accordingly  the  hunting  and  killing  of  these  valuable 
r  dangerous  beasts  are  subject  to  more  elaborate  rules  and  ceremonies 
than  the  slaughter  of  comparatively  useless  and  insignificant  creatures. 
Thus  the  Indians  of  Nootka  Sound  prepared  themselves  for  catching 
w  a  es  by  observing  a  fast  for  a  week,  during  which  they  ate  very  litthf 

limbs  2,  f 6  watei;rr  al  timr a  da^ san^ and  ™bbed 

mbs,  and  faces  with  shells  and  bushes  till  they  looked  as  if  they  had 

from  t0m  Wlth  bw,f-  •  They  W6re  likewise  required  to  abstain 

from  any  commerce  with  their  women  for  the  like  period,  this  last 

condition  being  considered  indispensable  to  their  success.  A  chief 

wio  ailed  to  catch  a  whale  has  been  known  to  attribute  his  failure 

tw  b+rCh  °!  cba?llty  °n  the.  Part  of  his  men-  Tt  should  be  remarked 
at  the  conduct  thus  prescribed  as  a  preparation  for  whaling  is  pre- 

cisely  that  which  in  the  same  tribe  of  Indians  was  required* men 

aoout  to  go  on  the  war-path.  Rules  of  the  same  sort  are,  or  were 

formerly,  observed  by  Malagasy  whalers.  For  eight  days  before  they 

mid  honor a  hH  “T  °f  &  USed  t0  faSt>  abstaining  from  women 

and  liquor,  and  confessing  their  most  secret  faults  to  each  other  •  and 

if  any  man  was  found  to  have  sinned  deeply,  he  was  forbidden  to ’share 

in  the  expedition  In  the  island  of  Mabuiag  continence  was  imposed 

on  the  people  both  before  they  went  to  hunt  the  dugong  and  while 

the  turtles  were  pairing.  The  turtle-season  lasts  during  parts  of 

October  and  November ;  and  if  at  that  time  unmarried  persons  had 

exual  wtercourse  with  each  other,  it  was  believed  that  when  the  canoe 

pproached  the  floating  turtle,  the  male  would  separate  from  the 

emale  and  both  would  dive  down  in  different  directions.  So  at  Mowat 

n  ew  uinea  men  have  no  relation  with  women  when  the  turtle  are 

coupling,  though  there  is  considerable  laxity  of  morals  at  other  times. 


2I8  TABOOED  PERSONS  ch. 

In  the  island  of  Uap,  one  of  the  Caroline  group,  every  fisherman  plying 
his  craft  lies  under  a  most  strict  taboo  during  the  whole  of  the  fishing 
season,  which  lasts  for  six  or  eight  weeks.  Whenever  he  is  on  shore 
he  must  spend  all  his  time  in  the  men’s  clubhouse,  and  under  no 
pretext  whatever  may  he  visit  his  own  house  or  so  much  as  look  upon 
the  faces  of  his  wife  and  womenkind.  Were  he  but  to  steal  a  glance 
at  them,  they  think  that  flying  fish  must  inevitably  bore  out  his  eyes 
at  night.  If  his  wife,  mother,  or  daughter  brings  any  gift  for  him  or 
wishes  to  talk  with  him,  she  must  stand  down  towards  the  shore  with 
her  back  turned  to  the  men’s  clubhouse.  Then  the  fisherman  may  go 
out  and  speak  to  her,  or  with  his  back  turned  to  her  he  may  receive 
what  she  has  brought  him ;  after  which  he  must  return  at  once  to 
his  rigorous  confinement.  Indeed  the  fishermen  may  not  even  join 
in  dance  and  song  with  the  other  men  of  the  clubhouse  in  the  evening  ; 
they  must  keep  to  themselves  and  be  silent.  In  Mirzapur,  when  the 
seed  of  the  silkworm  is  brought  into  the  house,  the  Kol  or  Bhuiyar 
puts  it  in  a  place  which  has  been  carefully  plastered  with  holy  cow- 
dung  to  bring  good  luck.  From  that  time  the  owner  must  be  careful 
to  avoid  ceremonial  impurity.  He  must  give  up  cohabitation  with  his 
wife  ;  he  may  not  sleep  on  a  bed,  nor  shave  himself,  nor  cut  his  nails, 
nor  anoint  himself  with  oil,  nor  eat  food  cooked  with  butter,  nor  tell 
lies,  nor  do  anything  else  that  he  deems  wrong.  He  vows  to  Singarmati 
Devi  that,  if  the  worms  are  duly  born,  he  will  make  her  an  offering. 
When  the  cocoons  open  and  the  worms  appear,  he  assembles  the 
women  of  the  house  and  they  sing  the  same  song  as  at  the  birth  of  a 
baby,  and  red  lead  is  smeared  on  the  parting  of  the  hair  of  all  the 
married  women  of  the  neighbourhood.  When  the  worms  pair,  re¬ 
joicings  are  made  as  at  a  marriage.  Thus  the  silkworms  are  treated 
as  far  as  possible  like  human  beings.  Hence  the  custom  which 
prohibits  the  commerce  of  the  sexes  while  the  worms  are  hatching  may 
be  only  an  extension,  by  analogy,  of  the  rule  which  is  observed  by 
many  races,  that  the  husband  may  not  cohabit  with  his  wife  during 
pregnancy  and  lactation. 

In  the  island  of  Nias  the  hunters  sometimes  dig  pits,  cover  them 
lightly  over  with  twigs,  grass,  and  leaves,  and  then  drive  the  game 
into  them.  While  they  are  engaged  in  digging  the  pits,  they  have  to 
observe  a  number  of  taboos.  They  may  not  spit,  or  the  game  would 
turn  back  in  disgust  from  the  pits.  They  may  not  laugh,  or  the  sides 
of  the  pit  would  fall  in.  They  may  eat  no  salt,  prepare  no  fodder  for 
swine,  and  in  the  pit  they  may  not  scratch  themselves,  for  if  they  did, 
the  earth  would  be  loosened  and  would  collapse.  And  the  night  after 
digging  the  pit  they  may  have  no  intercourse  with  a  woman,  or  all 
their  labour  would  be  in  vain. 

This  practice  of  observing  strict  chastity  as  a  condition  of  success 
in  hunting  and  fishing  is  very  common  among  rude  races  ;  and  the 
instances  of  it  which  have  been  cited  render  it  probable  that  the  rule 
is  always  based  on  a  superstition  rather  than  on  a  consideration  of  the 
temporary  weakness  which  a  breach  of  the  custom  may  entail  on  the 


XX 


HUNTERS  AND  FISHERS  TABOOED  219 

huniier  or  fisherman.  In  general  it  appears  to  be  supposed  that  the 
evil  effect  of  incontinence  is  not  so  much  that  it  weakens  him,  as  that 
or  some  reason  or  other,  it  offends  the  animals,  who  in  consequence 
will  not  suffer  themselves  to  be  caught.  A  Carrier  Indian  of  British 
Columbia  used  to  separate  from  his  wife  for  a  full  month  before  he  set 
traps  for  bears,  and  during  this  time  he  might  not  drink  from  the  same 
vessel  as  his  wife,  but  had  to  use  a  special  cup  made  of  birch  bark. 

le  neglect  of  these  precautions  would  cause  the  game  to  escape  after 
it  had.  been  snared.  But  when  he  was  about  to  snare  martens  the 
period  of  continence  was  cut  down  to  ten  days. 

An  examination  of  all  the  many  cases  in  which  the  savage  bridles 
his  passions  and  remains  chaste  from  motives  of  superstition,  would 
be  instructive,  but  I  cannot  attempt  it  now.  I  will  only  add  a  few 
miscellaneous  examples  of  the  custom  before  passing  to  the  ceremonies 
of  purification  which  are  observed  by  the  hunter  and  fisherman  after 
the  chase  and  the  fishing  are  over.  The  workers  in  the  salt-pans 
near  Siphoum,  in  Laos,  must  abstain  from  all  sexual  relations  at  the 
place  where  they  are  at  work  ;  and  they  may  not  cover  their  heads 
nor  shelter  themselves  under  an  umbrella  from  the  burning  rays  of  the 
sun.  Among  the  Kachins  of  Burma  the  ferment  used  in  making  beer  is 
prepared  by  two  women,  chosen  by  lot,  who  during  the  three  days  that 
the  process  lasts  may  eat  nothing  acid  and  may  have  no  conjugal 
relations  with  their  husbands  ;  otherwise  it  is  supposed  that  the 
beei  would  be  sour.  Among  the  Masai  honey-wine  is  brewed  by  a 
man  and  a  woman  who  live  in  a  hut  set  apart  for  them  till  the  wine 
is  ready  for  drinking.  But  they  are  strictly  forbidden  to  have  sexual 
intercourse  with  each  other  during  this  time  ;  it  is  deemed  essential 
that  they  should  be  chaste  for  two  days  before  they  begin  to  brew  and 
for  the  whole  of  the  six  days  that  the  brewing  lasts.  The  Masai  believe 
that  were  the  couple  to  commit  a  breach  of  chastity,  not  only  would 
the  wine  be  undrinkable  but  the  bees  which  made  the  honey  would  fly 
away.  Similarly  they  require  that  a  man  who  is  making  poison  should 
sleep  alone  and  observe  other  taboos  which  render  him  almost  an  out¬ 
cast.  The  Wandorobbo,  a  tribe  of  the  same  region  as  the  Masai  believe 
that  the  mere  presence  of  a  woman  in  the  neighbourhood  of  a  man 
who  is  brewing  poison  would  deprive  the  poison  of  its  venom  and  that 
the  same  thing  would  happen  if  the  wife  of  the  poison-maker  were  to 
commit  adultery  while  her  husband  was  brewing  the  poison.  In  this 
last  case  it  is  obvious  that  a  rationalistic  explanation  of  the  taboo  is 
impossible.  How  could  the  loss  of  virtue  in  the  poison  be  a  physical 
consequence  of  the  loss  of  virtue  in  the  poison-maker’s  wife  ?  Clearly 
the  effect  which  the  wife’s  adultery  is  supposed  to  have  on  the  poison  is 
a  case  of  sympathetic  magic  ;  her  misconduct  sympathetically  affects 
her  husband  and  his  work  at  a  distance.  We  may,  accordingly,  infer 
with  some  confidence  that  the  rule  of  continence  imposed  on  the 
poison-maker  himself  is  also  a  simple  case  of  sympathetic  magic,  and 
not,  as  a  civilised  reader  might  be  disposed  to  conjecture,  a  wise  pre¬ 
caution  designed  to  prevent  him  from  accidentally  poisoning  his  wife. 


220  TABOOED  PERSONS  ch. 

Among  the  Ba-Pedi  and  Ba-thonga  tribes  of  South  Africa,  when 
the  site  of  a  new  village  has  been  chosen  and  the  houses  are  building, 
all  the  married  people  are  forbidden  to  have  conjugal  relations  with 
each  other.  If  it  were  discovered  that  any  couple  had  broken  this 
rule  the  work  of  building  would  immediately  be  stopped,  and  another 
site  chosen  for  the  village.  For  they  think  that  a  breach  of  chastity 
would  spoil  the  village  which  was  growing  up,  that  the  chief  would 
grow  lean  and  perhaps  die,  and  that  the  guilty  woman  would  never 
bear  another  child.  Among  the  Chams  of  Cochin-China,  when  a 
dam  is  made  or  repaired  on  a  river  for  the  sake  of  irrigation, 
the  chief  who  offers  the  traditional  sacrifices  and  implores  .  the 
protection  of  the  deities  on  the  work,  has  to  stay  all  the  time  in  a 
wretched  hovel  of  straw,  taking  no  part  in  the  labour,  and  observing 
the  strictest  continence  ;  for  the  people  believe  that  a  breach  of  his 
chastity  would  entail  a  breach  of  the  dam.  Here,  it  is  plain,  there  can 
be  no  idea  of  maintaining  the  mere  bodily  vigour  of  the  chief  for  the 
accomplishment  of  a  task  in  which  he  does  not  even  bear  a  hand. 

If  the  taboos  or  abstinences  observed  by  hunters  and  fishermen 
before  and  during  the  chase  are  dictated,  as  we  have  seen  reason  to 
believe,  by  superstitious  motives,  and  chiefly  by  a  dread  of  offending 
or  frightening  the  spirits  of  the  creatures  whom  it  is  proposed  to  kill, 
we  may  expect  that  the  restraints  imposed  after  the  slaughter  has  been 
perpetrated  will  be  at  least  as  stringent,  the  slayer  and  his  fiiends 
having  now  the  added  fear  of  the  angry  ghosts  of  his  victims  before 
their  eyes.  Whereas  on  the  hypothesis  that  the  abstinences  in  (question, 
including  those  from  food,  drink,  and  sleep,  are  merely  salutary  pre¬ 
cautions  for  maintaining  the  men  in  health  and  strength  to  do  their 
work,  it  is  obvious  that  the  observance  of  these  abstinences  or  taboos 
after  ’  the  work  is  done,  that  is,  when  the  game  is  killed  and  the  fish 
caught,  must  be  wholly  superfluous,  absurd,  and  inexplicable.  But 
as  I  shall  now  show,  these  taboos  often  continue  to  be  enforced  or  even 
increased  in  stringency  after  the  death  of  the  animals,  in  other  words, 
after  the  hunter  or  fisher  has  accomplished  his  object  by  making  his 
bag  or  landing  his  fish.  The  rationalistic  theory  of  them  therefore 
breaks  down  entirely  ;  the  hypothesis  of  superstition  is  clearly  the 
only  one  open  to  us. 

Among  the  Inuit  or  Esquimaux  of  Bering  Strait  “the  dead  bodies  of 
various  animals  must  be  treated  very  carefully  by  the  hunter  who 
obtains  them,  so  that  their  shades  may  not  be  offended  and  bring 
bad  luck  or  even  death  upon  him  or  his  people.”  Hence  the  Unalit 
hunter  who  has  had  a  hand  in  the  killing  of  a  white  whale,  or  even  has 
helped  to  take  one  from  the  net,  is  not  allowed  to  do  any  work  for 
the  next  four  days,  that  being  the  time  during  which  the  shade  or 
ghost  of  the  whale  is  supposed  to  stay  with  its  body.  At  the  same 
time  no  one  in  the  village  may  use  any  sharp  or  pointed  instrument 
for  fear  of  wounding  the  whale’s  shade,  which  is  believed  to  be  hovering 
invisible  in  the  neighbourhood  ;  and  no  loud  noise  may  be  made  lest 
it  should  frighten  or  offend  the  ghost.  Whoever  cuts  a  whale’s  body 


XX 


HUNTERS  AND  FISHERS  TABOOED 


221 


with  an  iron  axe  will  die.  Indeed  the  use  of  all  iron  instruments  is 
forbidden  in  the  village  during  these  four  days. 

These  same  Esquimaux  celebrate  a  great  annual  festival  in 
December,  when  the  bladders  of  all  the  seals,  whales,  walrus,  and  white 
bears  that  have  been  killed  in  the  year  are  taken  into  the  assembly- 
house  of  the  village.  They  remain  there  for  several  days,  and  so  long 
as  they  do  so  the  hunters  avoid  all  intercourse  with  women,  saying 
that  if  they  failed  in  that  respect  the  shades  of  the  dead  animals  would 
be  offended.  Similarly  among  the  Aleuts  of  Alaska  the  hunter  who  had 
struck  a  whale  with  a  charmed  spear  would  not  throw  again,  but  returned 
at  once  to  his  home  and  separated  himself  from  his  people  in  a  hut 
specially  constructed  for  the  purpose,  where  he  stayed  for  three  days 
without  food  or  drink,  and  without  touching  or  looking  upon  a  woman. 
During  this  time  of  seclusion  he  snorted  occasionally  in  imitation  of 
the  wounded  and  dying  whale,  in  order  to  prevent  the  whale  which 
he  had  struck  from  leaving  the  coast.  On  the  fourth  day  he  emerged 
from  his  seclusion  and  bathed  in  the  sea,  shrieking  in  a  hoarse  voice 
and  beating  the  water  with  his  hands.  Then,  taking  with  him  a  com¬ 
panion,  he  repaired  to  that  part  of  the  shore  where  he  expected  to  find 
the  whale  stranded.  If  the  beast  was  dead,  he  at  once  cut  out 
the  place  where  the  death-wound  had  been  inflicted.  If  the  whale 
was  not  dead,  he  again  returned  to  his  home  and  continued  washing 
himself  until  the  whale  died.  Here  the  hunter’s  imitation  of  the 
wounded  whale  is  probably  intended  by  means  of  homoeopathic 
magic  to  make  the  beast  die  in  earnest.  Once  more  the  soul  of  the 
grim  polar  bear  is  offended  if  the  taboos  which  concern  him  are  not 
observed.  His  soul  tarries  for  three  days  near  the  spot  where  it  left 
his  body,  and  during  these  days  the  Esquimaux  are  particularly  care¬ 
ful  to  conform  rigidly  to  the  laws  of  taboo,  because  they  believe 
that  punishment  overtakes  the  transgressor  who  sins  against  the  soul 
of  a  bear  far  more  speedily  than  him  who  sins  against  the  souls  of  the 
sea-beasts. 

When  the  Kayans  have  shot  one  of  the  dreaded  Bornean  panthers, 
they  are  very  anxious  about  the  safety  of  their  souls,  for  they  think 
that  the  soul  of  a  panther  is  almost  more  powerful  than  their  own. 
Hence  they  step  eight  times  over  the  carcase  of  the  dead  beast  reciting 
the  spell,  “  Panther,  thy  soul  under  my  soul.”  On  returning  home 
they  smear  themselves,  their  dogs,  and  their  weapons  with  the  blood 
of  fowls  in  order  to  calm  their  souls  and  hinder  them  from  fleeing  away  ; 
for,  being  themselves  fond  of  the  flesh  of  fowls,  they  ascribe  the  same 
taste  to  their  souls.  For  eight  days  afterwards  they  must  bathe  by 
day  and  by  night  before  going  out  again  to  the  chase.  Among  the 
Hottentots,  when  a  man  has  killed  a  lion,  leopard,  elephant,  or  rhino¬ 
ceros,  he  is  esteemed  a  great  hero,  but  he  has  to  remain  at  home  quite 
idle  for  three  days,  during  which  his  wife  may  not  come  near  him  ; 
she  is  also  enjoined  to  restrict  herself  to  a  poor  diet  and  to  eat  no  more 
than  is  barely  necessary  to  keep  her  in  health.  Similarly  the  Lapps 
deem  it  the  height  of  glory  to  kill  a  bear,  which  they  consider  the 


222 


TABOOED  PERSONS 


CH. 


king  of  beasts.  Nevertheless,  all  the  men  who  take  part  in  the 
slaughter  are  regarded  as  unclean,  and  must  live  by  themselves  for 
three  days  in  a  hut  or  tent  made  specially  for  them,  where  they  cut 
up  and  cook  the  bear’s  carcase.  The  reindeer  which  brought  in  the 
carcase  on  a  sledge  may  not  be  driven  by  a  woman  for  a  whole  year ; 
indeed,  according  to  one  account,  it  may  not  be  used  by  anybody  for 
that  period.  Before  the  men  go  into  the  tent  where  they  are  to  be 
secluded,  they  strip  themselves  of  the  garments  they  had  worn  in 
killing  the  bear,  and  their  wives  spit  the  red  juice  of  alder  bark  in  their 
faces.  They  enter  the  tent  not  by  the  ordinary  door  but  by  an  opening 
at  the  back.  When  the  bear’s  flesh  has  been  cooked,  a  portion  of  it 
is  sent  by  the  hands  of  two  men  to  the  women,  who  may  not  approach 
the  men’s  tent  while  the  cooking  is  going  on.  The  men  who  convey 
the  flesh  to  the  women  pretend  to  be  strangers  bringing  presents  from 
a  foreign  land  ;  the  women  keep  up  the  pretence  and  promise  to  tie 
red  threads  round  the  legs  of  the  strangers.  The  bear’s  flesh  may  not 
be  passed  in  to  the  women  through  the  door  of  their  tent,  but  must 
be  thrust  in  at  a  special  opening  made  by  lifting  up  the  hem  of  the 
tent-cover.  When  the  three  days’  seclusion  is  over  and  the  men  are 
at  liberty  to  return  to  their  wives,  they  run,  one  after  the  other,  round 
the  fire,  holding  the  chain  by  which  pots  are  suspended  over  it.  This 
is  regarded  as  a  form  of  purification  ;  they  may  now  leave  the  tent 
by  the  ordinary  door  and  rejoin  the  women.  But  the  leader  of  the 
party  must  still  abstain  from  cohabitation  with  his  wife  for  two  days 
more. 

Again,  the  Caffres  are  said  to  dread  greatly  the  boa-constrictor  or 
an  enormous  serpent  resembling  it ;  “  and  being  influenced  by  certain 
superstitious  notions  they  even  fear  to  kill  it.  The  man  who  happened 
to  put  it  to  death,  whether  in  self-defence  or  otherwise,  was  formerly 
required  to  lie  in  a  running  stream  of  water  during  the  day  for  several 
weeks  together  ;  and  no  beast  whatever  was  allowed  to  be  slaughtered 
at  the  hamlet  to  which  he  belonged,  until  this  duty  had  been  fully 
performed.  The  body  of  the  snake  was  then  taken  and  carefully 
buried  in  a  trench,  dug  close  to  the  cattle-fold,  where  its  remains, 
like  those  of  a  chief,  were  henceforward  kept  perfectly  undisturbed. 
The  period  of  penance,  as  in  the  case  of  mourning  for  the  dead,  is  now 
happily  reduced  to  a  few  days.”  In  Madras  it  is  considered  a  great 
sin  to  kill  a  cobra.  When  this  has  happened,  the  people  generally 
burn  the  body  of  the  serpent,  just  as  they  burn  the  bodies  of  human 
beings.  The  murderer  deems  himself  polluted  for  three  days.  On 
the  second  day  milk  is  poured  on  the  remains  of  the  cobra.  On  the 
third  day  the  guilty  wretch  is  free  from  pollution. 

In  these  last  cases  the  animal  whose  slaughter  has  to  be  atoned  for 
is  sacred,  that  is,  it  is  one  whose  life  is  commonly  spared  from  motives 
of  superstition.  Yet  the  treatment  of  the  sacrilegious  slayer  seems  to 
resemble  so  closely  the  treatment  of  hunters  and  fishermen  who 
have  killed  animals  for  food  in  the  ordinary  course  of  business,  that 
the  ideas  on  which  both  sets  of  customs  are  based  may  be  assumed  to 


XXI 


THE  MEANING  OF  TABOO  223 

be  substantially  the  same.  Those  ideas,  if  I  am  right,  are  the  respect 
which  the  savage  feels  for  the  souls  of  beasts,  especially  valuable  or 
formidable  beasts,  and  the  dread  which  he  entertains  of  their  vengeful 
ghosts.  Some  confirmation  of  this  view  may  be  drawn  from  the 
ceremonies  obseived  by  fishermen  of  Annam  when  the  carcase  of  a 
whale  is  washed  ashore.  These  fisherfolk,  we  are  told,  worship  the 
whale  on  account  of  the  benefits  they  derive  from  it.  There  is  hardly 
a  village  on  the  sea-shore  which  has  not  its  small  pagoda,  containing 
the  bones,  more  or  less  authentic,  of  a  whale.  When  a  dead  whale  is 
washed  ashore,  the  people  accord  it  a  solemn  burial.  The  man  who 
first  caught  sight  of  it  acts  as  chief  mourner,  performing  the  rites 
which  as  chief  mourner  and  heir  he  would  perform  for  a  human  kinsman. 
He  puts  on  all  the  garb  of  woe,  the  straw  hat,  the  white  robe  with  long 
sleeves  turned  inside  out,  and  the  other  paraphernalia  of  full  mourning. 
As  next  of  kin  to  the  deceased  he  presides  over  the  funeral  rites.  Per¬ 
fumes  are  burned,  sticks  of  incense  kindled,  leaves  of  gold  and  silver 
scattered,  crackers  let  off.  When  the  flesh  has  been  cut  off  and  the 
oil  extracted,  the  remains  of  the  carcase  are  buried  in  the  sand.  After¬ 
wards  a  shed  is  set  up  and  offerings  are  made  in  it.  Usually  some 
time  after  the  burial  the  spirit  of  the  dead  whale  takes  possession  of 
some  person  in  the  village  and  declares  by  his  mouth  whether  he  is 
a  male  or  a  female. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

TABOOED  THINGS 

§  I.  The  Meaning  of  Taboo.  — Thus  in  primitive  society  the 
rules  of  ceremonial  purity  observed  by  divine  kings,  chiefs,  and 
priests  agree  in  many  respects  with  the  rules  observed  by  homicides, 
mourners,  women  in  childbed,  girls  at  puberty,  hunters  and  fishermen, 
and  so  on.  To  us  these  various  classes  of  persons  appear  to  differ 
totally  in  character  and  condition  ;  some  of  them  we  should  call 
holy,  others  we  might  pronounce  unclean  and  polluted.  But  the 
savage  makes  no  such  moral  distinction  between  them  ;  the  con¬ 
ceptions  of  holiness  and  pollution  are  not  yet  differentiated  in  his 
mind.  To  him  the  common  feature  of  all  these  persons  is  that  they 
are  dangerous  and  in  danger,  and  the  danger  in  which  they  stand 
and  to  which  they  expose  others  is  what  we  should  call  spiritual  or 
ghostly,  and  therefore  imaginary.  The  danger,  however,  is  not  less 
real  because  it  is  imaginary ;  imagination  acts  upon  man  as  really 
as  does  gravitation,  and  may  kill  him  as  certainly  as  a  dose  of  prussic 
acid.  To  seclude  these  persons  from  the  rest  of  the  world  so  that 
the  dreaded  spiritual  danger  shall  neither  reach  them  nor  spread 
from  them,  is  the  object  of  the  taboos  which  they  have  to  observe. 
These  taboos  act,  so  to  say,  as  electrical  insulators  to  preserve  the 
spiritual  force  with  which  these  persons  are  charged  from  suffering 
or  inflicting  harm  by  contact  with  the  outer  world. 


224  TABOOED  THINGS  ch. 

To  the  illustrations  of  these  general  principles  which  have  been 
already  given  I  shall  now  add  some  more,  drawing  my  examples, 
first  from  the  class  of  tabooed  things,  and,  second,  from  the  class 
of  tabooed  words  ;  for  in  the  opinion  of  the  savage  both  things  and 
words  may,  like  persons,  be  charged  or  electrified,  either  temporarily 
or  permanently,  with  the  mysterious  virtue  of  taboo,  and  may  therefore 
require  to  be  banished  for  a  longer  or  shorter  time  from  the  familiar 
usa^e  of  common  life.  And  the  examples  will  be  chosen  with  special 
reference  to  those  sacred  chiefs,  kings  and  priests,  who,  more  than 
anybody  else,  live  fenced  about  by  taboo  as  by  a  wall.  Tabooed 
things  will  be  illustrated  in  the  present  chapter,  and  tabooed  words 

in  the  next.  ,,  ,  ,, 

§  2.  Ivon  tabooed. — In  the  first  place  we  may  observe  that  the 

awful  sanctity  of  kings  naturally  leads  to  a  prohibition  to  touch 
their  sacred  persons.  Thus  it  was  unlawful  to  lay  hands  on  the 
person  of  a  Spartan  king  :  no  one  might  touch  the  body  of  the  king 
or  queen  of  Tahiti  :  it  is  forbidden  to  touch  the  person  of  the  king 
of  Siam  under  pain  of  death  j  and  no  one  may  touch  the  king  of 
Cambodia,  for  any  purpose  whatever,  without  his  express  command. 
In  July  1874  the  king  was  thrown  from  his  carriage  and  lay  in¬ 
sensible  on  the  ground,  but  not  one  of  his  suite  dared  10  touch  him  ,  a 
European  coming  to  the  spot  carried  the  injured  monarch  to  his  palace. 
Formerly  no  one  might  touch  the  king  of  Corea ;  and  if  he  deigned 
to  touch  a  subject,  the  spot  touched  became  sacred,  and  the  person 
thus  honoured  had  to  wear  a  visible  mark  (generally  a  cord  of  red 
silk)  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  Above  all,  no  iron  might  touch  the  king’s 
body.  In  1800  King  Tieng-tsong-tai-oang  died  of  a  tumour  in  the 
back,  no  one  dreaming  of  employing  the  lancet,  which  would  probably 
have  saved  his  life.  It  is  said  that  one  king  suffered  terribly  from 
an  abscess  in  the  lip,  till  his  physician  called  in  a  jestei,  whose  pranks 
made  the  king  laugh  heartily,  and  so  the  abscess  burst.  Roman 
and  Sabine  priests  might  not  be  shaved  with  iron  but  only  with 
bronze  razors  or  shears  ;  and  whenever  an  iron  graving-tool  was 
brought  into  the  sacred  grove  of  the  Arval  Brothers  at  Rome  for  the 
purpose  of  cutting  an  inscription  in  stone,  an  expiatory  saciifice  of 
a  lamb  and  a  pig  must  be  offered,  which  was  repeated  when  the 
graving-tool  was  removed  from  the  grove.  As  a  general  rule  iron 
might  not  be  brought  into  Greek  sanctuaries.  In  Crete  sacrifices 
were  offered  to  Menedemus  without  the  use  of  iron,  because  the 
legend  ran  that  Menedemus  had  been  killed  by  an  iron  weapon  in 
the  Trojan  war.  The  Archon  of  Plataea  might  not  touch  iron  ;  but 
once  a  year,  at  the  annual  commemoration  of  the  men  who  fell  at  the 
battle  of  Plataea,  he  was  allowed  to  carry  a  sword  wherewith  to  sacrifice 
a  bull.  To  this  day  a  Hottentot  priest  never  uses  an  iron  knife,  but 
always  a  sharp  splint  of  quartz,  in  sacrificing  an  animal  or  circumcis¬ 
ing  a  lad.  Among  the  Ovambo  of  South-west  Africa  custom  requires 
that  lads  should  be  circumcised  with  a  sharp  flint  ;  if  none  is  to  hand, 
the  operation  may  be  performed  with  iron,  but  the  iion  must  afterwards 


XXI 


IRON  TABOOED 


225 

be  buried.  Amongst  the  Moquis  of  Arizona  stone  knives,  hatchets  and 
so  on  have  passed  out  of  common  use,  but  are  retained  in  religious 
ceremonies.  After  the  Pawnees  had  ceased  to  use  stone  arrow-heads 

°w[dmnry  purPoses>  they  stl11  employed  them  to  slay  the  sacrifices 
whether  human  captives  or  buffalo  and  deer.  Amongst  the  Jews  no 

an ' Vhr1  "tI  US6m  m  bu,lMln1g  tbe  TemPle  at  Jerusalem  or  in  making 
altar\  Thf  ol'l  wooden  bridge  ( Pons  Sublicius)  at  Rome,  which 
was  considered  sacred,  was  made  and  had  to  be  kepi  in  repair  Without 
the  use  of  iron  or  bronze.  It  was  expressly  provided  by  law  that 

took^Tl  6  °f  Llber  at  Furfo  mi§ht  be  repaired  with  iron 

tools.  The  council  chamber  at  Cyzicus  was  constructed  of  wood 

without  any  iron  nails,  the  beams  being  so  arranged  that  they  could 
be  taken  out  and  replaced.  y 

This  superstitious  objection  to  iron  perhaps  dates  from  that 
ear  y  ime  in  the  history  of  society  when  iron  was  still  a  novelty 
and  as  such  was  viewed  by  many  with  suspicion  and  dislike  For 
everythmg  new  is  apt  to  excite  the  awe  and  dread  of  the  savage. 

t  is  a  curious  superstition,”  says  a  pioneer  in  Borneo,  “  this  of 
the  Dusuns  to  attribute  anything— whether  good  or  bad,  lucky  or 
unlucky— that  happens  to  them  to  something  novel  which  has  arrived 
m  their  country  For  instance,  my  living  in  Kindram  has  caused 
tne  intensely  hot  weather  we  have  experienced  of  late.”  The  un¬ 
usually  heavy  rains  which  happened  to  follow  the  English  survey 
of  the  Nicobar  Islands  in  the  winter  of  1886-1887  were  imputed  bv 
the  alarmed  natives  to  the  wrath  of  the  spirits  at  the  theodolites 
dumpy-leveilers,  and  other  strange  instruments  which  had  been  set 
up  m  so  many  of  their  favourite  haunts  ;  and  some  of  them  proposed 
to  soothe  the  anger  of  the  spirits  by  sacrificing  a  pig.  In  the  seven- 

men^hientUry  a  succession  of  bad  seasons  excited  a  revolt  amonv 
the  Esthoman  peasantry,  who  traced  the  origin  of  the  evil  to  a  water- 
mill,  which  put  a  stream  to  some  inconvenience  by  checking  its  flow. 

he  first  introduction  of  iron  ploughshares  into  Poland  having  been 
followed  by  a  succession  of  bad  harvests,  the  farmers  attributed  the 
ac  ness  of  the  crops  to  the  iron  ploughshares,  and  discarded  them 
for  the  old  wooden  ones.  To  this  day  the  primitive  Baduwis  of  Tava 

fields  *Ve  0111657  by  husbandry’  wiU  use  no  iron  tools  in  tilling  their 


The  general  dislike  of  innovation,  which  always  makes  itself 
strongly  felt  in  the  sphere  of  religion,  is  sufficient  by  itself  to  account 
lor  the  superstitious  aversion  to  iron  entertained  by  kings  and  priests 
and  attributed  by  them  to  the  gods;  possibly  Ls  Lrsfon  m^ 
have  been  intensified  in  places  by  some  such  accidental  cause  as  the 
pTs  ,  bad  seasons  which  cast  discredit  on  iron  ploughshares  in 
raancl.  _  But  the  disfavour  in  which  -iron  is  held  by  the  gods  and 
eir  ministers  has  another  side.  Their  antipathy  to  the  metal 
furnishes  men  with  a  weapon  which  may  be  turned  against  the  spirits 
men  occasion  serves.  As  their  dislike  of  iron  is  supposed  to  be  so 
Teat  that  they  will  not  approach  persons  and  things  protected  by 

Q 


226  TABOOED  THINGS  < «. 

the  obnoxious  metal,  iron  may  obviously  be  employed  as  a  charm 
for  banning  ghosts  and  other  dangerous  spirits.  And  often  it  is  so 
used.  Thus  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  the  great  safeguard  against 
the  elfin  race  is  iron,  or,  better  yet,  steel.  The  metal  in  any  form 
whether  as  a  sword,  a  knife,  a  gun-barrel,  or  what  not,  is  all-powerful 
for  this  purpose.  Whenever  you  enter  a  fairy  dwelling  you  should 
always  remember  to  stick  a  piece  of  steel,  such  as  a  knife,  a  needle, 
or  a  fish-hook,  in  the  door  ;  for  then  the  elves  will  not  he  able  to 
shut  the  door  till  you  come  out  again.  So  too  when  you  have  shot 
a  deer  and  are  bringing  it  home  at  night,  be  sure  to  thrust  a  knife 
into  the  carcase,  for  that  keeps  the  fairies  from  laying  their  weight 
on  it.  A  knife  or  a  nail  in  your  pocket  is  quite  enough  to  prevent 
the  fairies  from  lifting  you  up  at  night.  Nails  in  the  front  of  a  bed 
ward  off  elves  from  women  “  in  the  straw  ”  and  from  their  babes  , 
but  to  make  quite  sure  it  is  better  to  put  the  smoothing-iron  under 
the  bed  and  the  reaping-hook  in  the  window.  If  a  bull  has  fallen 
over  a  ’rock  and  been  killed,  a  nail  stuck  into  it  will  preserve  the 
flesh  from  the  fairies.  Music  discoursed  on  a  Jew’s  harp  keeps 
the  elfin  women  away  from  the  hunter,  because  the  tongue  of  the 
instrument  is  of  steel.  In  Morocco  iron  is  considered  a  great 
protection  against  demons  ;  hence  it  is  usual  to  place  a  knife  or 
dagger  under  a  sick  man’s  pillow.  The  Singhalese  believe  that 
they  are  constantly  surrounded  by  evil  spirits,  who  lie  in  wait  to 
do  them  harm.  A  peasant  would  not  dare  to  carry  good  food,  such 
as  cakes  or  roast  meat,  from  one  place  to  another  without  putting 
an  iron  nail  on  it  to  prevent  a  demon  from  taking  possession  of  the 
viands  and  so  making  the  eater  ill.  No  sick  person,  whether  man 
or  woman,  would  venture  out  of  the  house  without  a  bunch  of  keys 
or  a  knife  in  his  hand,  for  without  such  a  talisman  he  would  fear  that 
some  devil  might  take  advantage  of  his  weak  state  to  slip  into  his 
body.  And  if  a  man  has  a  large  sore  on  his  body  he  tries  to  keep  a 
morsel  of  iron  on  it  as  a  protection  against  demons.  On  the  Slave  Coast 
when  a  mother  secs  her  child  gradually  wasting  away,  she  concludes 
that  a  demon  has  entered  into  the  child,  and  takes  her  measures 
accordingly.  To  lure  the  demon  out  of  the  body  of  her  offspring, 
she  offers  a  sacrifice  of  food  ;  and  while  the  devil  is  bolting  it,  she 
attaches  iron  rings  and  small  bells  to  her  child’s  ankles  and  hangs 
iron  chains  round  his  neck.  The  jingling  of  the  iron  and  the  tinkling 
of  the  bells  are  supposed  to  prevent  the  demon,  when  he  has  concluded 
his  repast,  from  entering  again  into  the  body  of  the  little  sufferer. 
Hence  many  children  may  be  seen  in  this  part  of  Africa  weighed  down 

with  iron  ornaments.  .  ,  ,  .  1 

S  3.  Sharp  Weapons  tabooed.— There  is  a  priestly  king  to  the  nortn 

of  Zengwih  in  Burma,  revered  by  the  Sotih  as  the  highest  spiritual  and 
temporal  authority,  into  whose  house  no  weapon  or  cutting  instrument 
may  be  brought.  This  rule  may  perhaps  be  explained  by  a  custom 
observed  by  various  peoples  after  a  death  ;  they  refrain  from  the  use  ot 
sharp  instruments  so  long  as  the  ghost  of  the  deceased  is  supposed  to  be 


XXI 


SHARP  WEAPONS  TABOOED  22y 

newest they  should  wound  it.  Thus  among  the  Esquimaux  of  Bering 
Strait  during  the  day  on  which  a  person  dies  in  the  village  no  one  is 
permitted  to  work,  and  the  relatives  must  perform  no  labour  during  the 
three  following  days.  It  is  especially  forbidden  during  this  period  to 
cut  with  any  edged  instrument,  such  as  a  knife  or  an  axe  •  and  the 
use  of  pointed  instruments,  like  needles  or  bodkins,  is  also  forbidden. 
Ihis  is  said  to  be  done  to  avoid  cutting  or  injuring  the  shade  which 
may  be  present  at  any  time  during  this  period,  and,  if  accidentally 
mjuied  by. any  of  these  things,  it  would  become  very  angry  and  bring' 
sickness  or  death  to  the  people.  The  relatives  must  also  be  very 
careful  at  this  time  not  to  make  any  loud  or  harsh  noises  that  mav 
startle  or  anger  the  shade/'  We  have  seen  that  in  like  manner  after 
killing  a  white  whale  these  Esquimaux  abstain  from  the  use  of  cutting 
or  pointed  instruments  for  four  days,  lest  they  should  unwittingly  cut 
or  stab  the  whale's  ghost.  The  same  taboo  is  sometimes  observed  by 
them  when  there  is  a  sick  person  in  the  village,  probably  from  a  fear  of 
injuring  his  shade  which  may  be  hovering  outside  of  his  body.  After 
a  death  the  Roumanians  of  Transylvania  are  careful  not  to  leave  a  knife 
lying  with  the  sharp  edge  uppermost  so  long  as  the  corpse  remains  in 
the  house,  “  or  else  the  soul  will  be  forced  to  ride  on  the  blade."  For 
seven  days  after  a  death,  the  corpse  being  still  in  the  house,  the  Chinese 
abstain  from  the  use  of  knives  and  needles,  and  even  of  chopsticks 
eating  their  food  with  their  fingers.  On  the  third,  sixth,  ninth,  and 
fortieth  days  after  the  funeral  the  old  Prussians  and  Lithuanians' used 
to  prepare  a  meal,  to  which,  standing  at  the  door,  they  invited  the 
soul  of  the  deceased.  At  these  meals  they  sat  silent  round  the  table 
and  used  no  knives,  and  the  women  who  served  up  the  food  were  also 
without  knives.  If  any  morsels  fell  from  the  table  they  were  left  lying 
there  for  the  lonely  souls  that  had  no  living  relations  or  friends  to  feed 
them.  When  the  meal  was  over  the  priest  took  a  broom  and  swept 
the  souls  out  of  the  house,  saying,  “  Dear  souls,  ye  have  eaten  and 
trunk.  Go  foith,  go  forth.  We  can  now  understand  why  no  cutting 
nstrument  may  be  taken  into  the  house  of  the  Burmese  pontiff.  Like 
;o  many  priestly  kings,  he  is  probably  regarded  as  divine,  and  it  is 
therefore  right  that  his  sacred  spirit  should  not  be  exposed  to  the  risk 
)f  being  cut  or  wounded  whenever  it  quits  his  body  to  hover  invisible 
n  the  air  or  to  fly  on  some  distant  mission. 

§  4-  Blood  tabooed.  We  have  seen  that  the  Flamen  Dialis  was 
orbidden  to  touch  or  even  name  raw  flesh.  At  certain  times  a 
irahman  teacher  is  enjoined  not  to  look  on  raw  flesh,  blood,  or  persons 
vhose  hands  have  been  cut  off.  In  Uganda  the  father  of  twins  is  in 
iL  state  of  taboo  for  some  time  after  the  birth  ;  among  other  rules  he 
3  forbidden  to  kill  anything  or  to  see  blood.  In  the  Pelew  Islands 
men  a  raid  has  been  made  on  a  village  and  a  head  carried  off,  the 
elations  of  the  slain  man  are  tabooed  and  have  to  submit  to  certain 
bservances  in  order  to  escape  the  wrath  of  his  ghost.  They  are  shut 
p  in  the  house,  touch  no  raw  flesh,  and  chew  betel  over  which  an 
ncantation  has  been  uttered  by  the  exorcist.  After  this  the  ghost 


228  TABOOED  THINGS  ch. 

of  the  slaughtered  man  goes  away  to  the  enemy  s  country  in  pursuit 
of  his  murderer.  The  taboo  is  probably  based  on  the  common  belief 
that  the  soul  or  spirit  of  the  animal  is  in  the  blood.  As  tabooed 
persons  are  believed  to  be  in  a  perilous  state— for  example,  the  relations 
of  the  slain  man  are  liable  to  the  attacks  of  his  indignant  ghost— it 
is  especially  necessary  to  isolate  them  from  contact  with  spirits; 
hence  the  prohibition  to  touch  raw  meat.  But  as  usual  the  taboo  is 
only  the  special  enforcement  of  a  general  precept ;  in  other  words,  its 
observance  is  particularly  enjoined  in  circumstances  which  seem 
urgently  to  call  for  its  application,  but  apart  fiom  such  circumstances 
the  prohibition  is  also  observed,  though  less  strictly,  as  a  common 
rule  of  life.  Thus  some  of  the  Esthonians  will  not  taste  blood  because 
they  believe  that  it  contains  the  animal’s  soul,  which  would  enter  the 
body  of  the  person  who  tasted  the  blood.  Some  Indian  tribes  of 
North  America,  “  through  a  strong  principle  of  religion,  abstain  in  i 
the  strictest  manner  from  eating  the  blood  of  any  animal,  as  it  contains 
the  life  and  spirit  of  the  beast.”  Jewish  hunters  poured  out  the 
blood  of  the  game  they  had  killed  and  covered  it  up  with  dust.  They 
would  not  taste  the  blood,  believing  that  the  soul  or  life  of  the  animal 
was  in  the  blood,  or  actually  was  the  blood. 

It  is  a  common  rule  that  royal  blood  may  not  be  shed  upon  the 
ground.  Hence  when  a  king  or  one  of  his  family  is  to  be  put  to  death 
a  mode  of  execution  is  devised  by  which  the  royal  blood  shall  not  be 
spilt  upon  the  earth.  About  the  year  1688  the  generalissimo  of  the 
army  rebelled  against  the  king  of  Siam  and  put  him  to  death  “  after 
the  manner  of  royal  criminals,  or  as  princes  of  the  blood  are  treated 
when  convicted  of  capital  crimes,  which  is  by  putting  them  into  a 
large  iron  caldron,  and  pounding  them  to  pieces  with  wooden  pestles, 
because  none  of  their  royal  blood  must  be  spilt  on  the  ground,  it  being, 
by  their  religion,  thought  great  impiety  to  contaminate  the  divine  blood 
by  mixing  it  with  earth.”  When  Kublai  Khan  defeated  and  took  his  1 
uncle  Nayan,  who  had  rebelled  against  him,  he  caused  Nayan  to  be  1 
put  to  death  by  being  wrapt  in  a  carpet  and  tossed  to  and  fro  till  he 
died,  “  because  he  would  not  have  the  blood  of  his  Line  Imperial  spilt 
upon  the  ground  or  exposed  in  the  eye  of  Heaven  and  before  the  Sun. 

“  Friar  Ricold  mentions  the  Tartar  maxim  :  ‘  One  Khan  will  put 
another  to  death  to  get  possession  of  the  throne,  but  he  takes  great 
care  that  the  blood  be  not  spilt.  For  they  say  that  it  is  highly  im¬ 
proper  that  the  blood  of  the  Great  Khan  should  be  spilt  upon  the 
ground  ;  so  they  cause  the  victim  to  be  smothered  somehow  or  other.’ 
The  like  feeling  prevails  at  the  court  of  Burma,  where  a  peculiar  mode 
of  execution  without  bloodshed  is  reserved  for  princes  of  the  blood. 

The  reluctance  to  spill  royal  blood  seems  to  be  only  a  particular 
case  of  a  general  unwillingness  to  shed  blood  or  at  least  to  allow  it  to 
fall  on  the  ground.  Marco  Polo  tells  us  that  in  his  day  persons  caught 
in  the  streets  of  Cambaluc  (Peking)  at  unseasonable  hours  were  arrested, 
and  if  found  guilty  of  a  misdemeanour  were  beaten  with  a  stick. 
“  Under  this  punishment  people  sometimes  die,  but  they  adopt  it  in 


XXI  BLOOD  TABOOED  229 

order  to  eschew  bloodshed,  for  their  Bacsis  say  that  it  is  an  evil  thing 
to  shed  man’s  blood.”  In  West  Sussex  people  believe  that  the  ground 
on  which  human  blood  has  been  shed  is  accursed  and  will  remain  barren 
for  ever.  Among  some  primitive  peoples,  when  the  blood  of  a  tribes¬ 
man  has  to  be  spilt  it  is  not  suffered  to  fall  upon  the  ground,  but  is 
received  upon  the  bodies  of  his  fellow  -  tribesmen.  Thus  in  some 
Australian  tribes  boys  who  are  being  circumcised  are  laid  on  a  platform, 
formed  by  the  living  bodies  of  the  tribesmen  ;  and  when  a  boy’s  tooth 
is  knocked  out  as  an  initiatory  ceremony,  he  is  seated  on  the  shoulders 
of  a  man,  on  whose  breast  the  blood  flows  and  may  not  be  wiped  away. 

Also  the  Gauls  used  to  drink  their  enemies’  blood  and  paint  them¬ 
selves  therewith.  So  also  they  write  that  the  old  Irish  were  wont  ; 
and  so^  have  I  seen  some  of  the  Irish  do,  but  not  their  enemies'  but 
friends’  blood,  as,  namely,  at  the  execution  of  a  notable  traitor  at 
Limerick,  called  Muirogh  O  Brien,  I  saw  an  old  woman,  which  was  his 
foster-mother,  take  up  his  head  whilst  he  was  quartered  and  suck  up 
all  the  blood  that  ran  thereout,  saying  that  the  earth  was  not  worthy 
to  drink  it,  and  therewith  also  steeped  her  face  and  breast  and  tore  her 
hair,  crying  out  and  shrieking  most  terribly.”  Among  the  Latuka  of 
Central  Africa  the  earth  on  which  a  drop  of  blood  has  fallen  at  child¬ 
birth.  is  carefully  scraped  up  with  an  iron  shovel,  put  into  a  pot  along 
with  the  water  used  in  washing  the  mother,  and  buried  tolerably  deep 
autside  the  house  on  the  left-hand  side.  In  West  Africa,  if  a  drop  of 
your  blood  has  fallen  on  the  ground,  you  must  carefully  cover  it  up, 
rub  and  stamp  it  into  the  soil ;  if  it  has  fallen  on  the  side  of  a  canoe 
Dr  a  tree,  the  place  is  cut  out  and  the  chip  destroyed.  One  motive  of 
[these  Afiican  customs  may  be  a  wish  to  prevent  the  blood  from  falling 
nto  the  hands  of  magicians,  who  might  make  an  evil  use  of  it.  That 
■S  admittedly  the  reason  why  people  in  West'  Africa  stamp  out  any 
plood  of  theirs  which  has  dropped  on  the  ground  or  cut  out  any  wood 
-hat  has  been  soaked  with  it.  From  a  like  dread  of  sorcery  natives  of 
rew  Guinea  are  careful  to  burn  any  sticks,  leaves,  or  rags  which  are 
dained  with  their  blood  ;  and  if  the  blood  has  dripped  on  the  ground 
-hey  turn  up  the  soil  and  if  possible  light  a  fire  on  the  spot.  The  same 
ear  explains  the  curious  duties  discharged  by  a  class  of  men  called 
■amanga  or  “  blue  blood  ”  among  the  Betsileo  of  Madagascar.  It  is 
heir  business  to  eat  all  the  nail-parings  and  to  lick  up  all  the  spilt 
;)lood  of  the  nobles.  When  the  nobles  pare  their  nails,  the  parings  are 
-ollected  to  the  last  scrap  and  swallowed  by  these  ramanga.  If  the 
)arings  are  too  large,  they  are  minced  small  and  so  gulped  down, 
gain,  should  a  nobleman  wound  himself,  say  in  cutting  his  nails  or 
reading  on  something,  the  ramanga  lick  up  the  blood  as  fast  as  possible, 
obles  of  high  rank  hardly  go  anywhere  without  these  humble  attend- 
,nts  ,  but  if  it  should  happen  that  there  are  none  of  them  present,  the 
ut  nails  and  the  spilt  blood  are  carefully  collected  to  be  afterwards 
wallowed  by  the  ramanga.  There  is  scarcely  a  nobleman  of  any 
>retensions  who  does  not  strictly  observe  this  custom,  the  intention 
’  which  probably  is  to  prevent  these  parts  of  his  person  from  falling 


23o  TABOOED  THINGS  ch. 

into  the  hands  of  sorcerers,  who  on  the  principles  of  contagious  magic 
could  work  him  harm  thereby. 

The  general  explanation  of  the  reluctance  to  shed  blood  on  the 
ground  is  probably  to  be  found  in  the  belief  that  the  soul  is  in  the  blood, 
and  that  therefore  any  ground  on  which  it  may  fall  necessarily  becomes 
taboo  or  sacred.  In  New  Zealand  anything  upon  which  even  a  drop 
of  a  high  chief’s  blood  chances  to  fall  becomes  taboo  or  sacred  to  him. 
For  instance,  a  party  of  natives  having  come  to  visit  a  chief  in  a  fine 
new  canoe,  the  chief  got  into  it,  but  in  doing  so  a  splinter  entered  his 
foot,  and  the  blood  trickled  on  the  canoe,  which  at  once  became  sacred 
to  him.  The  owner  jumped  out,  dragged  the  canoe  ashore  opposite 
the  chief’s  house,  and  left  it  there.  Again,  a  chief  in  entering  a 
missionary’s  house  knocked  his  head  against  a  beam,  and  the  blood 
flowed.  The  natives  said  that  in  former  times  the  house  would  have 
belonged  to  the  chief.  As  usually  happens  with  taboos  of  universal 
application,  the  prohibition  to  spill  the  blood  of  a  tribesman  on  the 
ground  applies  with  peculiar  stringency  to  chiefs  and  kings,  and  is 
observed  in  their  case  long  after  it  has  ceased  to  be  observed  in  the  case 

of  others. 

S  5.  The  Head  tabooed.— Many  peoples  regard  the  head  as  peculiarly 
sacred  ;  the  special  sanctity  attributed  to  it  is  sometimes  explained 
by  a  belief  that  it  contains  a  spirit  which  is  very  sensitive  to  injury 
or  disrespect.  Thus  the  Yorubas  hold  that  every  man  has  three 
spiritual  inmates,  of  whom  the  first,  called  Olori,  dwells  m  the  head 
and  is  the  man’s  protector,  guardian,  and  guide.  Offerings  are  made 
to  this  spirit,  chiefly  of  fowls,  and  some  of  the  blood  mixed  with  palm- 
oil  is  rubbed  on  the  forehead.  The  Karens  suppose  that  a  being  called 
the  tso  resides  in  the  upper  part  of  the  head,  and  while  it  retains  its  seat 
no  harm  can  befall  the  person  from  the  efforts  of  the  seven  Kelahs,  or 
personified  passions.  “  But  if  the  tso  becomes  heedless  or  weak  certain 
evil  to  the  person  is  the  result.  Hence  the  head  is  carefully  attended 
to,  and  all  possible  pains  are  taken  to  provide  such  dress  and  attire 
as  will  be  pleasing  to  the  tso.”  The  Siamese  think  that  a  spirit  called 
khuan  or  kwun  dwells  in  the  human  head,  of  which  it  is  the  guardian 
spirit.  The  spirit  must  be  carefully  protected  from  injury  of  every 
kind  ;  hence  the  act  of  shaving  or  cutting  the  hair  is  accompanied  with 
many  ceremonies.  The  kwun  is  very  sensitive  on  points  of  honour, 
ar*d  would  feel  mortally  insulted  if  the  head  in  which  he  resides  were 
touched  by  the  hand  of  a  stranger.  The  Cambodians  esteem  it  a  grave 
offence  to  touch  a  man’s  head  ;  some  of  them  will  not  enter  a  place 
where  anything  whatever  is  suspended  over  their  heads  ;  and  the 
meanest  Cambodian  would  never  consent  to  live  under  an  inhabited 
room.  Hence  the  houses  are  built  of  one  story  only  ;  and  even  the 
Government  respects  the  prejudice  by  never  placing  a  prisoner  in  the 
stocks  under  the  floor  of  a  house,  though  the  houses  are  raised  high 
above  the  ground.  The  same  superstition  exists  amongst  the  Malays  ; 
for  an  early  traveller  reports  that  in  Java  people  “  wear  nothing  on 
their  heads,  and  say  that  nothing  must  be  on  their  heads  ...  and  it 


XXI 


THE  HEAD  TABOOED 


231 


any  person  were  to  put  his  hand  upon  their  head  they  would  kill  him  ; 
and  they  do  not  build  houses  with  storeys,  in  order  that  they  may  not 
walk  over  each  other’s  heads.” 

The  same  superstition  as  to  the  head  is  found  in  full  force  throughout 
Polynesia.  Thus  of  Gattanewa,  a  Marquesan  chief,  it  is  said  that  “  to 
touch  the  top  of  his  head,  or  anything  which  had  been  on  his  head, 
was  sacrilege.  To  pass  over  his  head  was  an  indignity  never  to  be 
forgotten.”  The  son  of  a  Marquesan  high  priest  has  been  seen  to  roll 
on  the  ground  in  an  agony  of  rage  and  despair,  begging  for  death, 
because  some  one  had  desecrated  his  head  and  deprived  him  of  his 
divinity  by  sprinkling  a  few  drops  of  water  on  his  hair.  But  it  was  not 
the  Marquesan  chiefs  only  whose  heads  were  sacred.  The  head  of 
every  Marquesan  was  taboo,  and  might  neither  be  touched  nor  stepped 
over  by  another  ;  even  a  father  might  not  step  over  the  head  of  his 
sleeping  child  ;  women  were  forbidden  to  carry  or  touch  anything  that 
had  been  in  contact  with,  or  had  merely  hung  over,  the  head  of  their 
husband  or  father.  No  one  was  allowed  to  be  over  the  head  of  the 
king  of  Tonga.  In  Tahiti  any  one  who  stood  over  the  king  or  queen, 
or  passed  his  hand  over  their  heads,  might  be  put  to  death.  Until 
certain  rites  were  performed  over  it,  a  Tahitian  infant  was  especially 
taboo  ;  whatever  touched  the  child’s  head,  while  it  was  in  this  state, 
became  sacred  and  was  deposited  in  a  consecrated  place  railed  in  for 
the  purpose  at  the  child’s  house.  If  a  branch  of  a  tree  touched  the 
child’s  head,  the  tree  was  cut  down  ;  and  if  in  its  fall  it  injured  another 
tree  so  as  to  penetrate  the  bark,  that  tree  also  was  cut  down  as  unclean 
and  unfit  for  use.  After  the  rites  were  performed  these  special  taboos 
ceased  ;  but  the  head  of  a  Tahitian  was  always  sacred,  he  never  carried 
anything  on  it,  and  to  touch  it  was  an  offence.  So  sacred  was  the  head 
of  a  Maori  chief  that  “if  he  only  touched  it  with  his  fingers,  he  was 
obliged  immediately  to  apply  them  to  his  nose,  and  snuff  up  the  sanctity 
which  they  had  acquired  by  the  touch,  and  thus  restore  it  to  the  part 
from  whence  it  was  taken.”  On  account  of  the  sacredness  of  his  head 
a  Maori  chief  “  could  not  blow  the  fire  with  his  mouth,  for  the  breath 
being  sacred,  communicated  his  sanctity  to  it,  and  a  brand  might  be 
taken  by  a  slave,  or  a  man  of  another  tribe,  or  the  fire  might  be  used 
for  other  purposes,  such  as  cooking,  and  so  cause  his  death.” 

§  6.  Hair  tabooed. — When  the  head  was  considered  so  sacred  that 
it  might  not  even  be  touched  without  grave  offence,  it  is  obvious  that 
the  cutting  of  the  hair  must  have  been  a  delicate  and  difficult  operation. 
The  difficulties  and  dangers  which,  on  the  primitive  view,  beset  the 
operation  are  of  two  kinds.  There  is  first  the  danger  of  disturbing  the 
spirit  of  the  head,  which  may  be  injured  in  the  process  and  may  revenge 
itself  upon  the  person  who  molests  him.  Secondly,  there  is  the  diffi¬ 
culty  of  disposing  of  the  shorn  locks.  For  the  savage  believes  that  the 
sympathetic  connexion  which  exists  between  himself  and  every  part 
of  his  body  continues  to  exist  even  after  the  physical  connexion  has 
been  broken,  and  that  therefore  he  will  suffer  from  any  harm  that  may 
befall  the  severed  parts  of  his  body,  such  as  the  clippings  of  his  hair 


232 


TABOOED  THINGS 


CH. 


or  the  parings  of  his  nails.  Accordingly  he  takes  care  that  these 
severed  portions  of  himself  shall  not  be  left  in  places  where  they  might 
either  be  exposed  to  accidental  injury  or  fall  into  the  hands  of  malicious 
persons  who  might  work  magic  on  them  to  his  detriment  or  death. 
Such  dangers  are  common  to  all,  but  sacred  persons  have  more  to  fear 
from  them  than  ordinary  people,  so  the  precautions  taken  by  them  are 
proportionately  stringent.  The  simplest  way  of  evading  the  peril 
is  not  to  cut  the  hair  at  all ;  and  this  is  the  expedient  adopted  where 
the  risk  is  thought  to  be  more  than  usually  great.  The  Frankish  kings 
were  never  allowed  to  crop  their  hair  ;  from  their  childhood  upwards 
they  had  to  keep  it  unshorn.  To  poll  the  long  locks  that  floated  on 
their  shoulders  would  have  been  to  renounce  their  right  to  the  throne. 
When  the  wicked  brothers  Clotaire  and  Childebert  coveted  the  kingdom 
of  their  dead  brother  Clodomir,  they  inveigled  into  their  power  their 
little  nephews,  the  two  sons  of  Clodomir  ;  and  having  done  so,  they 
sent  a  messenger  bearing  scissors  and  a  naked  sword  to  the  children’s 
grandmother,  Queen  Clotilde,  at  Paris.  The  envoy  showed  the  scissors 
and  the  sword  to  Clotilde,  and  bade  her  choose  whether  the  children 
should  be  shorn  and  live  or  remain  unshorn  and  die.  The  proud  queen 
replied  that  if  her  grandchildren  were  not  to  come  to  the  throne  she 
would  rather  see  them  dead  than  shorn.  And  murdered  they  were  by 
their  ruthless  uncle  Clotaire  with  his  own  hand.  The  king  of  Ponape, 
one  of  the  Caroline  Islands,  must  wear  his  hair  long,  and  so  must  his 
grandees.  Among  the  Hos,  a  negro  tribe  of  West  Africa,  "  there  are 
priests  on  whose  head  no  razor  may  come  during  the  whole  of  their 
lives.  The  god  who  dwells  in  the  man  forbids  the  cutting  of  his 
hair  on  pain  of  death.  If  the  hair  is  at  last  too  long,  the  owner  must 
pray  to  his  god  to  allow  him  at  least  to  clip  the  tips  of  it.  The  hair 
is  in  fact  conceived  as  the  seat  and  lodging-place  of  his  god,  so  that 
were  it  shorn  the  god  would  lose  his  abode  in  the  priest.”  The 
members  of  a  Masai  clan,  who  are  believed  to  possess  the  art  of  making 
rain,  may  not  pluck  out  their  beards,  because  the  loss  of  their  beards 
would,  it  is  supposed,  entail  the  loss  of  their  rain-making  powers. 
The  head  chief  and  the  sorcerers  of  the  Masai  observe  fhe  same  rule  for 
a  like  reason  :  they  think  that  were  they  to  pull  out  their  beards,  their 
supernatural  gifts  would  desert  them. 

Again,  men  who  have  taken  a  vow  of  vengeance  sometimes  keep 
their  hair  unshorn  till  they  have  fulfilled  their  vow.  Thus  of  the 
Marquesans  we  are  told  that  “  occasionally  they  have  their  head 
entirely  shaved,  except  one  lock  on  the  crown,  which  is  worn  loose  or 
put  up  in  a  knot.  But  the  latter  mode  of  wearing  the  hair  is  only 
adopted  by  them  when  they  have  a  solemn  vow,  as  to  revenge  the 
death  of  some  near  relation,  etc.  In  such  case  the  lock  is  never  cut 
off  until  they  have  fulfilled  their  promise.”  A  similar  custom  was 
sometimes  observed  by  the  ancient  Germans  ;  among  the  Chatti  the 
young  warriors  never  clipped  their  hair  or  their  beard  till  they  had 
slain  an  enemy.  Among  the  Toradjas,  when  a  child’s  hair  is  cut  to 
rid  it  of  vermin,  some  locks  are  allowed  to  remain  on  the  crown  of  the 


XXI  HAIR  TABOOED  233 

head  as  a  lefuge  for  one  of  the  child’s  souls.  Otherwise  the  soul  would 
have  no  place  in  which  to  settle,  and  the  child  would  sicken.  The 
Karo-Bataks  are  much  afraid  of  frightening  away  the  soul  of  a  child  ; 
hence  when  they  cut  its  hair,  they  always  leave  a  patch  unshorn  to 
which  the  soul  can  retreat  before  the  shears.  Usually  this  lock  remains 
unshorn  all  through  life,  or  at  least  up  till  manhood. 

§  7*  Ceremonies  at  Hair -cutting. — But  when  it  becomes  necessary 
to  crop  the  hair,  measures  are  taken  to  lessen  the  dangers  which  are 
supposed  to  attend  the  operation.  The  chief  of  Namosi  in  Fiji  always 
ate  a  man  by  way  of  precaution  when  he  had  had  his  hair  cut.  “  There 
was  a  certain  clan  that  had  to  provide  the  victim,  and  they  used  to  sit 
m  solemn  council  among  themselves  to  choose  him.  It  was  a  sacrificial 
feast  to  avert  evil  from  the  chief.”  Amongst  the  Maoris  many  spells 
were  uttered  at  hair-cutting  ;  one,  for  example,  was  spoken  to  con¬ 
secrate  the  obsidian  knife  with  which  the  hair  was  cut ;  another  was 
pronounced  to  avert  the  thunder  and  lightning  which  hair-cutting  was 
believed  to  cause.  “  He  who  has  had  his  hair  cut  is  in  immediate 
charge  of  the  Atua  (spirit)  ;  he  is  removed  from  the  contact  and  society 
of  his  family  and  his  tribe  ;  he  dare  not  touch  his  food  himself ;  it  is 
put  into  his  mouth  by  another  person  ;  nor  can  he  for  some  days 
resume  his  accustomed  occupations  or  associate  with  his  fellow-men.” 
The  person  who  cuts  the  hair  is  also  tabooed  ,‘  his  hands  having  been 
in  contact  with  a  sacred  head,  he  may  not  touch  food  with  them  or 
engage  in  any  other  employment ;  he  is  fed  by  another  person  with 
food  cooked  over  a  sacred  fire.  He  cannot  be  released  from  the  taboo 
before  the  following  day,  when  he  rubs  his  hands  with  potato  or  fern 
root  which  has  been  cooked  on  a  sacred  fire  ;  and  this  food  having 
been  taken  to  the  head  of  the  family  in  the  female  line  and  eaten  by 
her,  his  hands  are  freed  from  the  taboo.  In  some  parts  of  New  Zealand 
the  most  sacred  day  of  the  year  was  that  appointed  for  hair-cutting ; 

the  people  assembled  in  large  numbers  on  that  day  from  all  the  neigh¬ 
bourhood. 

§  8.  Disposal  of  Cut  Hair  and  Nails. — But  even  when  the  hair  and 
nails  have  been  safely  cut,  there  remains  the  difficulty  of  disposing  of 
them,  for  their  owner  believes  himself  liable  to  suffer  from  any  harm 
that  may  befall  them.  The  notion  that  a  man  may  be  bewitched  by 
means  of  the  clippings  of  his  hair,  the  parings  of  his  nails,  or  any  other 
seveied  poition  of  his  person  is  almost  world-wide,  and  attested  by 
evidence  too  ample,  too  familiar,  and  too  tedious  in  its  uniformity  to 
be  here  analysed  at  length.  The  general  idea  on  which  the  superstition 
rests  is  that  of  the  sympathetic  connexion  supposed  to  persist  between 
a  person  and  everything  that  has  once  been  part  of  his  body  or  in  any 
way  closely  related  to  him.  A  very  few  examples  must  suffice.  They 
belong  to  that  branch  of  sympathetic  magic  which  may  be  called 
contagious.  Dread  of  sorcery,  we  are  told,  formed  one  of  the  most 
salient  characteristics  of  the  Marquesan  islanders  in  the  old  days.  The 
sorcerer  took  some  of  the  hair,  spittle,  or  other  bodily  refuse  of  the  man 
he  wished  to  injure,  wrapped  it  up  in  a  leaf,  and  placed  the  packet  in 


234 


TABOOED  THINGS 


CH. 


a  bag  woven  of  threads  or  fibres,  which  were  knotted  m  an  intricate 
wav.  The  whole  was  then  buried  with  certain  rites,  and  thereupon 
the  victim  wasted  away  of  a  languishing  sickness  which  lasted  twen  y 
davs.  His  life,  however,  might  be  saved  by  discovering  and  digging 
up  the  buried  hair,  spittle,  or  what  not ;  for  as  soon  as  this  was  done 
the  power  of  the  charm  ceased.  A  Maori  sorcerer  intent  on  bewitching 
somebody  sought  to  get  a  tress  of  his  victim’s  hair,  the  parings  of  his 
nails,  some  of  his  spittle,  or  a  shred  of  his  garment.  Having  obtained 
the  obiect,  whatever  it  was,  he  chanted  certain  spells  and  curses  over 
it  in  a  falsetto  voice  and  buried  it  in  the  ground.  As  the  thing  decayed, 
the  person  to  whom  it  had  belonged  was  supposed  to  waste  away. 
When  an  Australian  blackfellow  wishes  to  get  rid  of  his  wife,  he  cuts 
off  a  lock  of  her  hair  in  her  sleep,  ties  it  to  his  spear-thrower,  and  goes 
with  it  to  a  neighbouring  tribe,  where  he  gives  it  to  a  friend.  His 
friend  sticks  the  spear-thrower  up  every  night  before  the  camp  fire, 
and  when  it  falls  down  it  is  a  sign  that  the  wife  is  dead  The  way  m 
which  the  charm  operates  was  explained  to  Dr.  Howitt  by  a  Wnrajuri 
man.  "  You  see,”  he  said,  "  when  a  blackfellow  doctor  gets  hold  of 
something  belonging  to  a  man  and  roasts  it  with  things,  and  sings  over 
it,  the  fire  catches  hold  of  the  smell  of  the  man,  and  that  settles  the  poor 

fellow.” 

The  Huzuls  of  the  Carpathians  imagine  that  if  mice  get  a  person  s 
shorn  hair  and  make  a  nest  of  it,  the  person  will  suffer  from  headache 
or  even  become  idiotic.  Similarly  in  Germany  it  is  a  common  notion 
that  if  birds  find  a  person’s  cut  hair,  and  build  their  nests  with  it,  the 
person  will  suffer  from  headache  ;  sometimes  it  is  thought  that  he 
will  have  an  eruption  on  the  head.  The  same  superstition  prevails, 

or  used  to  prevail,  in  West  Sussex. 

Again  it  is  thought  that  cut  or  combed-out  hair  may  disturb  the 
weather  by  producing  rain  and  hail,  thunder  and  lightning.  We  have 
seen  that  in  New  Zealand  a  spell  was  uttered  at  hair-cutting  to  avert 
thunder  and  lightning.  In  the  Tyrol,  witches  are  supposed  to  use 
cut  or  combed-out  hair  to  make  hailstones  or  thunderstorms  with. 
Thlinkeet  Indians  have  been  known  to  attribute  stormy  weather  to 
the  rash  act  of  a  girl  who  had  combed  her  hair  outside  of  the  house. 
The  Romans  seem  to  have  held  similar  views,  for  it  was  a  maxim  with 
them  that  no  one  on  shipboard  should  cut  his  hair  or  nails  except  in 
a  storm  that  is,  when  the  mischief  was  already  done.  In  the  High¬ 
lands  of’ Scotland  it  is  said  that  no  sister  should  comb  her  hair  at  night 
if  she  have  a  brother  at  sea.  In  West  Africa,  when  the  Mam  of  Ghi- 
tombe  or  Jumba  died,  the  people  used  to  run  in  crowds  to  the  corpse 
and  tear  out  his  hair,  teeth,  and  nails,  which  they  kept  as  a  rain-charm, 
believing  that  otherwise  no  rain  would  fall.  The  Makoko  of  the 
Anzikos  begged  the  missionaries  to  give  him  half  their  beards  as  a 

rain-charm.  . 

If  cut  hair  and  nails  remain  in  sympathetic  connexion  with  the 

person  from  whose  body  they  have  been  severed,  it  is  clear  that  they 
can  be  used  as  hostages  for  his  good  behaviour  by  any  one  who  may 


XXI  DISPOSAL  OF  CUT  HAIR  AND  NAILS  235 

chance  to  possess  them  ;  for  on  the  principles  of  contagious  magic  he 
has  only  to  injure  the  hair  or  nails  in  order  to  hurt  simultaneously  their 
original  owner.  Hence  when  the  Nandi  have  taken  a  prisoner  they 
shave  his  head  and  keep  the  shorn  hair  as  a  surety  that  he  will  not 
attempt  to  escape  ;  but  when  the  captive  is  ransomed,  they  return  his 
shorn  hair  with  him  to  his  own  people. 

To  preserve  the  cut  hair  and  nails  from  injury  and  from  the 
dangerous  uses  to  which  they  may  be  put  by  sorcerers,  it  is  necessary 
to  deposit  them  in  some  safe  place.  The  shorn  locks  of  a  Maori  chief 
were  gathered  with  much  care  and  placed  in  an  adjoining  cemetery. 
The  Tahitians  buried  the  cuttings  of  their  hair  at  the  temples.  In  the 
streets  of  Soku  a  modern  traveller  observed  cairns  of  large  stones 
piled  against  walls  with  tufts  of  human  hair  inserted  in  the  crevices. 
On  asking  the  meaning  of  this,  he  was  told  that  when  any  native  of 
the  place  polled  his  hair  he  carefully  gathered  up  the  clippings  and 
deposited  them  in  one  of  these  cairns,  all  of  which  were  sacred  to  the 
fetish  and  therefore  inviolable.  These  cairns  of  sacred  stones,  he 
further  learned,  were  simply  a  precaution  against  witchcraft,  for  if  a 
man  were  not  thus  careful  in  disposing  of  his  hair,  some  of  it  might  fall 
into  the  hands  of  his  enemies,  who  would,  by  means  of  it,  be  able  to 
cast  spells  over  him  and  so  compass  his  destruction.  When  the  top- 
knot  of  a  Siamese  child  has  been  cut  with  great  ceremony,  the  short 
hairs  are  put  into  a  little  vessel  made  of  plantain  leaves  and  set  adrift 
on  the  nearest  river  or  canal.  As  they  float  away,  all  that  was  wrong 
or  harmful  in  the  child’s  disposition  is  believed  to  depart  with  them. 
The  long  hairs  are  kept  till  the  child  makes  a  pilgrimage  to  the  holy 
Footprint  of  Buddha  on  the  sacred  hill  at  Prabat.  They  are  then 
presented  to  the  priests,  who  are  supposed  to  make  them  into  brushes 
with  which  they  sweep  the  Footprint ;  but  in  fact  so  much  hair  is  thus 
offered  every  year  that  the  priests  cannot  use  it  all,  so  they  quietly 
burn  the  superfluity  as  soon  as  the  pilgrims’  backs  are  turned.  The 
cut  hair  and  nails  of  the  Flamen  Dialis  were  buried  under  a  lucky 
tree.  The  shorn  tresses  of  the  Vestal  Virgins  were  hung  on  an  ancient 
lotus-tree. 

Often  the  clipped  hair  and  nails  are  stowed  away  in  any  secret 
place,  not  necessarily  in  a  temple  or  cemetery  or  at  a  tree,  as  in  the 
cases  alread}/  mentioned.  Thus  in  Swabia  you  are  recommended  to 
deposit  your  clipped  hair  in  some  spot  where  neither  sun  nor  moon  can 
shine  on  it,  for  example  in  the  earth  or  under  a  stone.  In  Danzig  it 
is  buried  in  a  bag  under  the  threshold.  In  Ugi,  one  of  the  Solomon 
Islands,  men  bury  their  hair  lest  it  should  fall  into  the  hands  of  an 
enemy,  who  would  make  magic  with  it  and  so  bring  sickness  or  calamity 
on  them.  The  same  fear  seems  to  be  general  in  Melanesia,  and  has  led 
to  a  regular  practice  of  hiding  cut  hair  and  nails.  The  same  practice 
prevails  among  many  tribes  of  South  Africa,  from  a  fear  lest  wizards 
should  get  hold  of  the  severed  particles  and  work  evil  with  them. 
The  Caffres  carry  still  further  this  dread  of  allowing  any  portion  of 
themselves  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  an  enemy  ;  for  not  only  do  they 


236  TABOOED  THINGS  ch. 

bury  their  cut  hair  and  nails  in  a  secret  spot,  but  when  one  of  them 
cleans  the  head  of  another  he  preserves  the  vermin  which  he  catches, 

"  carefully  delivering  them  to  the  person  to  whom  they  originally 
appertained,  supposing,  according  to  their  theory,  that  as  they  derived 
their  support  from  the  blood  of  the  man  from  whom  they  were  taken, 
should  they  be  killed  by  another,  the  blood  of  his  neighbour  would  be 
in  his  possession,  thus  placing  in  his  hands  the  power  of  some  super¬ 
human  influence." 

Sometimes  the  severed  hair  and  nails  are  preserved,  not  to  prevent 
them  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  a  magician,  but  that  the  owner 
may  have  them  at  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  to  which  some  races 
look  forward.  Thus  the  Incas  of  Peru  “  took  extreme  care  to  preserve 
the  nail-parings  and  the  hairs  that  were  shorn  off  or  torn  out  with 
a  comb  ;  placing  them  in  holes  or  niches  in  the  walls  ;  and  if  they  fell 
out,  any  other  Indian  that  saw  them  picked  them  up  and  put  them 
piaCes  again.  I  very  often  asked  different  Indians,  at  vanous 
times,  why  they  did  this,  in  order  to  see  what  they  would  say,  and 
they  all  replied  in  the  same  words  saying,  ‘  Know  that  all  persons 
who  are  born  must  return  to  life  ’  (they  have  no.  word  to  express 
resuscitation),  ‘  and  the  souls  must  rise  out  of  their  tombs  with  all 
that  belonged  to  their  bodies.  We,  therefore,  in  order  that  we  may 
not  have  to  search  for  our  hair  and  nails  at  a  time  when  there  will 
be  much  hurry  and  confusion,  place  them  in  one  place,  that  they 
may  be  brought  together  more  conveniently,  and,  whenever  it  is 
possible,  we  are  also  careful  to  spit  in  one  place.  Similaily  the 
Turks  never  throw  away  the  parings  of  their  nails,  but  carefully  stow 
them  in  cracks  of  the  walls  or  of  the  boards,  in  the  belief  that  they 
will  be  needed  at  the  resurrection.  The  Armenians  do  not  throw 
away  their  cut  hair  and  nails  and  exti  acted  teeth,  but  hide  them  in 
places  that  are  esteemed  holy,  such  as  a  crack  in  the  church  wall,  a 
pillar  of  the  house,  or  a  hollow  tree.  They  think  that  all  these  severed 
portions  of  themselves  will  be  wanted  at  the  resurrection,  and  that  he 
who  has  not  stowed  them  away  in  a  safe  place  will  have  to  hunt  about 
for  them  on  the  great  day.  In  the  village  of  Drumconrath  in  Ireland 
there  used  to  be  some  old  women  who,  having  ascertained  from  Scripture 
that  the  hairs  of  their  heads  were  all  numbered  by  the  Almighty,  expected 
to  have  to  account  for  them  at  the  day  of  judgment.  In  order  to 
be  able  to  do  so  they  stuffed  the  severed  hair  away  in  the  thatch  of 
their  cottages. 

Some  people  burn  their  loose  hair  to  save  it  from  falling  into 
the  hands  of  sorcerers.  This  is  done  by  the  Patagonians  and  some  of 
the  Victorian  tribes.  In  the  Upper  Vosges  they  say  that  you  should 
never  leave  the  clippings  of  your  hair  and  nails  lying  about,  but  burn 
them  to  hinder  the  sorcerers  from  using  them  against  you.  For  the 
same  reason  Italian  women  either  burn  their  loose  hairs  or  throw 
them  into  a  place  where  no  one  is  likely  to  look  for  them.  The  almost 
universal  dread  of  witchcraft  induces  the  West  African  negroes,  the 
Makololo  of  South  Africa,  and  the  Tahitians  to  burn  or  bury  their 


xxi  SPITTLE  TABOOED  237 

shorn  hair.  In  the  Tyrol  many  people  burn  their  hair  lest*the  witches 
should,  use  it  to  raise  thunderstorms  *  others  burn  or  bury  it  to  prevent 
the  birds  from  lining  their  nests  with  it,  which  would  cause  the  heads 
from  which  the  hair  came  to  ache. 

This  destruction  of  the  hair  and  nails  plainly  involves  an  incon¬ 
sistency  of  thought.  The  object  of  the  destruction  is  avowedly  to 
pi  event  these  severed  portions  of  the  body  from  being  used  by  sorcerers. 
But  the  possibility  of  their  being  so  used  depends  upon  the  supposed 
sympathetic  connexion  between  them  and  the  man  from  whom  they 
were  severed.  And  if  this  sympathetic  connexion  still  exists,  clearly 
these  seveied  portions  cannot  be  destroyed  without  injury  to  the  man. 

§  9.  Spittle  tabooed. — -The  same  fear  of  witchcraft  which  has  led 
so  many  people  to  hide  or  destroy  their  loose  hair  and  nails  has  induced 
other  or  the  same  people  to  treat  their  spittle  in  a  like  fashion.  For 
on  the  principles  of  sympathetic  magic  the  spittle  is  part  of  the  man, 
and  whatever  is  done  to  it  will  have  a  corresponding  effect  on  him. 
A  Chilote  Indian,  who  has  gathered  up  the  spittle  of  an  enemy,  will 
put  it  in  a  potato,  and  hang  the  potato  in  the  smoke,  uttering  certain 
spells  as  he  does  so  in  the  belief  that  his  foe  will  waste  away  as  the 
potato  dries  in  the  smoke.  Or  he  will  put  the  spittle  in  a  frog  and 
throw  the  animal  into  an  inaccessible,  unnavigable  river,  which  will 
make  the  victim  quake  and  shake  with  ague.  The  natives  of  Urewera, 
a  district  of  New  Zealand,  enjoyed  a  high  reputation  for  their  skill  in 
magic.  It  was  said  that  they  made  use  of  people’s  spittle  to  bewitch 
them.  Hence  visitors  were  careful  to  conceal  their  spittle,  lest  they 
should  furnish  these  wizards  with  a  handle  for  working  them  harm. 
Similarly  among  some  tribes  of  South  Africa  no  man  will  spit  when  an 
enemy  is  near,  lest  his  foe  should  find  the  spittle  and  give  it  to  a  wizard, 
who  would  then  mix  it  with  magical  ingredients  so  as  to  injure  the 
person  from  whom  it  fell.  Even  in  a  man’s  own  house  his  saliva  is 
carefully  swept  away  and  obliterated  for  a  similar  reason. 

If  common  folk  are  thus  cautious,  it  is  natural  that  kings  and 
chiefs  should  be  doubly  so.  In  the  Sandwich  Islands  chiefs  were 
attended  by  a  confidential  servant  bearing  a  portable  spittoon,  and 
the  deposit  was  carefully  buried  every  morning  to  put  it  out  of  the 
leach  of  sorcerers.  On  the  Slave  Coast,  for  the  same  reason,  whenever 
a  king  or  chief  expectorates,  the  saliva  is  scrupulously  gathered  up 
and  hidden  or  buried.  The  same  precautions  are  taken  for  the  same 
reason  with  the  spittle  of  the  chief  of  Tabali  in  Southern  Nigeria. 

The  magical  use  to  which  spittle  may  be  put  marks  it  out,  like 
blood  or  nail-parings,  as  a  suitable  material  basis  for  a  covenant, 
since  by  exchanging  their  saliva  the  covenanting  parties  give  each 
other  a  guarantee  of  good  faith.  If  either  of  them  afterwards  forswears 
himself,  the  other  can  punish  his  perfidy  by  a  magical  treatment  of 
the  perjurer’s  spittle  which  he  has  in  his  custody.  Thus  when  the 
^aja^a  of  East  Africa  desire  to  make  a  covenant,  the  two  parties  will 
sometimes  sit  down  with  a  bowl  of  milk  or  beer  between  them,  and  after 
uttering  an  incantation  over  the  beverage  they  each  take  a  mouthful  of 


TABOOED  THINGS 


CH. 


238 


the  milk  oiwbeer  and  spit  it  into  the  other  s  mouth.  In  urgent  cases, 
when  there  is  no  time  to  spend  on  ceremony,  the  two  will  simply  spit 
into  each  other’s  mouth,  which  seals  the  covenant  just  as  well. 

§  10.  Foods  tabooed. — As  might  have  been  expected,  the  super¬ 
stitions  of  the  savage  cluster  thick  about  the  subject  of  food  ,  and 
he  abstains  from  eating  many  animals  and  plants,  wholesome  enough 
in  themselves,  which  for  one  reason  or  another  he  fancies  would  prove 
dangerous  or  fatal  to  the  eater.  Examples  of  such  abstinence  are 
too  familiar  and  far  too  numerous  to  quote.  But  if  the  ordinary  man 
is  thus  deterred  by  superstitious  fear  from  partaking  of  various  foods, 
the  restraints  of  this  kind  which  are  laid  upon  sacied  or  tabooed 
persons,  such  as  kings  and  priests,  are  still  more  numerous  and  stringent. 
We  have  already  seen  that  the  Flamen  Dialis  w^as  forbidden  to  eat 
or  even  name  several  plants  and  animals,  and  that  the  flesh  diet  of 
Egyptian  kings  was  restricted  to  veal'  and  goose.  In  antiquity  many 
priests  and  many  kings  of  barbarous  peoples  abstained  wholly  fiom 
a  flesh  diet.  The  Gangas  or  fetish  priests  of  the  Loango  Coast  are 
forbidden  to  eat  or  even  see  a  variety  of  animals  and  fish,  in  con¬ 
sequence  of  which  their  flesh  diet  is  extremely  limited  ,  often  they 
live  only  on  herbs  and  roots,  though  they  may  drink  fresh  blood. 
The  heir  to  the  throne  of  Loango  is  forbidden  from  infancy  to  eat 
pork  )  from  early  childhood  he  is  interdicted  the  use  of  the  cola  fruit 
in  company  j  at  puberty  he  is  taught  by  a  priest  not  to  paitakc  of 
fowls  except  such  as  he  has  himself  killed  and  cooked  ;  and  so  the 
number  of  taboos  goes  on  increasing  with  his  years.  In  Fernando  Po 
the  king  after  installation  is  forbidden  to  eat  cocco  (arum  acaule), 
deer,  and  porcupine,  which  are  the  ordinary  foods  of  the  people. 
The  head  chief  of  the  Masai  may  eat  nothing  but  milk,  honey,  and 
the  roasted  livers  of  goats  ;  for  if  he  partook  of  any  other  food  he 
would  lose  his  power  of  soothsaying  and  of  compounding  charms. 

§  11.  Knots  and  Rings  tabooed. — -We  have  seen  that  among  the 
many  taboos  which  the  Flamen  Dialis  at  Rome  had  to  observe,  there 
was  one  that  forbade  him  to  have  a  knot  on  any  part  of  his  garments, 
and  another  that  obliged  him  to  wear  no  ring  unless  it  were  broken. 
In  like  manner  Moslem  pilgrims  to  Mecca  are  in  a  state  of  sanctity 
or  taboo  and  may  wear  on  their  persons  neither  knots  nor  rings. 
These  rules  are  probably  of  kindred  significance,  and  may  conveniently 
be  considered  together.  To  begin  with  knots,  many  people  in  different 
parts  of  the  world  entertain  a  strong  objection  to  having  any  knot 
about  their  person  at  certain  critical  seasons,  particularly  childbirth, 
marriage,  and  death.  Thus  among  the  Saxons  of  Transylvania, 
when  a  woman  is  in  travail  all  knots  on  her  garments  are  untied, 
because  it  is  believed  that  this  will  facilitate  her  delivery,  and  with 
the  same  intention  all  the  locks  in  the  house,  whether  on  doors  or 
boxes,  are  unlocked.  The  Lapps  think  that  a  lying-in  woman  should 
have  no  knot  on  her  garments,  because  a  knot  would  have  the  effect 
of  making  the  delivery  difficult  and  painful.  In  the  East  Indies 
this  superstition  is  extended  to  the  whole  time  of  pregnancy  ;  the 


XXI  KNOTS  AND  RINGS  TABOOED  239 

people  believe  that  if  a  pregnant  woman  were  to  tie  knots,  or  braid, 
or  make  anything  fast,  the  child  would  thereby  be  constricted  or 
the  woman  would  herself  be  “  tied  up  ”  when  her  time  came.  Nay, 
some  of  them  enforce  the  observance  of  the  rule  on  the  father  as  well 
as  the  mother  of  the  unborn  child.  Among  the  Sea  Dyaks  neither 
of  the  parents  may  bind  up  anything  with  string  or  make  anything 
fast  during  the  wife’s  pregnancy.  In  the  Toumbuluh  tribe  of  North 
Celebes  a  ceremony  is  performed  in  the  fourth  or  fifth  month  of  a 
woman’s  pregnancy,  and  after  it  her  husband  is  forbidden,  among 
many  othci  things,  to  tie  any  fast  knots  and  to  sit  with  his  legs  crossed 
over  each  other. 

In  all  these  cases  the  idea  seems  to  be  that  the  tying  of  a  knot 
would,  as  they  say  in  the  East  Indies,  “  tie  up  ”  the  woman,  in  other 
words,  impede  and  perhaps  prevent  her  delivery,  or  delay  her  con¬ 
valescence  after  the  birth.  On  the  principles  of  homoeopathic  or 
imitative  magic  the  physical  obstacle  or  impediment  of  a  knot  on  a  cord 
would  create  a  corresponding  obstacle  or  impediment  in  the  body  of  the 
woman.  That  this  is  really  the  explanation  of  the  rule  appears  from  a 
custom  observed  by  the  Hos  of  West  Africa  at  a  difficult  birth.  When 
a  woman  is  in  hard  labour  and  cannot  bring  forth,  they  call  in  a 
magician  to  her  aid.  He  looks  at  her  and  says,  “  The  child  is  bound 
in  the  womb,  that  is  why  she  cannot  be  delivered.”  On  the  entreaties 
of  her  female  relations  he  then  promises  to  loose  the  bond  so  that  she 
may  bring  forth.  For  that  purpose  he  orders  them  to  fetch  a  tough 
creeper  from  the  forest,  and  with  it  he  binds  the  hands  and  feet  of 
the  sufferer  on  her  back.  Then  he  takes  a  knife  and  calls  out  the 
woman’s  name,  and  when  she  answers  he  cuts  through  the  creeper 
with  a^knife,  saying,  “  I  cut  through  to-day  thy  bonds  and  thy  child’s 
^>onds.”  After  that  he  chops  up  the  creeper  small,  puts  the  bits  in 
*  a  vessel  of  water,  and  bathes  the  woman  with  the  water.  Here  the 
cutting  of  the  creeper  with  which  the  woman’s  hands  and  feet  are 
bound  is  a  simple  piece  of  homoeopathic  or  imitative  magic  :  by 
releasing  her  limbs  from  their  bonds  the  magician  imagines  that  he 
simultaneously  releases  the  child  in  her  womb  from  the  trammels 
which  impede  its  birth.  The  same  train  of  thought  underlies  a  practice 
observed  by  some  peoples  of  opening  all  locks,  doors,  and  so  on,  while 
a  birth  is  taking  place  in  the  house.  We  have  seen  that  at  such  a 
time  the  Germans  of  Transylvania  open  all  the  locks,  and  the  same 
thing  is  done  also  in  Voigtland  and  Mecklenburg.  In  north-western 
Argyllshire  superstitious  people  used  to  open  every  lock  in  the  house 
at  childbirth.  In  the  island  of  Salsette  near  Bombay,  when  a  woman 
is  in  hard  labour,  all  locks  of  doors  or  drawers  are  opened  with  a  key 
to  facilitate  her  delivery.  Among  the  Mandelings  of  Sumatra  the  lids 
of  all  chests,  boxes,  pans,  and  so  forth  are  opened  ;  and  if  this  does 
not  produce  the  desired  effect,  the  anxious  husband  has  to  strike  the 
projecting  ends  of  some  of  the  house-beams  in  order  to  loosen  them  ; 
for  they  think  that  “  everything  must  be  open  and  loose  to  facilitate 
the  delivery.”  In  Chittagong,  when  a  woman  cannot  bring  her  child 


TABOOED  THINGS 


240 


CH, 


to  the  birth,  the  midwife  gives  orders  to  throw  all  doors  and  windows 
wide  open,  to  uncork  all  bottles,  to  remove  the  bungs  from  all  casks, 
to  unloose  the  cows  in  the  stall,  the  horses  in  the  stable,  the  watchdog 
in  his  kennel,  to  set  free  sheep,  fowls,  ducks,  and  so  forth.  This 
universal  liberty  accorded  to  the  animals  and  even  to  inanimate  things 
is,  according  to  the  people,  an  infallible  means  of  ensuring  the  woman’s 
delivery  and  allowing  the  babe  to  be  born.  In  the  island  of  Saghalien, 
when  a  woman  is  in  labour,  her  husband  undoes  everything  that  can 
be  undone.  He  loosens  the  plaits  of  his  hair  and  the  laces  of  his  shoes. 


Then  he  unties  whatever  is  tied  in  the  house  or  its  vicinity.  In  the 
courtyard  he  takes  the  axe  out  of  the  log  in  which  it  is  stuck  ;  he 


unfastens  the  boat,  if  it  is  moored  to  a  tree,  he  withdraws  the  cartridges 
from  his  gun,  and  the  arrows  from  his  crossbow. 

Again,  we  have  seen  that  a  Toumbuluh  man  abstains  not  only 
from  tying  knots,  but  also  from  sitting  with  crossed  legs  during  his 
wife’s  pregnancy.  The  train  of  thought  is  the  same  in  both  cases. 
Whether  you  cross  threads  in  tying  a  knot,  or  only  cross  your  legs  in 
sitting  at  your  ease,  you  are  equally,  on  the  principles  of  homoeopathic 
magic,  crossing  or  thwarting  the  free  course  of  things,  and  your  action 
cannot  but  check  and  impede  whatever  may  be  going  forward  in  your 
neighbourhood.  Of  this  important  truth  the  Romans  were  fully  aware. 
To  sit  beside  a  pregnant  woman  or  a  patient  under  medical  treatment 
with  clasped  hands,  says  the  grave  Pliny,  is  to  cast  a  malignant  spell 
over  the  person,  and  it  is  worse  still  if  you  nurse  your  leg  or  legs  with 
your  clasped  hands,  or  lay  one  leg  over  the  other.  Such  postures 
were  regarded  by  the  old  Romans  as  a  let  and  hindrance  to  business 
of  every  sort,  and  at  a  council  of  war  or  a  meeting  of  magistrates,  at 
prayers  and  sacrifices,  no  man  was  suffered  to  cross  his  legs  or  clasp 
his  hands.  The  stock  instance  of  the  dreadful  consequences  that 
might  flow  from  doing  one  or  the  other  was  that  of  Alcmena,  who 
travailed  with  Hercules  for  seven  days  and  seven  nights,  because  the 
goddess  Lucina  sat  in  front  of  the  house  with  clasped  hands  and  crossed 
legs,  and  the  child  could  not  be  born  until  the  goddess  had  been 
beguiled  into  changing  her  attitude.  It  is  a  Bulgarian  superstition 
that  if  a  pregnant  woman  is  in  the  habit  of  sitting  with  crossed  legs, 
she  will  suffer  much  in  childbed.  In  some  parts  of  Bavaria,  when 
conversation  comes  to  a  standstill  and  silence  ensues,  they  say,  “  Surely 
somebody  has  crossed  his  legs.” 

The  magical  effect  of  knots  in  trammelling  and  obstructing  human 
activity  was  believed  to  be  manifested  at  marriage  not  less  than  at 
birth.  During  the  Middle  Ages,  and  down  to  the  eighteenth  century, 
it  seems  to  have  been  commonly  held  in  Europe  that  the  consummation 
of  marriage  could  be  prevented  by  any  one  who,  while  the  wedding 
ceremony  was  taking  place,  either  locked  a  lock  or  tied  a  knot  in  a 
cord,  and  then  threw  the  lock  or  the  cord  away.  The  lock  or  the 
knotted  cord  had  to  be  flung  into  water  ;  and  until  it  had  been  found 
and  unlocked,  or  untied,  no  real  union  of  the  married  pair  was  possible. 
Hence  it  was  a  grave  offence,  not  only  to  cast  such  a  spell,  but  also  to 


XXI 


KNOTS  AND  RINGS  TABOOED  241 

steal  or  make  away  with  the  material  instrument  of  it,  whether  lock 
or  knotted  cord.  In  the  year  1718  the  parliament  of  Bordeaux 
sentenced  some  one  to  be  burned  alive  for  having  spread  desolation 
through  a  whole  family  by  means  of  knotted  cords;  and  in  1705 
two  persons  were  condemned  to  death  in  Scotland  for  stealing  certain 
charmed  knots  which  a  woman  had  made,  in  order  thereby  to  mar 
the  wedded  happiness  of  Spalding  of  Ashintilly.  The  belief  in  the 
efficacy  of  these  charms  appears  to  have  lingered  in  the  Highlands 
of  Perthshire  down  to  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  for  at  that 
time  it  was  still  customary  in  the  beautiful  parish  of  Logierait,  between 
the  river  Tummel  and  the  river  Tay,  to  unloose  carefully  every  knot 
in  the  clothes  of  the  bride  and  bridegroom  before  the  celebration  of 
the  marriage  ceremony.  We  meet  with  the  same  superstition  and 
the  same  custom  at  the  present  day  in  Syria.  The  persons  who  help 
a  Syrian  bridegroom  to  don  his  wedding  garments  take  care  that  no 
knot  is  tied  on  them  and  no  button  buttoned,  for  they  believe  that  a 
button  buttoned  or  a  knot  tied  would  put  it  within  the  power  of  his 
enemies  to  deprive  him  of  his  nuptial  rights  by  magical  means.  The 
fear  of  such  charms  is  diffused  all  over  North  Africa  at  the  present 
day.  To  render  a  bridegroom  impotent  the  enchanter  has  only  to  tie 
a  knot  in  a  handkerchief  wdiich  he  had  previously  placed  quietly  on 
some  part  of  the  bridegroom’s  body  when  he  was  mounted  on  horse¬ 
back  ready  to  fetch  his  bride  :  so  long  as  the  knot  in  the  handkerchief 
remains  tied,  so  long  will  the  bridegroom  remain  powerless  to  con¬ 
summate  the  marriage. 

The  maleficent  power  of  knots  may  also  be  manifested  in  the  inflic¬ 
tion  of  sickness,  disease,  and  all  kinds  of  misfortune.  Thus  among  the 
Hos  of  West  Africa  a  sorcerer  will  sometimes  curse  his  enemy  and  tie 
1  knot  in  a  stalk  of  grass,  saying,  "  I  have  tied  up  So-and-so  in  this 
mot.  May  ah  evil  light  upon  him  !  When  he  goes  into  the  field,  may 
1  snake  sting  him  !  When  he  goes  to  the  chase,  may  a  ravening  beast 
ittack  him  !  And  when  he  steps  into  a  river,  may  the  water  sweep 
lim  away  !  When  it  rains,  may  the  lightning  strike  him  !  May  evil 
fights  be  his  !  It  is  believed  that  in  the  knot  the  sorcerer  has  bound 
ip  the  life  of  his  enemy.  In  the  Koran  there  is  an  allusion  to  the 
nischief  of  those  who  puff  into  the  knots,”  and  an  Arab  commentator 
>n  the  passage  explains  that  the  words  refer  to  women  who  practise 
nagic  by  tying  knots  in  cords,  and  then  blowing  and  spitting  upon 
hem.  He  goes  on  to  relate  how,  once  upon  a  time,  a  wicked  Jew 
switched  the  prophet  Mohammed  himself  by  tying  nine  knots  on  a 
tring,  which  he  then  hid  in  a  well.  So  the  prophet  fell  ill,  and  nobody 
:nows  what  might  have  happened  if  the  archangel  Gabriel  had  not 
pportunely  revealed  to  the  holy  man  the  place  where  the  knotted 
ord  was  concealed.  The  trusty  Ali  soon  fetched  the  baleful  thing 
com  the  well ;  and  the  prophet  recited  over  it  certain  charms,  which 
ere  specially  revealed  to  him  for  the  purpose.  At  every  verse  of 

tie  charms  a  knot  untied  itself,  and  the  prophet  experienced  a  certain 
chef. 


R 


242 


TABOOED  THINGS 


CH. 


If  knots  are  supposed  to  kill,  they  are  also  supposed  to  cure.  This 
follows  from  the  belief  that  to  undo  the  knots  which  are  causing  sic  - 
ness  will  bring  the  sufferer  relief.  But  apart  from  this  negative  virtue 
of  maleficent  knots,  there  are  certain  beneficent  knots  to  which  a 
positive  power  of  baling  is  ascribed.  Pliny  tells  us  that  some  folk 
cured  disuses  of  the  groin  by  taking  a  thread  from  a  web  tym, 1  seven 
or  nine  knots  on  it,  and  then  fastening  it  to  the  patient  s  groin  ,  b  t 
to  make  the  cure  effectual  it  was  necessary  to  name  some  widow  as 
each  knot  was  tied.  O’Donovan  describes  a  remedy  for  fever  employed 
among  the  Turcomans.  The  enchanter  takes  some  camel  hair  and 
spins  U  into  a  stout  thread,  droning  a  spell  the  while  Next  he  ties 
seven  knots  on  the  thread,  blowing  on  each  knot  before  he  pulls  it 
tielit  This  knotted  thread  is  then  worn  as  a  bracelet  on  his  wns  y 
the  patient.  Every  day  one  of  the  knots  is  untied  and  blown  upon, 
and  when  the  seventh  knot  is  undone  the  whole  thread  is  rolled  up  into 
a  ball  and  thrown  into  a  river,  bearing  away  (as  they  imagine)  the 

feV<AgTinh knots  may  be  used  by  an  enchantress  to  win  a  l°ver  and 
attach  him  firmly  to  herself.  Thus  the  love-sick  maid  m  V  irgn 
seeks  to  draw  Daplmis  to  her  from  the  city  by  spells  and  by  tying 
three  knots  on  each  of  three  strings  of  different  colours.  So  an  Arab 
maiden,  who  had  lost  her  heart  to  a  certain  man,  tried  to  gam  h  s 
love  and  bind  him  to  herself  by  tying  knots  in  his  whip  ,  but  her 
ealous  rival  undid  the  knots.  On  the  same  principle  magic  knots 
may  be  employed  to  stop  a  runaway.  In  Swaziland  you  may  often 
grass  tied  "in  knots  at  the  side  of  the  footpaths.  Every  one  of 
these  knots  tells  of  a  domestic  tragedy.  A  wife  has  run  away  from 
her  husband,  and  he  and  his  friends  have  gone  m  pursuit,  binding  up  t 
the  paths,  as  they  call  it,  in  this  fashion  to  prevent  the  fugitive  from 
doubling  back  over  them.  A  net,  from  its  affluence  of  kno  s,  las 
always  been  considered  in  Russia  very  efficacious  against  sorcerers 
hence  in  some  places,  when  a  bride  is  being  dressed  m  her  wedding 
attire  a  fishing-net  is  flung  over  her  to  keep  her  out  of  harm  s  w<  J . 
For  a  similar  purpose  the  bridegroom  and  his  companions  are  often 
girt  with  pieces  of  net,  or  at  least  with  tight-drawn  girdles,  for  before 
a  wizard  can  begin  to  injure  them  he  must  undo  all  the  knots  m  the 
net  or  take  off  the  girdles.  But  often  a  Russian  amulet  is  merely  a 
knotted  thread.  A  skein  of  red  wool  wound  about  the  arms  and  legs 
is  thought  to  ward  off  agues  and  fevers  ;  and  nine  skeins,  fastened 
round  a  child's  neck,  are  deemed  a  preservative  against  scarlatina 
In  the  Tver  Government  a  bag  of  a  special  kind  is  tied  to  the  neck  o 
!h, low  which  walks  before  the  ,f  1  of  a  herd,  in  »,d., to  keep  ofl 
wolves  •  its  force  binds  the  maw  of  the  ravening  beast.  On  the  same 
principle,  a  padlock  is  carried  thrice  round  a  herd  of  horses  before 
they  go  afield  in  the  spring,  and  the  bearer  locks  and  unlocks  it  as 
goes,  saying,  “  I  lock  from  my  herd  the  mouths  of  the  grey  wolves 

with  this  steel  lock.”  .  ,  j 

Knots  and  locks  may  serve  to  avert  not  only  wizards 


XXI 


KNOTS  AND  RINGS  TABOOED  243 

I  wo^es  death  itself.  When  they  brought  a  woman  to  the  stake 
at  St.  Andrews  in  1572  to  burn  her  alive  for  a  witch,  they  found 
on  ler  a  white  cloth  like  a  collar,  with  strings  and  many  knots  on 
the  strings.  They  took  it  from  her,  sorely  against  her  will,  for  she 
seemed  to  think  that  she  could  not  die  in  the  fire,  if  only  the  cloth 
with  the  knotted  strings  was  on  her.  When  it  was  taken  away,  she 
said,  Now  I  have  no  hope  of  myself.”  In  many  parts  of  England  it 
is  thought  that  a  person  cannot  die  so  long  as  any  locks  are  locked  or 
bolts  shot  in  the  house.  It  is  therefore  a  very  common  practice  to 
undo  all  locks  and  bolts  when  the  sufferer  is  plainly  near  his  end  in 
order  that  his  agony  may  not  be  unduly  prolonged.  For  example!  in 
the  year  1863,  at  Taunton,  a  child  lay  sick  of  scarlatina  and  death 
seemed  inevitable.  “  A  jury  of  matrons  was,  as  it  were,  empanelled 
and  to  prevent  the  child  ‘  dying  hard  '  all  the  doors  in  the  house,  all  the 
drawers,  all  the  boxes,  all  the  cupboards  were  thrown  wide  open,  the 
keys  taken  out,  and  the  body  of  the  child  placed  under  a  beam, 
whereby  a  sure,  certain,  and  easy  passe  ge  into  eternity  could  be 
secured.  Strange  to  say,  the  child  declined  to  avail  itself  of  the 
facilities  for  dying  so  obligingly  placed  at  its  disposal  by  the  sagacity 
and  experience  of  the  British  matrons  of  Taunton  ;  it  preferred  to 
live  rather  than  give  up  the  ghost  just  then. 

The  rule  which  prescribes  that  at  certain  magical  and  religious 
ceremonies  the  hair  should  hang  loose  and  the  feet  should  be  bare  is 
probably  based  on  the  same  fear  of  trammelling  and  impeding  the 
action  in  hand,  whatever  it  may  be,  by  the  presence  of  any  knot  or 
constriction,  whether  on  the  head  or  on  the  feet  of  the  performer.  A 
similar  power  to  bind  and  hamper  spiritual  as  well  as  bodily  activities 
is  ascribed  by  some  people  to  rings.  Thus  in  the  island  of  Carpathus 
people  never  button  the  clothes  they  put  upon  a  dead  body  and  they 
are  careful  to  remove  all  rings  from  it ;  “  for  the  spirit,  they  say,  can 
even  be  detained  in  the  little  finger,  and  cannot  rest.”  Here  it  is 
plain  that  even  if  the  soul  is  not  definitely  supposed  to  issue  at  death 
from  the  finger-tips,  yet  the  ring  is  conceived  to  exercise  a  certain 
constrictive  influence  which  detains  and  imprisons  the  immortal  spirit 
m  spite  of  its  efforts  to  escape  from  the  tabernacle  of  clay  ;  in  short 
the  ring,  like  the  knot,  acts  as  a  spiritual  fetter.  This  may  have  been 
the  reason  of  an  ancient  Greek  maxim,  attributed  to  Pythagoras, 
which  forbade  people  to  wear  rings.  Nobody  might  enter  the  ancient 
Arcadian  sanctuary  of  the  Mistress  at  Lycosura  with  a  ring  on  his  or 
er  finger.  Persons  who  consulted  the  oracle  of  Faunus  had  to  be 
chaste,  to  eat  no  flesh,  and  to  wear  no  rings. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  same  constriction  which  hinders  the  egress 
0  the  soul  may  prevent  the  entrance  of  evil  spirits  ;  hence  we  find 
nngs  used  as  amulets  against  demons,  witches,  and  ghosts.  In  the 
yiol  it  is  said  that  a  woman  in  childbed  should  never  take  off  her 
wedding-ring,  or  spirits  and  witches  will  have  power  over  her.  Among 
the  Lapps,  the  person  who  is  about  to  place  a  corpse  in  the  coffin 
receives  from  the  husband,  wife,  or  children  of  the  deceased  a  brass 


244  TABOOED  WORDS  ch. 

ring,  which  he  must  wear  fastened  to  his  right  arm  until  the  corpse  is 
safely  deposited  in  the  grave.  The  ring  is  believed  to  serve  the  pcison 
as  an  amulet  against  any  harm  which  the  ghost  might  do  to  him 
How  far  the  custom  of  wearing  finger-rings  may  have  been  influenced 
by,  or  even  have  sprung  from,  a  belief  in  their  efficacy  as  amulets  to 
keep  the  soul  in  the  body,  or  demons  out  of  it,  is  a  question  which 
seems  worth  considering.  Here  we  are  only  concerned  with  the  belief 
in  so  far  as  it  seems  to  throw  light  on  the  rule  that  the  Flamen  Dialis 
might  not  wear  a  ring  unless  it  were  broken.  Taken  in  conjunction 
with  the  rule  which  forbade  him  to  have  a  knot  on  his  garments  it 
points  to  a  fear  that  the  powerful  spirit  embodied  in  him  might  be 
trammelled  and  hampered  in  its  goings-out  and  comings-in  by  such 
corporeal  and  spiritual  fetters  as  rings  and  knots. 


CHAPTER  XXII 


TABOOED  WORDS 

§  i.  Personal  Names  tabooed.—  Unable  to  discriminate  clearly  between 
words  and  things,  the  savage  commonly  fancies  that  the  link  between 
a  name  and  the  person  or  thing  denominated  by  it  is  not  a  mere 
arbitrary  and  ideal  association,  but  a  real  and  substantial  bond  which 
unites  the  two  in  such  a  way  that  magic  may  be  wrought  on  a  man 
just  as  easily  through  his  name  as  through  his  hair,  his  nails,  or  any 
other  material  part  of  his  person.  In  fact,  primitive  man  regards  his 
name  as  a  vital  portion  of  himself  and  takes  care  of  it  accordingly. 
Thus,  for  example,  the  North  American  Indian  legards  his  name, 
not  as  a  mere  label,  but  as  a  distinct  part  of  his  personality,  just  as 
much  as  are  his  eyes  or  his  teeth,  and  believes  that  injury  will  lesult 
as  surely  from  the  malicious  handling  of  his  name  as  from  a  wound 
inflicted”  on  any  part  of  his  physical  organism.  This  belief  was  found 
among  the  various  tribes  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  and  has 
occasioned  a  number  of  curious  regulations  in  regard  to  the  concealment 
and  change  of  names.”  Some  Esquimaux  take  new  names  when  they 
are  old,  hoping  thereby  to  get  a  new  lease  of  life.  The  folampoos 
of  Celebes  believe  that  if  you  write  a  man’s  name  down  you  can 
carry  off  his  soul  along  with  it.  Many  savages  at  the  present  day 
regard  their  names  as  vital  parts  of  themselves,  and  therefore  take 
great  pains  to  conceal  their  real  names,  lest  these  should  give  to  evil- 
disposed  persons  a  handle  by  which  to  injure  their  owners. 

Thus,  to  begin  with  the  savages  who  rank  at  the  bottom  of  the 
social  scale,  we  are  told  that  the  secrecy  with  which  among  the 
Australian  aborigines  personal  names  are  often  kept  from  general 
knowledge  “  arises  in  great  measure  from  the  belief  that  an  enemy, 
who  knows  your  name,  has  in  it  something  which  he  can  use  magically 
to  your  detriment.”  “  An  Australian  black,”  says  another  writer, 


XXII 


PERSONAL  NAMES  TABOOED  245 

is  always  very  unwilling  to  tell  his  real  name,  and  there  is  no  doubt 
that  this  reluctance  is  due  to  the  fear  that  through  his  name  he  may  be 
injured  by  sorcerers/’  Amongst  the  tribes  of  Central  Australia  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  has,  besides  a  personal  name  which  is  in 
common  use,  a  secret  or  sacred  name  which  is  bestowed  by  the  older 
men  upon  him  or  her  soon  after  birth,  and  which  is  known  to  none 
but  the  fully  initiated  members  of  the  group.  This  secret  name  is 
never  mentioned  except  upon  the  most  solemn  occasions  ;  to  utter  it 
in  the  hearing  of  women  or  of  men  of  another  group  would  be  a  most 
seiious  bleach  of  tribal  custom,  as  serious  as  the  most  flagrant  case  of 
sacrilege  among  ourselves.  When  mentioned  at  all,  the  name  is  spoken 
only  m  a  whisper,  and  not  until  the  most  elaborate  precautions  have 
been  taken  that  it  shall  be  heard  by  no  one  but  members  of  the  group. 

le  native  thinks  that  a  stranger  knowing  his  secret  name  would 
have  special  power  to  work  him  ill  by  means  of  magic.” 

The  same  fear  seems  to  have  led  to  a  custom  of  the  same  sort 
amongst  the  ancient  Egyptians,  whose  comparatively  high  civilisation 
was  strangely  dashed  and  chequered  with  relics  of  the  lowest  savagery. 
Every  Egyptian  received  two  names,  which  were  known  respectively 
as  the  true  name  and  the  good  name,  or  the  great  name  and  the  little 
name  ;  and  while  the  good  or  little  name  was  made  public,  the  true 
or  great  name  appears  to  have  been  carefullv  concealed.  A  Brahman 
child  receives  two  names,  one  for  common  use,  the  other  a  secret  name 
which  none  but  his  father  and  mother  should  know.  The  latter  is 
only  used  at  ceremonies  such  as  marriage.  The  custom  is  intended  to 
piotect  the  person  against  magic,  since  a  charm  only  becomes  effectual 
m  combination  with  the  real  name.  Similarly,  the  natives  of  Nias 
believe  that  harm  may  be  done  to  a  person  by  the  demons  who  hear 
is  name  pronounced.  Hence  the  names  of  infants,  who  are  especially 
exposed  to  the  assaults  of  evil  spirits,  are  never  spoken  ;  and  often  in 
haunted  spots,  such  as  the  gloomy  depths  of  the  forest,  the  banks  of 
a  nver,  or  beside  a  bubbling  spring,  men  will  abstain  from  calling  each 
other  by  their  names  for  a  like  reason. 

The  Indians  of  Chiloe  keep  their  names  secret  and  do  not  like  to 
have  them  uttered  aloud  ;  for  they  say  that  there  are  fairies  or  imps 
on  the  mainland  or  neighbouring  islands  who,  if  they  knew  folk’s 
names,  would  do  them  an  injury  :  but  so  long  as  they  do  not  know 
the  names,  these  mischievous  sprites  are  powerless.  The  Araucanians 
will  hardly  ever  tell  a  stranger  their  names  because  they  fear  that  he 
would  thereby  acquire  some  supernatural  power  over  themselves. 
Asked  his  name  by  a  stranger,  who  is  ignorant  of  their  superstitions 
nn  Araucaman  will  answer,  “  I  have  none.”  When  an  Ojebway  is 
asked  his  name,  he  will  look  at  some  bystander  and  ask  him  to  answer. 

.s  reluctance  arises  from  an  impression  they  receive  when  young, 
that  if  they  repeat  their  own  names  it  will  prevent  their  growth,  and 
iey  will  be  small  in  stature.  On  account  of  this  unwillingness  to  tell 
their  names,  many  strangers  have  fancied  that  they  either  have  no 
names  or  have  forgotten  them.” 


TABOOED  WORDS 


CH. 


246 


In  this  last  case  no  scruple  seems  to  be  felt  about  communicating 
a  man’s  name  to  strangers,  and  no  ill  effects  appear  to  be  dreaded  as 
a  consequence  of  divulging  it ;  harm  is  only  done  when  a  name  is 
spoken  by  its  owner.  Why  is  this  ?  and  why  in  particular  should  a 
man  be  thought  to  stunt  his  growth  by  uttering  his  own  name  ?  We 
may  conjecture  that  to  savages  who  act  and  think  thus  a  person’s 
name  only  seems  to  be  a  part  of  himself  when  it  is  uttered  with  his 
own  breath  ;  uttered  by  the  breath  of  others  it  has  no  vital  connexion 
with  him,  and  no  harm  can  come  to  him  through  it.  Whereas,  so 
these  primitive  philosophers  may  have  argued,  when  a  man  lets  his 
own  name  pass  his  lips,  he  is  parting  with  a  living  piece  of  himself, 
and  if  he  persists  in  so  reckless  a  course  he  must  certainly  end  by  dis¬ 
sipating  his  energy  and  shattering  his  constitution.  Many  a  broken- 
down  debauchee,  many  a  feeble  frame  wasted  with  disease,  may  have 
been  pointed  out  by  these  simple  moralists  to  their  awe-struck  disciples 
as  a  fearful  example  of  the  fate  that  must  sooner  or  later  overtake 
the  profligate  who  indulges  immoderately  in  the  seductive  habit  of 
mentioning  his  own  name. 

However  we  may  explain  it,  the  fact  is  certain  that  many  a  savage 
evinces  the  strongest  reluctance  to  pronounce  his  own  name,  while  at 
the  same  time  he  makes  no  objection  at  all  to  other  people  pronouncing 
it,  and  will  even  invite  them  to  do  so  for  him  in  order  to  satisfy  the 
curiosity  of  an  inquisitive  stranger.  Thus  in  some  parts  of  Madagascar 
it  is  taboo  for  a  person  to  tell  his  own  name,  but  a  slave  or  attendant 
will  answer  for  him.  The  same  curious  inconsistency,  as  it  may  seem 
to  us,  is  recorded  of  some  tribes  of  American  Indians.  Thus  we  are 
told  that  “  the  name  of  an  American  Indian  is  a  sacred  thing,  not  to 
be  divulged  by  the  owner  himself  without  due  consideration.  One 
may  ask  a  warrior  of  any  tribe  to  give  his  name,  and  the  question  will 
be  met  with  either  a  point-blank  refusal  or  the  more  diplomatic  evasion 
that  he  cannot  understand  what  is  wanted  of  him.  The  moment  a 
friend  approaches,  the  warrior  first  interrogated  will  whisper  what  is 
wanted,  and  the  friend  can  tell  the  name,  receiving  a  reciprocation  of 
the  courtesy  from  the  other.”  This  general  statement  applies,  for 
example,  to  the  Indian  tribes  of  British  Columbia,  as  to  whom  it  is 
said  that  “  one  of  their  strangest  prejudices,  which  appears  to  pervade 
all  tribes  alike,  is  a  dislike  to  telling  their  names — thus  you  never  get 
a  man’s  right  name  from  himself  ;  but  they  will  tell  each  other’s  names 
without  hesitation.”  In  the  whole  of  the  East  Indian  Archipelago 
the  etiquette  is  the  same.  As  a  general  rule  no  one  will  utter  his  own 
name.  To  enquire,  “  What  is  your  name  ?  ”  is  a  very  indelicate 
question  in  native  society.  When  in  the  course  of  administrative  or 
judicial  business  a  native  is  asked  his  name,  instead  of  replying  he  will 
look  at  his  comrade  to  indicate  that  he  is  to  answer  for  him,  or  he  will 
say  straight  out,  “  Ask  him.”  The  superstition  is  current  all  over  the 
East  Indies  without  exception,  and  it  is  found  also  among  the  Motu 
and  Motumotu  tribes,  the  Papuans  of  Finsch  Haven  in  North  New 
Guinea,  the  Nufoors  of  Dutch  New  Guinea,  and  the  Melanesians  of  the 


XXII 


PERSONAL  NAMES  TABOOED 


247 


Bismarck  Archipelago.  Among  many  tribes  of  South  Africa  men  and 
women  never  mention  their  names  if  they  can  get  any  one  else  to  do 
it  for  them,  but  they  do  not  absolutely  refuse  when  it  cannot  be  avoided. 

Sometimes  the  embargo  laid  on  personal  names  is  not  permanent ; 
it  is  conditional  on  circumstances,  and  when  these  change  it  ceases 
to  operate.  Thus  when  the  Nandi  men  are  away  on  a  foray,  nobody 
at  home  may  pronounce  the  names  of  the  absent  warriors  ;  they  must 
be  referred  to  as  birds.  Should  a  child  so  far  forget  itself  as  to  mention 
one  of  the  distant  ones  by  name,  the  mother  would  rebuke  it,  saying, 

“  Don’t  talk  of  the  birds  who  are  in  the  heavens.”  Among  the  Bangala 
of  the  Upper  Congo,  while  a  man  is  fishing  and  when  he  returns  with  . 
his  catch,  his  proper  name  is  in  abeyance  and  nobody  may  mention  it. 
Whatever  the  fisherman’s  real  name  may  be,  he  is  called  tnwele  without 
distinction.  The  reason  is  that  the  river  is  full  of  spirits,  who,  if  they 
heard  the  fisherman’s  real  name,  might  so  work  against  him  that  he 
would  catch  little  or  nothing.  Even  when  he  has  caught  his  fish  and 
landed  with  them,  the  buyer  must  still  not  address  him  by  his  proper 
name,  but  must  only  call  him  mwele  ;  for  even  then,  if  the  spirits  were  to 
hear  his  proper  name,  they  would  either  bear  it  in  mind  and  serve  him 
out  another  day,  or  they  might  so  mar  the  fish  he  had  caught  that  he 
would  get  very  little  for  them.  Hence  the  fisherman  can  extract 
heavy  damages  from  anybody  who  mentions  his  name,  or  can  compel 
the  thoughtless  speaker  to  relieve  him  of  the  fish  at  a  good  price  so  as 
to  restore  his  luck.  When  the  Sulka  of  New  Britain  are  near  the  terri¬ 
tory  of  their  enemies  the  Gaktei,  they  take  care  not  to  mention  them  by 
their  proper  name,  believing  that  were  they  to  do  so,  their  foes  would 
attack  and  slay  them.  Hence  in  these  circumstances  they  speak  of  the 
Gaktei  as  0  lapsiek,  that  is,  “  the  rotten  tree-trunks,”  and  they  imagine 
that  by  calling  them  that  they  make  the  limbs  of  their  dreaded  enemies 
ponderous  and  clumsy  like  logs.  This  example  illustrates  the  extremely 
materialistic  view  which  these  savages  take  of  the  nature  of  words  ; 
they  suppose  that  the  mere  utterance  of  an  expression  signifying 
clumsiness  will  homoeopathically  affect  with  clumsiness  the  limbs  of 
their  distant  foemen.  Another  illustration  of  this  curious  misconcep¬ 
tion  is  furnished  by  a  Caffre  superstition  that  the  character  of  a  young 
thief  can  be  reformed  by  shouting  his  name  over  a  boiling  kettle  of 
medicated  water,  then  clapping  a  lid  on  the  kettle  and  leaving  the 
name  to  steep  in  the  water  for  several  days.  It  is  not  in  the  least 
necessary  that  the  thief  should  be  aware  of  the  use  that  is  being  made 
of  his  name  behind  his  back  ;  the  moral  reformation  will  be  effected 
without  his  knowledge. 

When  it  is  deemed  necessary  that  a  man’s  real  name  should  be 
kept  secret,  it  is  often  customary,  as  we  have  seen,  to  call  him  by  a 
surname  or  nickname.  As  distinguished  from  the  real  or  primary 
names,  these  secondary  names  are  apparently  held  to  be  no  part  of 
the  man  himself,  so  that  they  may  be  freely  used  and  divulged  to 
everybody  without  endangering  his  safety  thereby.  Sometimes  in 
order  to  avoid  the  use  of  his  own  name  a  man  will  be  called  after  his 


248  TABOOED  WORDS  ch. 

child.  Thus  we  are  informed. that  “the  Gippsland  blacks  objected 
strongly  to  let  2,-ny  one  outside  the  tribe  know  their  names,  lest  their 
enemies,  learning"  them,  should  make  them  vehicles  of  incantation, 
and  so  charm  their  lives  away.  As  children  were  not  thought  to  have 
enemies,  they  used  to  speak  of  a  man  as  ‘  the  father,  uncle,  or  cousin 
of  So-and-so,’  naming  a  child  ;  but  on  all  occasions  abstained  from 
mentioning  the  name  of  a  grown-up  person.”  The  Alfoors  of  Poso  in 
Celebes  will  not  pronounce  their  own  names.  Among  them,  accord¬ 
ingly,  if  you  wish  to  ascertain  a  person’s  name,  you  ought  not  to  ask  the 
man  himself,  but  should  enquire  of  others.  But  if  this  is  impossible,  for 
example,  when  there  is  no  one  else  near,  you  should  ask  him  his  child’s 
name,  and  then  address  him  as  the  “  Father  of  So-and-so.”  Nay, 
these  Alfoors  are  shy  of  uttering  the  names  even  of  children  ;  so  when  a 
boy  or  girl  has  a  nephew  or  niece,  he  or  she  is  addressed  as  “  Uncle 
of  So-and-so,”  or  “  Aunt  of  So-and-so.”  In  pure  Malay  society,  we 
are  told,  a  man  is  never  asked  his  name,  and  the  custom  of  naming 
parents  after  their  children  is  adopted  only  as  a  means  of  avoiding 
the  use  of  the  parents’  own  names.  The  writer  who  makes  this 
statement  adds  in  confirmation  of  it  that  childless  persons  are  named 
after  their  younger  brothers.  Among  the  land  Dyaks  children  as 
they  grow  up  are  called,  according  to  their  sex,  the  father  or  mother 
of  a  child  of  their  father’s  or  mother’s  younger  brother  or  sister,  that 
is,  they  are  called  the  father  or  mother  of  what  we  should  call  their 
first  cousin.  The  Caffres  used  to  think  it  discourteous  to  call  a 
bride  by  her  own  name,  so  they  would  call  her  “  the  Mother  of  So-and- 
so,”  even  when  she  was  only  betrothed,  far  less  a  wife  and  a  mother. 
Among  the  Kukis  and  Zemis  or  Kacha  Nagas  of  Assam  parents  drop 
their  names  after  the  birth  of  a  child  and  are  named  Father  and  Mother 
of  So-and-so.  Childless  couples  go  by  the  name  of  "  the  childless 
father,”  "  the  childless  mother,’^  “  the  father  of  no  child,”  “  the  mother 
of  no  child.”  The  widespread  custom  of  naming  a  father  after  his  child 
has  sometimes  been  supposed  to  spring  from  a  desire  on  the  father’s  part 
to  assert  his  paternity,  apparently  as  £Tneans  of  obtaining  those  rights 
over  his  children  which  had  previously,  under  a  system  of  mother-kin, 
been  possessed  by  the  mother.  But  this  explanation  does  not  account 
for  the  parallel  custom  of  naming  the  mother  after  her  child,  which 
seems  commonly  to  coexist  with  the  practice  of  naming  the  father 
after  the  child.  Still  less,  if  possible,  does  it  apply  to  the  customs  of 
calling  childless  couples  the  father  and  mother  of  children  which  do 
not  exist,  of  naming  people  after  their  younger  brothers,  and  of 
designating  children  as  the  uncles  and  aunts  of  So-and-so,  or  as  the 
fathers  and  mothers  of  their  first  cousins.  But  all  these  practices 
are  explained  in  a  simple  and  natural  way  if  we  suppose  that  they 
originate  in  a  reluctance  to  utter  the  real  names  of  persons  addressed 
or  directly  referred  to.  That  reluctance  is  probably  based  partly  on 
a  fear  of  attracting  the  notice  of  evil  spirits,  partly  on  a  dread  of 
revealing  the  name  to  sorcerers,  who  would  thereby  obtain  a  handle 
for  injuring  the  owner  of  the  name. 


XXII 


NAMES  OF  RELATIONS  TABOOED 


249 


§  2.  Names  of  Relations  tabooed. — It  might  naturally  be  expected 
that  the  leserve  so  commonly  maintained  with  regard  to  personal 
names  would  be  dropped  or  at  least  relaxed  among  relations  and 
friends.  But  the  reverse  of  this  is  often  the  case.  It  is  precisely  the 
persons  most  intimately  connected  by  blood  and  especially  by  marriage 
to  whom  the  rule  applies  with  the  greatest  stringency.  Such  people 
are  often  forbidden,  not  only  to  pronounce  each  other’s  names,  but  even 
to  utter  ordinary  words  which  resemble  or  have  a  single  syllable  in 
common  with  these  names.  The  persons  who  are  thus  mutually 
debarred  from  mentioning  each  other’s  names  are  especially  husbands 
and  wives,  a  man  and  his  wife’s  parents,  and  a  woman  and  her  husband’s 
father.  For  example,  among  the  Caffres  a  woman  may  not  publicly 
pronounce  the  birth-name  of  her  husband  or  of  any  of  his  brothers, 
nor  may  she  use  the  interdicted  word  in  its  ordinary  sense.  If  her 
husband,  for  instance,  be  called  u-Mpaka,  from  impaka,  a  small  feline 
animal,  she  must  speak  of  that  beast  by  some  other  name.  Further, 
a  Caffre  wife  is  forbidden  to  pronounce  even  mentally  the  names  of 
her  father-in-law  and  of  all  her  husband’s  male  relations  in  the  ascending 
line  ,  and  whenever  the  emphatic  syllable  of  any  of  their  names  occurs 
in  another  word,  she  must  avoid  it  by  substituting  either  an  entirely 
new  word,  or,  at  least,  another  syllable  in  its  place.  Hence  this 
custom  has  given  rise  to  an  almost  distinct  language  among  the  women, 
which  the  Caffres  call  “  women’s  speech.”  The  interpretation  of  this 
“  women’s  speech  ”  is  naturally  very  difficult,  “  for  no  definite  rules 
can  be  given  for  the  foimation  of  these  substituted  words,  nor  is  it 
possible  to  form  a  dictionary  of  them,  their  number  being  so  great— 
since  there  may  be  many  women,  even  in  the  same  tribe,  who  would 
be  no  more  at  liberty  to  use  the  substitutes  employed  by  some  others, 
than  they  are  to  use  the  original  words  themselves.”  A  Caffre  man’ 
on  his  side,  may  not  mention  the  name  of  his  mother-in-law,  nor  may 
she  pronounce  his  ;  but  he  is  free  to  utter  words  in  which  the  emphatic 
syllable  of  her  name  occurs.  A  Kirghiz  woman  dares  not  pronounce 
the  names  of  the  older  relations  of  her  husband,  nor  even  use  words 
which  resemble  them  in  sound.  For  example,  if  one  of  these  relations 
is  called  Shepherd,  she  may  not  speak  of  sheep,  but  must  call  them 
‘  the  bleating  ones  ”  ;  if  his  name  is  Lamb,  she  must  refer  to  lambs 
as  the  young  bleating  ones.”  In  Southern  India  wives  believe 
that  to  tell  their  husband  s  name  or  to  pronounce  it  even  in  a  dream 
would  bring  him  to  an  untimely  end.  Among  the  Sea  Dyaks  a  man 
may  not  pronounce  the  name  of  his  father-in-law  or  mother-in-law 
without  incurring  the  wrath  of  the  spirits.  And  since  he  reckons  as 
his  father-in-law  and  mother-in-law  not  only  the  father  and  mother 
of  his  own  wife,  but  also  the  fathers  and  mothers  of  his  brothers’ 
wives  and  sisters’  husbands,  and  likewise  the  fathers  and  mothers  of 
all  his  cousins,  the  number  of  tabooed  names  may  be  very  considerable 
and  the  opportunities  of  error  correspondingly  numerous.  To  make 
confusion  worse  confounded,  the  names  of  persons  are  often  the  names 
of  common  things,  such  as  moon,  bridge,  barley,  cobra,  leopard  ;  so 


TABOOED  WORDS 


CH. 


250 


that  when  any  of  a  man’s  many  fathers-in-law  and  mothers-in-law 
are  called  by  such  names,  these  common  words  may  not  pass  his  lips. 
Among  the  Alfoors  of  Minahassa,  in  Celebes,  the  custom  is  carried  still 
further  so  as  to  forbid  the  use  even  of  words  which  merely  resemble  the 
personal  names  in  sound.  It  is  especially  the  name  of  a  father-in-law 
which  is  thus  laid  under  an  interdict.  If  he,  for  example,  is  called 
Kalala,  his  son-in-law  may  not  speak  of  a  horse  by  its  common  name 
kawalo  ;  he  must  call  it  a  “  riding-beast  ”  (sasakajan).  So  among  the 
Alfoors  of  the  island  of  Burn  it  is  taboo  to  mention  the  names  of  parents 
and  parents-in-law,  or  even  to  speak  of  common  objects  by  words  which 
resemble  these  names  in  sound.  Thus,  if  your  mother-in-law  is  called 
Dalu,  which  means  “  betel,”  you  may  not  ask  for  betel  by  its  ordinary 
name,  you  must  ask  for  “  red  mouth  ”  ;  if  you  want  betel-leaf,  you 
may  not  say  betel-leaf  (dalu  ’mun),  you  must  say  karon  fenna.  In 
the  same  island  it  is  also  taboo  to  mention  the  name  of  an  elder  brother 
in  his  presence.  Transgressions  of  these  rules  are  punished  with 
fines.  In  Sunda  it  is  thought  that  a  particular  crop  would  be  spoilt 
if  a  man  were  to  mention  the  names  of  his  father  and  mother. 

Among  the  Nufoors  of  Dutch  New  Guinea  persons  who  are  related  to 
each  other  by  marriage  are  forbidden  to  mention  each  other’s  names. 
Among  the  connexions  whose  names  are  thus  tabooed  are  wife, 
mother-in-law,  father-in-law,  your  wife’s  uncles  and  aunts  and  also 
her  grand-uncles  and  grand-aunts,  and  the  whole  of  your  wife’s  or 
your  husband’s  family  in  the  same  generation  as  yourself,  except 
that  men  may  mention  the  names  of  their  brothers-in-law,  though 
women  may  not.  The  taboo  comes  into  operation  as  soon  as  the 
betrothal  has  taken  place  and  before  the  marriage  has  been  celebrated. 
Families  thus  connected  by  the  betrothal  of  two  of  their  members 
are  not  only  forbidden  to  pronounce  each  other’s  names  ;  they  may 
not  even  look  at  each  other,  and  the  rule  gives  rise  to  the  most  comical 
scenes  when  they  happen  to  meet  unexpectedly.  And  not  merely 
the  names  themselves,  but  any  words  that  sound  like  them  are  scrupu¬ 
lously  avoided  and  other  words  used  in  their  place.  If  it  should 
chance  that  a  person  has  inadvertently  uttered  a  forbidden  name, 
he  must  at  once  throw  himself  on  the  floor  and  say,  “  I  have  mentioned 
a  wrong  name.  I  throw  it  through  the  chinks  of  the  floor  in  order 
that  I  may  eat  well.” 

In  the  western  islands  of  Torres  Straits  a  man  never  mentioned 
the  personal  names  of  his  father-in-law,  mother-in-law,  brother-in- 
law,  and  sister-in-law  ;  and  a  woman  was  subject  to  the  same  restric¬ 
tions.  A  brother-in-law  might  be  spoken  of  as  the  husband  or  brother 
of  some  one  whose  name  it  was  lawful  to  mention  ;  and  similarly  a 
sister-in-law  might  be  called  the  wife  of  So-and-so.  If  a  man  by 
chance  used  the  personal  name  of  his  brother-in-law,  he  was  ashamed 
and  hung  his  head.  His  shame  was  only  relieved  when  he  had  made 
a  present  as  compensation  to  the  man  whose  name  he  had  taken  in 
vain.  The  same  compensation  was  made  to  a  sister-in-law,  a  father- 
in-law,  and  a  mother-in-law  for  the  accidental  mention  of  their  names. 


XXII 


NAMES  OF  RELATIONS  TABOOED 


251 


Among  the  natives  who  inhabit  the  coast  of  the  Gazelle  Peninsula  in 
New  Britain  to  mention  the  name  of  a  brother-in-law  is  the  grossest 
possible  affront  you  can  offer  to  him  ;  it  is  a  crime  punishable  with 
death.  In  the  Banks’  Islands,  Melanesia,  the  taboos  laid  on  the  names 
of  persons  connected  by  marriage  are  very  strict.  A  man  will  not 
mention  the  name  of  his  father-in-law,  much  less  the  name  of  his 
mother-in-law,  nor  may  he  name  his  wife’s  brother  ;  but  he  may 
name  his  wife  s  sister — she  is  nothing  to  him.  A  woman  may  not 
name  her  father-in-law,  nor  on  any  account  her  son-in-law.  Two 
people  whose  children  have  intermarried  are  also  debarred  from 
mentioning  each  other’s  names.  And  not  only  are  all  these  persons 
forbidden  to  utter  each  other’s  names  ;  they  may  not  even  pronounce 
ordinary  words  which  chance  to  be  either  identical  with  these  names 
or  to  have  any  syllables  in  common  with  them.  Thus  we  hear  of  a 
native  of  these  islands  who  might  not  use  the  common  words  for 
“  pig  ”  and  “  to  die,”  because  these  words  occurred  in  the  polysyllabic 
name  of  his  son-in-law  ;  and  we  are  told  of  another  unfortunate  who 
might  not  pronounce  the  everyday  words  for  “  hand  ”  and  “  hot  ” 
on  account  of  his  wife’s  brother’s  name,  and  who  was  even  debarred 
from  mentioning  the  number  “  one,”  because  the  word  for  “  one  ” 
formed  part  of  the  name  of  his  wife’s  cousin. 

The  reluctance  to  mention  the  names  or  even  syllables  of  the  names 
of  persons  connected  with  /  the  speaker  by  marriage  can  hardly  be 
separated  from  the  reluctance  evinced  by  so  many  people  to  utter 
their  own  names  or  the  names  of  the  dead  or  of  chiefs  and  kings  ; 
and  if  the  reticence  as  to  these  latter  names  springs  mainly  from 
superstition,  we  may  infer  that  the  reticence  as  to  the  former  has  no 
better  foundation.  That  the  savage’s  unwillingness  to  mention  his 
own  name  is  based,  at  least  in  part,  on  a  superstitious  fear  of  the  ill 
use  that  might  be  made  of  it  by  his  foes,  whether  human  or  spiritual, 
has  already  been  shown.  It  remains  to  examine  the  similar  usage  in 
regard  to  the  names  of  the  dead  and  of  royal  personages. 

§  3.  Names  of  the  Dead  tabooed. — The  custom  of  abstaining  from  all 
mention  of  the  names  of  the  dead  was  observed  in  antiquity  by  the 
Albanians  of  the  Caucasus,  and  at  the  present  day  it  is  in  full  force 
among  many  savage  tribes.  Thus  we  are  told  that  one  of  the  customs 
most  rigidly  observed  and  enforced  amongst  the  Australian  aborigines 
is  never  to  mention  the  name  of  a  deceased  person,  whether  male  or 
female  ;  to  name  aloud  one  who  has  departed  this  life  would  be  a  gross 
violation  of  their  most  sacred  prejudices,  and  they  carefully  abstain 
from  it.  The  chief  motive  for  this  abstinence  appears  to  be  a  fear  of 
evoking  the  ghost,  although  the  natural  unwillingness  to  revive  past 
sorrows  undoubtedly  operates  also  to  draw  the  veil  of  oblivion  over 
the  names  of  the  dead.  Once  Mr.  Oldfield  so  terrified  a  native  by 
shouting  out  the  name  of  a  deceased  person,  that  the  man  fairly  took 
to  his  heels  and  did  not  venture  to  show  himself  again  for  several  days. 
At  their  next  meeting  he  bitterly  reproached  the  rash  white  man  for 
his  indiscretion  ;  “  nor  could  I,”  adds  Mr.  Oldfield,  “  induce  him  by 


252 


TABOOED  WORDS 


CH. 


any  means  to  utter  the  awful  sound  of  a  dead  man’s  name,  for  by  so 
doing  he  would  have  placed  himself  in  the  power  of  the  malign  spirits. 
Among  the  aborigines  of  Victoria  the  dead  were  very  rarely  spoken  of, 
and  then  never  by  their  names  ;  they  were  referred  to  in  a  subdued 
voice  as  "  the  lost  one  ”  or  “  the  poor  fellow  that  is  no  more.”  To 
speak  of  them  by  name  would,  it  was  supposed,  excite  the  malignity 
of  Couit-gil,  the  spirit  of  the  departed,  which  hovers  on  earth  for  a 
time  before  it  departs  for  ever  towards  the  setting  sun.  Of  the  tribes 
on  the  Lower  Murray  River  we  are  told  that  when  a  person  dies  “  they 
carefully  avoid  mentioning  his  name  ;  but  if  compelled  to  do  so, 
they  pronounce  it  in  a  very  low  whisper,  so  faint  that  they  imagine 
the  spirit  cannot  hear  their  voice.”  Amongst  the  tribes  of  Central 
Australia  no  one  may  utter  the  name  of  the  deceased  during  the  period 
of  mourning,  unless  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  do  so,  and  then  it  is 
only  done  in  a  whisper  for  fear  of  disturbing  and  annoying  the  man’s 
spirit  which  is  walking  about  in  ghostly  form.  If  the  ghost  hears  his 
name  mentioned  he  concludes  that  his  kinsfolk  are  not  mourning 
for  him  properly  ;  if  their  grief  were  genuine  they  could  not  bear  to 
bandy  his  name  about.  Touched  to  the  quick  by  their  hard-hearted 
indifference,  the  indignant  ghost  will  come  and  trouble  them  in 
dreams. 

The  same  reluctance  to  utter  the  names  of  the  dead  appears  to 
prevail  among  all  the  Indian  tribes  of  America  from  Hudson  s  Bay 
Territory  to  Patagonia.  Among  the  Goajiros  of  Colombia  to  mention 
the  dead  before  his  kinsmen  is  a  dreadful  offence,  which  is  often 
punished  with  death  ;  for  if  it  happen  on  the  rancho  of  the  deceased, 
in  presence  of  his  nephew  or  uncle,  they  will  assuredly  kill  the  offender 
on  the  spot  if  they  can.  But  if  he  escapes,  the  penalty  resolves  itself 
into  a  heavy  fine,  usually  of  two  or  more  oxen. 

A  similar  reluctance  to  mention  the  names  of  the  dead  is  reported 
of  peoples  so  widely  separated  from  each  other  as  the  Samoyeds  of 
Siberia  and  the  Todas  of  Southern  India ;  the  Mongols  of  Tartary  and 
the  Tuaregs  of  the  Sahara  ;  the  Ainos  of  Japan  and  the  Akamba  and 
Nandi  of  Eastern  Africa ;  the  Tinguianes  of  the  Philippines  and  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Nicobar  Islands,  of  Borneo,  of  Madagascar,  and  of 
Tasmania.  In  all  cases,  even  where  it  is  not  expressly  stated,  the 
fundamental  reason  for  this  avoidance  is  probably  the  fear  of  the  ghost. 
That  this  is  the  real  motive  with  the  Tuaregs  we  are  positively  informed. 
They  dread  the  return  of  the  dead  man’s  spirit,  and  do  all  they  can  to 
avoid  it  by  shifting  their  camp  after  a  death,  ceasing  for  ever  to  pro¬ 
nounce  the  name  of  the  departed,  and  eschewing  everything  that  might 
be  regarded  as  an  evocation  or  recall  of  his  soul.  Hence  they  do  not, 
like  the  Arabs,  designate  individuals  by  adding  to  their  personal  names 
the  names  of  their  fathers  ;  they  never  speak  of  So-and-so,  son  of  So- 
and-so  ;  they  give  to  every  man  a  name  which  will  live  and  die  with  him. 
So  among  some  of  the  Victorian  tribes  in  Australia  personal  names  weie 
rarely  perpetuated,  because  the  natives  believed  that  any  one  who 
adopted  the  name  of  a  deceased  person  would  not  live  long  ;  probably 


i 


J 


XXII  NAMES  OF  THE  DEAD  TABOOED  253 

his  ghostly  namesake  was  supposed  to  come  and  fetch  him  away  to  the 
spirit-land. 

1  he  same  fear  of  the  ghost,  which  moves  people  to  suppress  his  old 
name,  naturally  leads  all  persons  who  bear  a  similar  name  to  exchange 
it  for  another,  lest  its  utterance  should  attract  the  attention  of  the 
1 10SvrW  10  cann°t  reasonably  be  expected  to  discriminate  between  all 
the  different  applications  of  the  same  name.  Thus  we  are  told  that  in 
the  Adelaide  and  Encounter  Bay  tribes  of  South  Australia  the  re¬ 
pugnance  to  mentioning  the  names  of  those  who  have  died  lately  is 
carried  so  far,  that  persons  who  bear  the  same  name  as  the  deceased 
abandon  it,  and  either  adopt  temporary  names  or  are  known  by  any 
others  that  happen  to  belong  to  them.  A  similar  custom  prevails 
among  some  of  the  Queensland  tribes  ;  but  the  prohibition  to  use  the 
names  of  the  dead  is  not  permanent,  though  it  may  last  for  many 
years.  .  In  some  Australian  tribes  the  change  of  name  thus  brought 
about  is  permanent ;  the  old  name  is  laid  aside  for  ever,  and  the  man 
is  known  by  his  new  name  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  or  at  least  until  he  is 
obliged  to  change  it  again  for  a  like  reason.  Among  the  North  American 
Indians  all  persons,  whether  men  or  women,  who  bore  the  name  of  one 
who  had  just  died  were  obliged  to  abandon  it  and  to  adopt  other  names, 
which  was  formally  done  at  the  first  ceremony  of  mourning  for  the 
dead.  In  some  tribes  to  the  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  this  change 
of  name  lasted  only  during  the  season  of  mourning,  but  in  other  tribes 
on  the  Pacific  Coast  of  North  America  it  seems  to  have  been  permanent. 

Sometimes  by  an  extension  of  the  same  reasoning  all  the  near 
relations  of  the  deceased  change  their  names,  whatever  they  may 
happen  to  be,  doubtless  from  a  fear  that  the  sound  of  the  familiar 
names  might  lure  back  the  vagrant  spirit  to  its  old  home.  Thus  in 
some  Victorian  tribes  the  ordinary  names  of  all  the  next  of  kin  were 
disused  during  the  period  of  mourning,  and  certain  general  terms, 
prescribed  by  custom,  were  substituted  for  them.  To  call  a  mourner 
by  his  own  name  was  considered  an  insult  to  the  departed,  and  often 
led  to  fighting  and  bloodshed.  Among  Indian  tribes  of  North-western 
America  near  relations  of  the  deceased  often  change  their  names 
under  an  impression  that  spirits  will  be  attracted  back  to  earth  if 
they  hear  familiar  names  often  repeated/'  Among  the  Kiowa  Indians 
the  name  of  the  dead  is  never  spoken  in  the  presence  of  the  relatives 
and  on  the  death  of  any  member  of  a  family  all  the  others  take  new 
names.  This  custom  was  noted  by  Raleigh's  colonists  on  Roanoke 
island  more  than  three  centuries  ago.  Among  the  Lengua  Indians 
not  only  is  a  dead  man's  name  never  mentioned,  but  all  the  survivors 
c  ange  their  names  also.  They  say  that  Death  has  been  among  them 
and  has  carried  off  a  list  of  the  living,  and  that  he  will  soon  come  back  * 
or  more  victims  ,  hence  in  order  to  defeat  his  fell  purpose  they  change 
their  names,  believing  that  on  his  return  Death,  though  he  has  got 
them  all  on  his  list,  will  not  be  able  to  identify  them  under  their  new 
names,  and  will  depart  to  pursue  the  search  elsewhere.  Nicobarese 
mourners  take  new  names  in  order  to  escape  the  unwelcome  attentions 


254  TABOOED  WORDS  ch. 

of  the  ghost  ;  and  for  the  same  purpose  they  disguise  themselves  by 
shaving  their  heads  so  that  the  ghost  is  unable  to  recognise  them. 

Further,  when  the  name  of  the  deceased  happens  to  be  that  ot  some 
common  object,  such  as  an  animal,  or  plant,  or  fire,  or  water,  it  is 
sometimes  considered  necessary  to  drop  that  word  m  ordinary  speech 
and  replace  it  by  another.  A  custom  of  this  sort,  it  is  plain,  may 
easily  be  a  potent  agent  of  change  in  language  ;  for  where  it  prevails 
to  any  considerable  extent  many  words  must  constantly  become 
obsolete  and  new  ones  spring  up.  And  this  tendency  has  been  re¬ 
marked  by  observers  who  have  recorded  the  custom  m  Australia, 
America,  and  elsewhere.  For  example,  with  regard  to  the  Australian 
aborigines  it  has  been  noted  that  “  the  dialects  change  with  almost 
every  tribe  Some  tribes  name  their  children  after  natural  objects  , 
and  when  the  person  so  named  dies,  the  word  is  never  again  mentioned  ; 
another  word  has  therefore  to  be  invented  for  the  object  after  which 
the  child  was  called/'  The  writer  gives  as  an  instance  the  case  of  a 
man  whose  name  Karla  signified  “  fire  "  ;  when  Karla  died,  anew 
word  for  fire  had  to  be  introduced.  “  Hence,”  adds  the  writer,  the 
language  is  always  changing.”  Again,  in  the  Encounter  Bay  trme  of 
South  Australia,  if  a  man  of  the  name  of  Ngnke,  which  means  water, 
were  to  die,  the  whole  tribe  would  be  obliged  to  use  some  other  word 
to  express  water  for  a  considerable  time  after  his  decease.  The  wiiter 
who  records  this  custom  surmises  that  it  may  explain  the  presence  of 
a  number  of  synonyms  in  the  language  of  the  tribe.  This  conjecture 
is  confirmed  by  what  we  know  of  some  Victorian  tribes  whose  speech 
comprised  a  regular  set  of  synonyms  to  be  used  instead  of  the  common 
terms  by  all  members  of  a  tribe  in  times  of  mourning.  For  instance, 
if  a  man  called  Waa  (“  crow  ”)  departed  this  life,  during  the  period  of 
mourning  for  him  nobody  might  call  a  crow  a  waa ;  everybody  had  to 
speak  of  the  bird  as  a  nary  apart.  When  a  person  who  rejoiced  m  the 
title  of  Ringtail  Opossum  ( weearn )  had  gone  the  way  of  all  flesh,  his 
sorrowing  relations  and  the  tribe  at  large  were  bound  for  a  time  to 
refer  to  ringtail  opossums  by  the  more  sonorous  name  of  manuungkuurt. 
If  the  community  were  plunged  in  grief  for  the  loss  of  a  respected 
female  who  bore  the  honourable  name  of  Turkey  Bustard,  the  proper 
name  for  turkey  bustards,  which  was  bar  rim  bar  rim,  went  out,  and 
tillit  tilliitsh  came  in.  And  so  mutatis  mutandis  with  the  names  of 
Black  Cockatoo,  Grey  Duck,  Gigantic  Crane,  Kangaroo,  Eagle,  Dingo, 

and  the  rest.  r  .  . 

A  similar  custom  used  to  be  constantly  transforming  the  language 

of  the  Abipones  of  Paraguay,  amongst  whom,  however,  a  word  once 
abolished  seems  never  to  have  been  revived.  New  words,  says  the 
1  missionary  Dobrizhoffer,  sprang  up  every  year  like  mushrooms  m  a 
night,  because  all  words  that  resembled  the  names  of  the  dead  were 
abolished  by  proclamation  and  others  coined  in  their  place.  The  mint 
of  words  was  in  the  hands  of  the  old  women  of  the  tribe,  and  whatever 
term  they  stamped  with  their  approval  and  put  in  circulation  was 
immediately  accepted  without  a  murmur  by  high  and  low  alike,  and 


XXII 


NAMES  OF  THE  DEAD  TABOOED 


255 


spread  like  wildfire  through  every  camp  and  settlement  of  the  tribe. 
You  would  be  astonished,  says  the  same  missionary,  to  see  how  meekly 
the  whole  nation  acquiesces  in  the  decision  of  a  withered  old  hag,  and 
how  completely  the  old  familiar  words  fall  instantly  out  of  use  and  are 
never  repeated  either  through  force  of  habit  or  forgetfulness.  In  the 
seven  years  that  Dobrizhoffer  spent  among  these  Indians  the  native 
word  for  jaguar  was  changed  thrice,  and  the  words  for  crocodile,  thorn, 
and  the  slaughter  of  cattle  underwent  similar  though  less  varied 
vicissitudes.  As  a  result  of  this  habit,  the  vocabularies  of  the  mission¬ 
aries  teemed  with  erasures,  old  words  having  constantly  to  be  struck 
out  as  obsolete  and  new  ones  inserted  in  their  place.  In  many  tribes 
of  British  New  Guinea  the  names  of  persons  are  also  the  names  of 
common  things.  The  people  believe  that  if  the  name  of  a  deceased 
person  is  pronounced,  his  spirit  will  return,  and  as  they  have  no  wish 
to  see  it  back  among  them  the  mention  of  his  name  is  tabooed  and  a 
new  word  is  created  to  take  its  place,  whenever  the  name  happens  to 
be  a  common  term  of  the  language.  Consequently  many  words  are 
permanently  lost  or  revived  with  modified  or  new  meanings.  In  the 
Nicobar  Islands  a  similar  practice  has  similarly  affected  the  speech  of 
the  natives.  "  A  most  singular  custom,”  says  Mr.  de  Roepstorff, 
"  prevails  among  them  which  one  would  suppose  must  most  effectually 
hinder  the  ‘  making  of  history/  or,  at  any  rate,  the  transmission  of 
historical  narrative.  By  a  strict  rule,  which  has  all  the  sanction  of 
Nicobar  superstition,  no  man’s  name  may  be  mentioned  after  his 
death  !  To  such  a  length  is  this  carried  that  when,  as  very  frequently 
happens,  the  man  rejoiced  in  the  name  of  '  Fowl,’  ‘  Hat,’  ‘  Fire,’ 

‘  Road,’  etc.,  in  its  Nicobarese  equivalent,  the  use  of  these  words  is 
carefully  eschewed  for  the  future,  not  only  as  being  the  personal 
designation  of  the  deceased,  but  even  as  the  names  of  the  common 
things  they  represent ;  the  words  die  out  of  the  language,  and  either 
new  vocables  are  coined  to  express  the  thing  intended,  or  a  substitute 
for  the  disused  word  is  found  in  other  Nicobarese  dialects  or  in  some 
foreign  tongue.  This  extraordinary  custom  not  only  adds  an  element 
of  instability  to  the  language,  but  destroys  the  continuity  of  political 
life,  and  renders  the  record  of  past  events  precarious  and  vague,  if  not 
impossible.” 

That  a  superstition  which  suppresses  the  names  of  the  dead  must 
cut  at  the  very  root  of  historical  tradition  has  been  remarked  by  other 
workers  in  this  field.  “  The  Klamath  people,”  observes  Mr.  A.  S. 
Gatschet,  “  possess  no  historic  traditions  going  further  back  in  time 
than  a  century,  for  the  simple  reason  that  there  was  a  strict  law  pro¬ 
hibiting  the  mention  of  the  person  or  acts  of  a  deceased  individual  by 
using  his  name.  This  law  was  rigidly  observed  among  the  Californians 
no  less  than  among  the  Oregonians,  and  on  its  transgression  the  death 
penalty  could  be  inflicted.  This  is  certainly  enough  to  suppress  all 
historical  knowledge  within  a  people.  How  can  history  be  written 
without  names  ?  ” 

In  many  tribes,  however,  the  power  of  this  superstition  to  blot  out 


TABOOED  WORDS 


CH. 


256 


the  memory  of  the  past  is  to  some  extent  weakened  and  impaired  by 
a  natural  tendency  of  the  human  mind.  Time,  which  wears  out  the 
deepest  impressions,  inevitably  dulls,  if  it  does  not  wholly  efface,  the 
print  left  on  the  savage  mind  by  the  mystery  and  horror  of  death. 
Sooner  or  later,  as  the  memory  of  his  loved  ones  fades  slowly  away, 
he  becomes  more  willing  to  speak  of  them,  and  thus  their  rude  names 
may  sometimes  be  rescued  by  the  philosophic  enquirer  before  they 
have  vanished,  like  autumn  leaves  or  winter  snows,  into  the  vast 
undistinguished  limbo  of  the  past.  In  some  of  the  Victorian  tiibes 
the  prohibition  to  mention  the  names  of  the  dead  remained  in  force 
only  during  the  period  of  mourning  ;  in  the  Port  Lincoln  tribe  of 
South  Australia  it  lasted  many  years.  Among  the  Chinook  Indians 
of  North  America  “  custom  forbids  the  mention  of  a  dead  man’s  name, 
at  least  till  many  years  have  elapsed  after  the  bereavement.”  Among 
the  Puyallup  Indians  the  observance  of  the  taboo  is  relaxed  after 
several  years,  when  the  mourners  have  forgotten  their  grief ;  and  if 
the  deceased  was  a  famous  warrior,  one  of  his  descendants,  for  instance 
a  great-grandson,  may  be  named  after  him.  In  this  tribe  the  taboo 
is  not  much  observed  at  any  time  except  by  the  relations  of  the  dead. 
Similarly  the  Jesuit  missionary  Lafitau  tells  us  that  the  name  of  the 
departed  and  the  similar  names  of  the  survivors  were,  so  to  say,  buried 
with  the  corpse  until,  the  poignancy  of  their  grief  being  abated,  it 
pleased  the  relations  to  “  lift  up  the  tree  and  raise  the  dead.”  By 
raising  the  dead  they  meant  bestowing  the  name  of  the  departed  upon 
some  one  else,  who  thus  became  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  reincarna¬ 
tion  of  the  deceased,  since  on  the  principles  of  savage  philosophy  the 
name  is  a  vital  part,  if  not  the  soul,  of  the  man. 

Among  the  Lapps,  when  a  woman  was  with  child  and  near  the 
time  of  her  delivery,  a  deceased  ancestor  or  relation  used  to  appear 
to  her  in  a  dream  and  inform  her  what  dead  person  was  to  be  born 
again  in  her  infant,  and  whose  name  the  child  was  therefore  to  bear. 
If  the  woman  had  no  such  dream,  it  fell  to  the  father  or  the  relatives 
to  determine  the  name  by  divination  or  by  consulting  a  wizard.  Among 
the  Khonds  a  birth  is  celebrated  on  the  seventh  day  after  the  event  by 
a  feast  given  to  the  priest  and  to  the  whole  village.  To  determine  the 
child’s  name  the  priest  drops  grains  of  rice  into  a  cup  of  water,  naming 
with  each  grain  a  deceased  ancestor.  From  the  movements  of  the 
seed  in  the  water,  and  from  observations  made  on  the  person  of  the 
infant,  he  pronounces  which  of  his  progenitors  has  reappeared  in  him, 
and  the  child  generally,  at  least  among  the  northern  tribes,  receives 
the  name  of  that  ancestor.  Among  the  Yorubas,  soon  after  a  child 
has  been  born,  a  priest  of  Ifa,  the  god  of  divination,  appears  on  the 
scene  to  ascertain  what  ancestral  soul  has  been  reborn  in  the  infant. 
As  soon  as  this  has  been  decided,  the  parents  are  told  that  the  child 
must  conform  in  all  respects  to  the  manner  of  life  of  the  ancestor  who 
now  animates  him  or  her,  and  if,  as  often  happens,  they  profess  ignor¬ 
ance,  the  priest  supplies  the  necessary  information.  The  child  usually 
receives  the  name  of  the  ancestor  who  has  been  born  again  in  him. 


XXII 


NAMES  OF  KINGS  TABOOED 


257 

§  4.  Names  of  Kings  and  other  Sacred  Persons  tabooed.— When  we 
see  that  m  primitive  society  the  names  of  mere  commoners,  whether 
alive  or  dead,  are  matters  of  such  anxious  care,  we  need  not  be  surprised 
that  great  precautions  should  be  taken  to  guard  from  harm  the  names 
of  sacred  kings  and  priests.  Thus  the  name  of  the  king  of  Dahomey  is 
always  kept  secret  lest  the  knowledge  of  it  should  enable  some  evil- 

6  ,PfrSOn  t(?  .hlm  a  mischief.  The  appellations  by  which  the 
different  kings  of  Dahomey  have  been  known  to  Europeans  are  not 
their  true  names,  but  mere  titles,  or  what  the  natives  call  "strong 
names  The  natives  seem  to  think  that  no  harm  comes  of  such  titles 

SmCe  they  are  not’  tPe  birth-names,  vitally  connected 
with  their  owners.  In  the  Galla  kingdom  of  Ghera  the  birth-name  of 

the  sovereign  may  not  be  pronounced  by  a  subject  under  pain  of 
death,  and  common  words  which  resemble  it  in  sound  are  changed  for 
others.  Among  the  Bahima  of  Central  Africa,  when  the  king  dies  his 
name  is  abolished  from  the  language,  and  if  his  name  was  that  of  an 
animal,  a  new  appellation  must  be  found  for  the  creature  at  once. 
For  example  the  king  is  often  called  a  lion  ;  hence  at  the  death  of  a 
king  named  Lion  a  new  name  for  lions  in  general  has  to  be  coined.  In 
Siam  it  used  to  be  difficult  to  ascertain  the  king’s  real  name,  since  it 
was  carefully  kept  secret  from  fear  of  sorcery  ;  any  one  who  mentioned 
it  was  clapped  into  gaol.  The  king  might  only  be  referred  to  under 
certain  high-sounding  titles,  such  as  “  the-  august,”  “the  perfect” 
the  supreme,”  “  the  great  emperor,”  “descendant  of  the  angels” 
and  so  on.  In  Burma  it  was  accounted  an  impiety  of  the  deepest  dve 
to  mention  the  name  of  the  reigning  sovereign  ;  Burmese  subjects,  even 
when  they  were  far  from  their  country,  could  not  be  prevailed  upon  to 

do  so  ;  after  his  accession  to  the  throne  the  king  was  known  by  his 
royal  titles  only.  y 

Among  the  Zulus  no  man  will  mention  the  name  of  the  chief  of 
his  tribe  or  the  names  of  the  progenitors  of  the  chief,  so  far  as  he  can 
remember  them  ;  nor  will  he  utter  common  words  which  coincide 
with  or  merely  resemble  in  sound  tabooed  names.  In  the  tribe  of  the 
Dwandwes  there  was  a  chief  called  Langa,  which  means  the  sun  * 
hence  the  name  of  the  sun  was  changed  from  langa  to  gala ,  and  so 
remains  to  this  day,  though  Langa  died  more  than  a  hundred  years 

ag°*  ,,  gam’  m  the  Xnumayo  tribe  the  word  meaning  “  to  herd 
cattle  was  changed  from  alusa  or  ay  us  a  to  kagesa,  because  u-Mayusi 
was  the  name  of  the  chief.  Besides  these  taboos,  which  were  observed 
y  each  tribe  separately,  all  the  Zulu  tribes  united  in  tabooing  the 
name  of  the  king  who  reigned  over  the  whole  nation.  Hence  for 
example  when  Panda  was  king  of  Zululand,  the  word  for  “  a  root  of  a 
tree,  ^  which  is  impando ,  was  changed  to  nxabo.  Again,  the  word  for 
lies  or  slander  ”  was  altered  from  amacebo  to  amakwata ,  because 
amacebo  contains  a  syllable  of  the  name  of  the  famous  King  Cetchwayo. 

ese  substitutions  are  not,  however,  carried  so  far  by  the  men  as  by 
tne  women,  who  omit  every  sound  even  remotely  resembling  one  that 
occurs  m  a  tabooed  name.  At  the  king’s  kraal,  indeed,  it  is  sometimes 


258 


TABOOED  WORDS 


CH. 


difficult  to  understand  the  speech  of  the  royal  wives,  as  they  trea  n 
this  fashion  the  names  not  only  of  the  king  and  his  forefathers,  but 
even  of  his  and  their  brothers  back  for  generations.  When  to  these 
tribal  and  national  taboos  we  add  those  family  taboos  on  the  names  of  j 
connexions  by  marriage  which  have  been  already  described,  we  can  I 
easily  understand  how  it  comes  about  that  in  Zululand  every  tribe  has  J 
words  peculiar  to  itself,  and  that  the  women  have  a  considerable 
vocabulary  of  their  own.  Members,  too,  of  one  family  may  be  debarred 
from  using  words  employed  by  those  of  another.  The  women  of  one 
kraal,  for  instance,  may  call  a  hyaena  by  its  ordinary  name  ,  those 
of  the  next  may  use  the  common  substitute  ;  while  m  a  thud  the 
substitute  may  also  be  unlawful  and  another  term  may  have  to  be 
invented  to  supply  its  place.  Hence  the  Zulu  language  at  the  present 
day  almost  presents  the  appearance  of  being  a  double  one  ,  indeed, 
for  multitudes  of  things  it  possesses  three  or  four  synonyms,  which 
through  the  blending  of  tribes  are  known  all  over  Zululand. 

In  Madagascar  a  similar  custom  everywhere  prevails  and  has 
resulted,  as  among  the  Zulus,  in  producing  certain  dialectic  differences 
in  the  speech  of  the  various  tribes.  There  are  no  family  names  m 
Madagascar,  and  almost  every  personal  name  is  drawn  from  the 
language  of  daily  life  and  signifies  some  common  object  or  action  or 
quality,  such  as  a  bird,  a  beast,  a  tree,  a  plant,  a  colour,  and  so  on. 
Now  whenever  one  of  these  common  words  forms  the  name  or  part 
of  the  name  of  the  chief  of  the  tribe,  it  becomes  sacred  and  may  no 
longer  be  used  in  its  ordinary  signification  as  the  name  of  a  tree,  an 
insect,  or  what  not.  Hence  a  new  name  for  the  object  must  be  in¬ 
vented  to  replace  the  one  which  has  been  discarded.  It  is  easy  to 
conceive  what  confusion  and  uncertainty  may  thus  be  introduced  into 
a  language  when  it  is  spoken  by  many  little  local  tribes  each  ruled  by 
a  petty  chief  with  his  own  sacred  name.  Yet  there  are  tribes  and 
people  who  submit  to  this  tyranny  of  words  as  their  fathers  did  before 
them  from  time  immemorial.  The  inconvenient  results  of  the  custom 
are  especially  marked  on  the  western  coast  of  the  island,  where,  on 
account  of  the  large  number  of  independent  chieftains,  the  names  of 
things,  places,  and  rivers  have  suffered  so  many  changes  that  confusion 
often  arises,  for  when  once  common  words  have  been  banned  by  the 
chiefs  the  natives  will  not  acknowledge  to  have  ever  known  them  m 

their  old  sense.  .  ,  .  .  .  .  ,  ,.  ,  _ 

But  it  is  not  merely  the  names  of  living  kings  and  chiefs  which  are 

tabooed  in  Madagascar  ;  the  names  of  dead  sovereigns  are  equally 
under  a  ban>  at  least  in  some  parts  of  the  island.  Thus  among  the 
Sakalavas,  when  a  king  has  died,  the  nobles  and  people  meet  in  council 
round  the  dead  body  and  solemnly  choose  a  new  name  by  which  the 
deceased  monarch  shall  be  henceforth  known.  After  the  new  name 
has  been  adopted,  the  old  name  by  which  the  king  was  known  during 
his  life  becomes  sacred  and  may  not  be  pronounced  under  pain  ol 
death.  Further,  words  in  the  common  language  which  bear  any 
resemblance  to  the  forbidden  name  also  become  sacred  and  have  to 


XXII 


NAMES  OF  KINGS  TABOOED  259 

be  replaced  by  others.  Persons  who  uttered  these  forbidden  words 
were  looked  on  not  only  as  grossly  rude,  but  even  as  felons  ;  they  had 
committed  a  capital  crime.  However,  these  changes  of  vocabulary 
are  confined  to  the  distiict  over  which  the  deceased  king  reigned  •  in 

the  neighbouring  districts  the  old  words  continue  to  be  employed  in 
the  old  sense. 

The  sanctity  attributed  to  the  persons  of  chiefs  in  Polynesia 
natui  ally  extended  also  to  their  names,  which  on  the  primitive  view 
are  hardly  separable  from  the  personality  of  their  owners.  Hence  in 
Polynesia  we  find  the  same  systematic  prohibition  to  utter  the  names 
of  chiefs  or  of  common  words  resembling  them  which  we  have  already 
met  with  m  Zululand  and  Madagascar.  Thus  in  New  Zealand  the 
name  of  a  chief  is  held  so  sacred  that,  when  it  happens  to  be  a  common 
word,  it  may  not  be  used  in  the  language,  and  another  has  to  be  found 
to  replace  it.  For  example,  a  chief  to  the  southward  of  East  Cape 
bore  the  name  of  Maripi,  which  signified  a  knife,  hence  a  new  word 
(nekra)  for  knife  was  introduced,  and  the  old  one  became  obsolete 
Elsewhere  the  word  for  water  (wai)  had  to  be  changed,  because  it 
chanced  to  be  the  name  of  the  chief,  and  would  have  been  desecrated 
by  being  applied  to  the  vulgar  fluid  as  well  as  to  his  sacred  person. 
This  taboo  natui  ally  produced  a  plentiful  crop  of  synonyms  in  the 
Maori  language,  and  travellers  newly  arrived  in  the  country  were 
sometimes  puzzled  at  finding  the  same  things  called  by  quite  different 
names  in  neighbouring  tribes.  When  a  king  comes  to  the  throne  in 
Tahiti,  any  words  in  the  language  that  resemble  his  name  in  sound 
must  be  changed  .for  others.  In  former  times,  if  any  man  were  so 
rash  as  to  disregard  this  custom  and  to  use  the  forbidden  words,  not 
only  he  but  all  his  relations  were  immediately  put  to  death.  But  the 
changes  thus  intioduced  were  only  temporary  *  on  the  death  of  the 
king  the  new  words  fell  into  disuse,  and  the  original  ones  were  revived. 

In  ancient  Greece  the  names  of  the  priests  and  other  high  officials 
who  had  to  do  with  the  performance  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  might 
not  be  uttered  in  their  lifetime.  To  pronounce  them  was  a  legal  offence. 
The  pedant  in  Lucian  tells  how  he  fell  in  with  these  august  personages 
haling  along  to  the  police  court  a  ribald  fellow  who  had  dared  to  name 
them,  though  well  he  knew  that  ever  since  their  consecration  it  was 
unlawful  to  do  so,  because  they  had  become  anonymous,  having  lost 
their  old  names  and  acquired  new  and  sacred  titles.  From  two  in¬ 
scriptions  found  at  Eleusis  it  appears  that  the  names  of  the  priests 
were  committed  to  the  depths  of  the  sea  ;  probably  they  were  engraved 
on  tablets  of  bronze  or  lead,  which  were  then  thrown  into  deep  water 
in  the  Gulf  of  Salamis.  The  intention  doubtless  was  to  keep  the  names 
a.  Profound  secret ,  and  how  could  that  be  done  more  surely  than  by 
sinking  them  in  the  sea  ?  what  human  vision  could  spy  them  glimmer¬ 
ing  far  down  in  the  dim  depths  of  the  green  water  ?  A  clearer  illustra¬ 
tion  of  the  confusion  between  the  incorporeal  and  the  corporeal,  between 
the  name  and  its  material  embodiment,  could  hardly  be  found  than  in 
this  practice  of  civilised  Greece. 


260  TABOOED  WORDS  ch. 

§  5.  Names  of  Gods  tabooed. — Primitive  man  creates  his  gods  in  his 
own  image.  Xenophanes  remarked  long  ago  that  the  complexion  of 
negro  gods  was  black  and  their  noses  flat  ;  that  Thracian  gods  w ere 
ruddy  and  blue-eyed  ;  and  that  if  horses,  oxen,  and  lions  only  believed 
in  gods  and  had  hands  wherewith  to  portray  them,  they  would  doubt¬ 
less  fashion  their  deities  in  the  form  of  horses,  and  oxen,  and  lions. 
Hence  just  as  the  furtive  savage  conceals  his  real  name  because  he  fears 
that  sorcerers  might  make  an  evil  use  of  it,  so  he  fancies  that  his  gods 
must  likewise  keep  their  true  names  secret,  lest  other  gods  or  even  men 
should  learn  the  mystic  sounds  and  thus  be  able  to  conjure  with  them. 
Nowhere  was  this  crude  conception  of  the  secrecy  and  magical  virtue  of 
the  divine  name  more  firmly  held  or  more  fully  developed  than  in 
ancient  Egypt,  where  the  superstitions  of  a  dateless  past  were  embalmed 
in  the  hearts  of  the  people  hardly  less  effectually  than  the  bodies  of  cats 
and  crocodiles  and  the  rest  of  the  divine  menagerie  in  their  rock-cut 
tombs.  The  conception  is  well  illustrated  by  a  story  which  tells  how 
the  subtle  Isis  wormed  his  secret  name  from  Ra,  the  great  Egy  ptian  god 
of  the  sun.  Isis,  so  runs  the  tale,  was  a  woman  mighty  in  words,  and  she 
was  weary  of  the  world  of  men,  and  yearned  after  the  world  of  the  gods. 
And  she  meditated  in  her  heart,  saying,  Cannot  I  by  \irtue  of  the 
great  name  of  Ra  make  myself  a  goddess  and  reign  like  him  in  heaven 
and  earth  ?  ”  For  Ra  had  many  names,  but  the  great  name  which 
gave  him  all  power  over  gods  and  men  was  known  to  none  but  himself. 
Now  the  god  was  by  this  time  grown  old  ;  he  slobbered  at  the  mouth 
and  his  spittle  fell  upon  the  ground.  So  Isis  gathered  up  the  spittle 
and  the  earth  with  it,  and  kneaded  thereof  a  serpent  and  laid  it  in  the 
path  where  the  great  god  passed  every  day  to  his  double  kingdom 
after  his  heart’s  desire.  And  when  he  came  forth  according  to  his 
wont,  attended  by  all  his  company  of  gods,  the  sacred  serpent  stung 
him,  and  the  god  opened  his  mouth  and  cried,  and  his  cry  went  up  to 
heaven.  And  the  company  of  gods  cried,  “  What  aileth  thee  ?  ”  and 
the  gods  shouted,  “  Lo  and  behold!”  But  he  could  not  answer; 
his  jaws  rattled,  his  limbs  shook,  the  poison  ran  through  his  flesn  as 
the  Nile  floweth  over  the  land.  When  the  great  god  had  stilled  his 
heart,  he  cried  to  his  followers,  “  Come  to  me,  O  my  children,  offspring 
of  my  body.  I  am  a  prince,  the  son  of  a  prince,  the  divine  seed  of  a  1 
god.  My  father  devised  my  name  ;  my  father  and  my  mother  gave 
me  my  name,  and  it  remained  hidden  in  my  body  since  my  birth,  that 
no  magician  might  have  magic  power  over  me.  I  went  out  to  behold 
that  which  I  have  made,  I  walked  in  the  two  lands  which  I  have 
created,  and  lo  !  something  stung  me.  What  it  was,  I  know  not.  Was 
it  fire  ?  was  it  water  ?  My  heart  is  on  fire,  my  flesh  trembleth,  all  my 
limbs  do  quake.  Bring  me  the  children  of  the  gods  with  healing  words 
and  understanding  lips,  whose  power  reacheth  to  heaven.”  Then 
came  to  him  the  children  of  the  gods,  and  they  were  very  sorrowful. 
And  Isis  came  with  her  craft,  whose  mouth  is  full  of  the  breath  of  life, 
whose  spells  chase  pain  away,  whose  word  maketh  the  dead  to  live. 
She  said,  “  What  is  it,  divine  Father  ?  what  is  it  ?  ”  The  holy  god 


XXII 


NAMES  OF  GODS  TABOOED  261 

!  opened,  his  mouth,  he  spake  and  said,  "  I  went  upon  my  way,  I  walked 
after  my  heart's  desire  in  the  two  regions  which  I  have  made  to  behold 
that  which  I  have  created,  and  lo  !  a  serpent  that  I  saw  not  stung  me. 
Is  it  lire  ?  is  it  water  ?  I  am  colder  than  water,  I  am  hotter  than  fire, 
all  my  limbs  sweat,  I  tremble,  mine  eye  is  not  steadfast,  I  behold  not 
the  sky,  the  moisture  bedeweth  my  face  as  in  summer-time."  Then 
spake  Isis,  “  Tell  me  thy  name,  divine  Father,  for  the  man  shall  live 
who  is  called  by  his  name.”  Then  answered  Ra,  “  I  created  the 
heavens  and  the  earth,  I  ordered  the  mountains,  I  made  the  great  and 
wide  sea,  I  stretched  out  the  two  horizons  like  a  curtain.  I  am  he  who 
openeth  his  eyes  and  it  is  light,  and  who  shutteth  them  and  it  is  dark. 
At  his  command  the  Nile  riseth,  but  the  gods  know  not  his  name.  I 
am  Khepera  in  the  morning,  I  am  Ra  at  noon,  I  am  Turn  at  eve."  But 
the  poison  was  not  taken  away  from  him  ;  it  pierced  deeper,  and  the 
great  god  could  no  longer  walk.  Then  said  Isis  to  him,  “  That  was 
not  thy  name  that  thou  spakest  unto  me.  Oh  tell  it  me,  that  the 
poison  may  depart  ;  for  he  shall  live  whose  name  is  named."  Now 
the  poison  burned  like  fire,  it  was  hotter  than  the  flame  of  fire.  The 
god  said,  I  consent  that  Isis  shall  search  into  me,  and  that  my  name 
shall  pass  from  my  breast  into  hers."  Then  the  god  hid  himself  from 
the  gods,  and  his  place  in  the  ship  of  eternity  was  empty.  Thus  was  the 
name  of  the  great  god  taken  from  him,  and  Isis,  the  witch,  spake, 

‘  Flow  away  poison,  depart  from  Ra.  It  is  I,  even  I,  who  overcome 
the  poison  and  cast  it  to  the  earth  ;  for  the  name  of  the  great  god  hath 
been  taken  away  from  him.  Let  Ra  live  and  let  the  poison  die."  Thus 

spake  great  Isis,  the  queen  of  the  gods,  she  who  knows  Ra  and  his 
true  name.” 

Fiom  this  story  it  appears  that  the  real  name  of  the  god,  with  which 
his  power  was  inextricably  bound  up,  was  supposed  to  be  lodged,  in 
an  almost  physical  sense,  somewhere  in  his  breast,  from  which  Isis 
extracted  it  by  a  sort  of  surgical  operation  and  transferred  with  all 
its  supernatural  powers  to  herself.  In  Egypt  attempts  like  that  of 
sis  to  appropriate  the  power  of  a  high  god  by  possessing  herself  of 
his  name  were  not  mere  legends  told  of  the  mythical  beings  of  a  remote 
past ,  ever}/  Egyptian  magician  aspired  to  wield  like  powers  by  similar 
means.  For  it  was  believed  that  he  who  possessed  the  true  name 
possessed  the  very  being  of  god  or  man,  and  could  force  even  a  deity 
to  obey  him  as  a  slave  obeys  his  master.  Thus  the  art  of  the  magician 
consisted  m  obtaining  from  the  gods  a  revelation  of  their  sacred  names, 
and  he  left  no  stone  unturned  to  accomplish  his  end.  When  once  a 
god  in  a  moment  of  weakness  or  forgetfulness  had  imparted  to  the 
wizard  the  wondrous  lore,  the  deity  had  no  choice  but  to  submit  humbly 
to  the  man  or  pay  the  penalty  of  his  contumacy. 

The  belief  in  the  magic  virtue  of  divine  names  was  shared  by  the 
Romans.  When  they  sat  down  before  a  city,  the  priests  addressed 
he  guardian  deity  of  the  place  in  a  set  form  of  prater  or  incantation, 
mviting  him  to  abandon  the  beleaguered  city  and  come  over  to  the 
Romans,  who  would  treat  him  as  well  as  or  better  than  he  had  ever 


262  OUR  DEBT  TO  THE  SAVAGE  ch. 

been  treated  in  his  old  home.  Hence  the  name  of  the  guardian  deity 
of  Rome  was  kept  a  profound  secret,  lest  the  enemies  of  the  republic 
might  lure  him  away,  even  as  the  Romans  themselves  had  induced 
many  gods  to  desert,  like  rats,  the  falling  fortunes  of  cities  that  had 
sheltered  them  in  happier  days.  Nay,  the  real  name,  not  merely 
of  its  guardian  deity,  but  of  the  city  itself,  was  wrapt  in  mystery  and 
might  never  be  uttered,  not  even  in  the  sacred  rites.  A  certain  Valerius 
Soranus,  who  dared  to  divulge  the  priceless  secret,  was  put  to  death 
or  came  to  a  bad  end.  In  like  manner,  it  seems,  the  ancient  Assyrians 
were  forbidden  to  mention  the  mystic  names  of  their  cities  ;  and  down 
to  modern  times  the  Cheremiss  of  the  Caucasus  keep  the  names  of 
their  communal  villages  secret  from  motives  of  superstition. 

If  the  reader  has  had  the  patience  to  follow  this  examination  of 
the  superstitions  attaching  to  personal  names,  he  will  probably  agree 
that  the  mystery  in  which  the  names  of  royal  personages  are  so  often 
shrouded  is  no  isolated  phenomenon,  no  arbitrary  expression  of  courtly 
servility  and  adulation,  but  merely  the  particular  application  of  a 
general  law  of  primitive  thought,  which  includes  within  its  scope 
common  folk  and  gods  as  well  as  kings  and  priests. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

OUR  DEBT  TO  THE  SAVAGE 

It  would  be  easy  to  extend  the  list  of  royal  and  priestly  taboos,  but 
the  instances  collected  in  the  preceding  pages  may  suffice  as  specimens. 
To  conclude  this  part  of  our  subject  it  only  remains  to  state  summarily 
the  general  conclusions  to  which  our  enquiries  have  thus  far  conducted 
us.  We  have  seen  that  in  savage  or  barbarous  society  there  are  often 
found  men  to  whom  the  superstition  of  their  fellows  ascribes  a  con¬ 
trolling  influence  over  the  general  course  of  nature.  Such  men  are 
accordingly  adored  and  treated  as  gods.  Whether  these  human 
divinities  also  hold  temporal  sway  over  the  lives  and  fortunes  of 
their  adorers,  or  whether  their  functions  are  purely  spiritual  and 
supernatural,  in  other  words,  whether  they  are  kings  as  well  as  gods 
or  only  the  latter,  is  a  distinction  which  hardly  concerns  us  here.  Their 
supposed  divinity  is  the  essential  fact  with  which  we  have  to  deal. 
In  virtue  of  it  they  are  a  pledge  and  guarantee  to  their  worshippers 
of  the  continuance  and  orderly  succession  of  those  physical  phenomena 
upon  which  mankind  depends  for  subsistence.  Naturally,  therefore, 
the  life  and  health  of  such  a  god-man  are  matters  of  anxious  con¬ 
cern  to  the  people  whose  welfare  and  even  existence  are  bound  up 
with  his  ;  naturally  he  is  constrained  by  them  to  conform  to  such 
rules  as  the  wit  of  early  man  has  devised  for  averting  the  ills  to 
which  flesh  is  heir,  including  the  last  ill,  death.  These  rules,  as  an 
examination  of  them  has  shown,  are  nothing  but  the  maxims  with 


XXIII  OUR  DEBT  TO  THE  SAVAGE  263 

which,  on  the  primitive  view,  every  man  of  common  prudence  must 
comply  if  he  would  live  long  in  the  land.  But  while  in  the  case  of 
ordinary  men  the  observance  of  the  rules  is  left  to  the  choice  of  the 
individual,  in  the  case  of  the  god-man  it  is  enforced  under  penalty 
of  dismissal  from  his  high  station,  or  even  of  death.  For  his  wor¬ 
shippers  have  far  too  great  a  stake  in  his  life  to  allow  him  to  play  fast 
and  loose  with  it.  Therefore  all  the  quaint  superstitions,  the  old- 
world  maxims,  the  venerable  saws  which  the  ingenuity  of  savage 
philosophers  elaborated  long  ago,  and  which  old  women  at  chimney 
corners  still  impart  as  treasures  of  great  price  to  their  descendants 
gathered  round  the  cottage  fire  on  winter  evenings — all  these  antique 
fancies  clustered,  all  these  cobwebs  of  the  brain  were  spun  about  the 
path  of  the  old  king,  the  human  god,  who,  immeshed  in  them  like  a 
fly  in  the  toils  of  a  spider,  could  hardly  stir  a  limb  for  the  threads  of 
custom,  "  light  as  air  but  strong  as  links  of  iron,”  that  crossing  and 
recrossing  each  other  in  an  endless  maze  bound  him  fast  within  a 
network  of  observances  from  which  death  or  deposition  alone  could 
release  him. 

Thus  to  students  of  the  past  the  life  of  the  old  kings  and  priests 
teems  with  instruction.  In  it  was  summed  up  all  that  passed  for 
wisdom  when  the  world  was  young.  It  was  the  perfect  pattern  after 
which  every  man  strove  to  shape  his  life  ;  a  faultless  model  con¬ 
structed  with  rigorous  accuracy  upon  the  lines  laid  down  by  a  barbarous 
philosophy.  Crude  and  false  as  that  philosophy  may  seem  to  us,  it 
would  be  unjust  to  deny  it  the  merit  of  logical  consistency.  Starting 
from  a  conception  of  the  vital  principle  as  a  tiny  being  or  soul  existing 
in,  but  distinct  and  separable  from,  the  living  being,  it  deduces  for 
the  practical  guidance  of  life  a  system  of  rules  which  in  general  hangs 
well  together  and  forms  a  fairly  complete  and  harmonious  whole. 
The  flaw — and  it  is  a  fatal  one — of  the  system  lies  not  in  its  reasoning, 
but  in  its  premises  ;  in  its  conception  of  the  nature  of  life,  not  in  any 
irrelevancy  of  the  conclusions  which  it  draws  from  that  conception. 
But  to  stigmatise  these  premises  as  ridiculous  because  we  can  easily 
detect  their  falseness,  would  be  ungrateful  as  well  as  unphilosophical. 
We  stand  upon  the  foundation  reared  by  the  generations  that  have 
gone  before,  and  we  can  but  dimly  realise  the  painful  and  prolonged 
efforts  which  it  has  cost  humanity  to  struggle  up  to  the  point,  no  very 
exalted  one  after  all,  which  we  have  reached.  Our  gratitude  is  due 
to  the  nameless  and  forgotten  toilers,  whose  patient  thought  and 
active  exertions  have  largely  made  us  what  we  are.  The  amount  of 
new  knowledge  which  one  age,  certainly  which  one  man,  can  add  to 
the  common  store  is  small,  and  it  argues  stupidity  or  dishonesty, 
besides  ingratitude,  to  ignore  the  heap  while  vaunting  the  few  grains 
which  it  may  have  been  our  privilege  to  add  to  it.  There  is  indeed 
little  danger  at  present  of  undervaluing  the  contributions  which 
modern  times  and  even  classical  antiquity  have  made  to  the  general 
advancement  of  our  race.  But  when  we  pass  these  limits,  the  case 
is  different.  Contempt  and  ridicule  or  abhorrence  and  denunciation 


264 


THE  KILLING  OF  THE  DIVINE  KING 


CH. 


are  too  often  the  only  recognition  vouchsafed  to  the  savage  and  his 
ways.  Yet  of  the  benefactors  whom  we  are  bound  thankfully  to 
commemorate,  many,  perhaps  most,  were  savages.  For  when  all 
is  said  and  done  our  resemblances  to  the  savage  are  still  far  more 
numerous  than  our  differences  from  him  ;  and  what  we  have  in 
common  with  him,  and  deliberately  retain  as  true  and  useful,  we 
owe  to  oar  savage  forefathers  who  slowly  acquired  by  experience 
and  transmitted  to  us  by  inheritance  those  seemingly  fundamental 
ideas  which  we  are  apt  to  regard  as  original  and  intuitive.  We  are 
like  heirs  to  a  fortune  which  has  been  handed  down  for  so  many  ages 
that  the  memory  of  those  who  built  it  up  is  lost,  and  its  possessors 
fo'r  the  time  being  regard  it  as  having  been  an  original  and  unalterable 
possession  of  their  race  since  the  beginning  of  the  world.  But  reflection 
and  enquiry  should  satisfy  us  that  to  our  predecessors  we  are  indebted 
for  much  of  what  we  thought  most  our  own,  and  that  their  errors 
were  not  wilful  extravagances  or  the  ravings  of  insanity,  but  simply 
hypotheses,  justifiable  as  such  at  the  time  when  they  were  propounded, 
but  which  a  fuller  experience  has  proved  to  be  inadequate.  It  is  only 
by  the  successive  testing  of  hypotheses  and  rejection  of  the  false  that 
truth  is  at  last  elicited.  After  all,  what  we  call  truth  is  only  the\ 
hypothesis  which  is  found  to  work  best.  Therefore  in  reviewing  the 
opinions  and  practices  of  rudei  ages  and  races  we  shall  do  well  to  look 
with  leniency  upon  their  errors  as  inevitable  slips  made  in  the  search 
for  truth,  and  to  give  them  the  benefit  of  that  indulgence  which  we 
ourselves  may  one  day  stand  in  need  of :  cum  excusatione  itaque  veter es 
audiendi  stmt. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE  KILLING  OF  THE  DIVINE  KING 

§  1.  The  Mortality  of  the  Gods. — Man  has  created  gods  in  his  own 
likeness  and  being  himself  mortal  he  has  naturally  supposed  his  i 
creatures  to  be  in  the  same  sad  predicament.  Thus  the  Greenlanders 
believed  that  a  wind  could  kill  their  most  powerful  god,  and  that  he  I 
would  certainly  die  if  he  touched  a  dog.  When  they  heard  of  the 
Christian  God,  they  kept  asking  if  he  never  died,  and  being  informed 
that  he  did  not,  they  were  much  surprised,  and  said  that  he  must  be 
a  very  great  god  indeed.  In  answer  to  the  enquiries  of  Colonel  Dodge, 
a  North  American  Indian  stated  that  the  world  was  made  by  the  Great 
Spirit.  Being  asked  which  Great  Spirit  he*meant,  the  good  one  or  the 
bad  one,  “  Oh,  neither  of  them,"  replied  he,  “  the  Great  Spirit  that 
made  the  world  is  dead  long  ago.  He  could  not  possibly  have  lived 
as  long  as  this.”  A  tribe  in  the  Philippine  Islands  told  the  Spanish 
conquerors  that  the  grave  of  the  Creator  was  upon  the  top  of  Mount 
Cabunian.  Heitsi-eibib,  a  god  or  divine  hero  of  the  Hottentots,  died 
several  times  and  came  to  life  again.  His  graves  are  generally  to  be 


XXIV  KINGS  KILLED  WHEN  STRENGTH  FAILS 


265 


met  with  in  narrow  defiles  between  mountains.  When  the  Hottentots 
pass  one  of  them,  they  throw  a  stone  on  it  for  good  luck,  sometimes 
muttering  "  Give  us  plenty  of  cattle/’  The  grave  of  Zeus,  the  great 
god  of  Greece,  was  shown  to  visitors  in  Crete  as  late  as  about  the 
beginning  of  our  era.  The  body  of  Dionysus  was  buried  at  Delphi 
beside  the  golden  statue  of  Apollo,  and  his  tomb  bore  the  inscription, 
Here  lies  Dionysus  dead,  the  son  of  Semele.”  According  to  one 
account,  Apollo  himself  was  buried  at  Delphi  ’  for  Pythagoras  is  said 
to  have  carved  an  inscription  on  his  tomb,  setting  forth  how  the  god 
had  been  killed  by  the  python  and  buried  under  the  tripod. 

The  great  gods  of  Egypt  themselves  were  not  exempt  from  the 
common  lot.  They  too  grew  old  and  died.  But  when  at  a  later  time 
the  discovery  of  the  art  of  embalming  gave  a  new  lease  of  life  to  the 
souls  of  the  dead  by  preserving  their  bodies  for  an  indefinite  time  from 
corruption,  the  deities  were  permitted  to  share  the  benefit  of  an  in¬ 
vention  which  held  out  to  gods  as  well  as  to  men  a  reasonable  hope  of 
immortality.  Every  province  then  had  the  tomb  and  mummy  of  its 
dead  god.  The  mummy  of  Osiris  was  to  be  seen  at  Mendes  ;  Thinis 
boasted  of  the  mummy  of  Anhouri ;  and  Heliopolis  rejoiced  in  the 
possession  of  that  of  Toumou.  The  high  gods  of  Babylon  also,  though 
they  appeared  to  their  worshippers  only  in  dreams  and  visions,  were 
conceived  to  be  human  in  their  bodily  shape,  human  in  their  passions, 
and  human  in  their  fate  ;  for  like  men  they  were  born  into  the  world, 
and  like  men  they  loved  and  fought  and  died. 

§  2.  Kings  killed  when  their  Strength  fails. — If  the  high  gods,  who 
dwell  remote  from  the  fret  and  fever  of  this  earthly  life,  are  yet  believed 
to  die  at  last,  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  a  god  who  lodges  in  a  frail 
tabernacle  of  flesh  should  escape  the  same  fate,  though  we  hear  of 
African  kings  who  have  imagined  themselves  immortal  by  virtue  of 
their  sorceries.  Now  pjdlllitive  people^,  as  w*>  h.nvp  cmnpfimpg 
beljey^that  their  safety  and  eventliaLof  the  world  is  bound  up  with 

thehfe  of  opf  of  these  god-m^n  nr  kiman  inran-.ofionc  nf  fj^A  divinity. 

Naturally,  therefore,  they  take  the  utmost  care  of  his  life,  out  of  a 
regard  for  their  own.  But  no  amount  of  care  and  precaution  will 
prevent  the  man-god  from  growing  old  and  feeble  and  at  last  dying. 
His  worshippers  have  to  lay  their  account  with  this  sad  necessity  and 
to  meet  it  as  best  they  can.  The  danger  is  a  formidable  one  ;  for  if 
the  course  of  nature  is  dependent  on  the  man-god’s  life,  what  cata¬ 
strophes  may  not  be  expected  from  the  gradual  enfeeblement  of  his 
powers  and  their  final  extinction  in  death  ?  There  is  only  one  way  of 
averting  these  dangers.  (  The  man-god  must  be  killed  as  soon  asjie 
shoys  symptoms  that  his  powers  are  beginning  to  lull,  and  his  soul 
rnust  be  transferred  to  q,  vignrnns  successor  before  iL  has  been  seriously 
impaired  by  the  threatened  decay.  / The  advantages  of  thus  putting" 
the  man-god  to  death  instead  of  allowing  him  to  die  of  old  age  and 
disease  are,  to  the  savage,  obwpv.-  enough.  For  if  the  man-god  dies 
•  wbat  w e  call  a  natural  death,  it  means,  according  td^TtieliavagF^TlT^" 
nis  soul  hhs  eitKer  voluntarily  departed  from  his  body  and  retime  to 


/ 


266 


THE  KILLING  OF  THE  DIVINE  KING 


CH. 


return,  or  more  commonly  that  it  has  been  extracted,  or  at  least 

•  i '  •  T,M>  1  _ _  1 J  ~ ^  ,-v**  T •*-»  /vnr r  *~\  +  I- Laoa 


yl  V>  L.  V-*  A  AX  J  V  *  ^  v  ^ 

(TfitTinecTiirTta  wmirlpnn^,  hv  a  demon  or  sorcerer.  ,  In  any  of  these 
the  soul  of  the  man-god  is  lost  to  his  worshippers,  and  with  it 
TFi^f °Trosperit v  is~gone  and  their  very  existence  endangered.  Even 
1  f  tTTTTrAuTdTim^ :at  ch  the  soul  of  the  dying  yocLas  TTMt.  his 
lips  orEIsnosTnls  and  so  transfer  it  t^^  gur^nr,  thi^^ihLni.ii-effert  _ 
Their  purpose  ;  for,  dying  of  disease,  his  soul  would  ne&^sarily  leaye^ 
his' body  mThe  last  stage  of  weakness  and  exhaustion,  and  sqgnfesbled 
iTTG>iddGT)ht^  dt'd'g  put  a  languuT  inert  existenccJn  any  body 
f KTThTTrTrhu  <J h f.  be  transferred.  '  Whereas  by  slaying  him  Ids  worshigr 
Lers  couMjTi  the Jfetjteb.'matre  gSejj'f x^Lt£hing  Ids  soujas  itgscapSt 
;ih d  transferring  ifto'a  suit able.^ULQQSSgjL;-. ..aild-ifl  the^seconC^^ 
by  putting  him  to  death  before  his  natural  "force  was  abated,  they 

^iI[Tsehur^Ttet7ElIejw6MjHSlBC^ES^S^^S^3^22i3£ca2 

_of  THeT  Th an'-goctr  ^'E ve r y^pmp o s e ,  therefore,  was  answered,  and  all 
"'dangers  avertedTy  thus  killing  the  man-god  and  transferring  his  soul, 


while  yet  at  its  prime,  to  a  vigorous  successor. 

The  mystic  kings  of  Fire  and  Water  in  Cambodia  are  not  allowed 
to  die  a  natural  death.  Hence  when  one  of  them  is  seriously  ill  and 
the  elders  think  that  he  cannot  recover,  they  stab  him  to  death.  The’ 
people  of  Congo  believed,  as  we  have  seen,  that  if  their  pontiff  the 
Chitome  were  to  die  a  natural  death,  the  world  would  perish,  and  the 
earth,  which  he  alone  sustained  by  his  power  and  merit,  would  imme¬ 
diately  be  annihilated.  Accordingly  when  he  fell  ill  and  seemed  likely 
to  die,  the  man  who  was  destined  to  be  his  successor  entered  the 
pontiff’s  house  with  a  rope  or  a  club  and  strangled  or  clubbed  him  to 
death.r.tiThe  Ethiopian  kings  of  Meroe  were  worshipped  as  gods  :  but 
whenever  the* priests  chose,  they  sent  ajiiessmgerjtp  the  king,  ordering 
him  todi^'andyriregihg"  an  oracleof  the  gods  as  their  authority  ior"  the 
command.  This" conMandThg^ngTalways' bbeyed~dqwn  to  f  lu*  mgn_ 
of  ErgameneC  a  contemporary  ofEtolemv  IL,.  SSSlEgypt.  Having 
"received  a  (meek  education  which  emancipated  him  from  the  supersti¬ 
tions  of  his  countrymen,  Ergamenes  ventured  to  disregard  the  com¬ 
mand  of  the  priests,  and,  entering  the  Golden  Temple  with  a  body  of 
soldiers,  put  the  priests  to  the  sword. 

Customs  of  the  same  sort  appear  to  have  prevailed  in  this  part  of 
Africa  down  to  modern  times.  In  some  tribes  of  Fazoql  the  king  had  to 
administer  justice  daily  under  a  certain  tree.  If  from  sickness  or  any 
other  cause  he  was  unable  to  discharge  this  duty  for  three  whole  days, 
he  was  hanged  on  the  tree  in  a  noose,  which  contained  two  razors  so 
arranged  that  when  the  noose  was  draw  tight  by  the  weight  of  the 
king’s  body  they  cut  his  throat. 

A  custom  of  putting  their  divine  kings  to  death  _  at  the.-fest^ 
symptoms  of  infirmity  or  old  age  prevailed  until  lately,  lfmHeedmt  is 
even  now  extinct  andTiot  merely  dormant,  ambngHhe  bhilfulToI  the 
White  Nile-, -and:  an-  recent'1  years'  i  l  L/^HTeen  Tarefully  mvestigated~Ty 
Dr.  (TTL  Seligman .  The  reverence  which  the  Shilluk  pay  to  their 
king  appears  to  arise  chiefly  fimxL^he-^coiiviction  that  he~l5~lT  ire-  * 


XXIV  KINGS  KILLED  WHEN  STRENGTH  FAILS  267 

incarnation  of  the  spirit  of  Nvakang.  the  semi-divine  hero  who  founded 
the  dynasty  and  settled  theTTEfe^DF^^  It 

is  a  fundamental  article  of  the  Shilluk  creed  that  the  spirit  of 
the  divine  or  semi-divine  Nyakang  is  incarnate  in  the  reigning  king, 
who  is  accordingly  himself  invested  to  some  extent  with  the  character 
of  a  divinity.  But  while  the  Shilluk  hold  their  kings  in  high,  indeed 
religious  revem-M^-and  tnke  evprv-prpramiop  against  their  accidental 
cTeath,  nevertheless  they  cherish  “  the  conviction  that  the  king  must 
Trot  De  allowed  to  become  ill  or  senile^  lest  with  his  dimfniThirig  vigniir 
the  cattle  should  sicken  and  fail  to  bear  their  increase,  the  crops  should 
rot  in  the  fields,  and  man,  stricken  with  disease,  should  die  in  ever- 
increasing  numbers.”  To  prevent  these  calamities  it  used  to  be  the 
regular  custom  with  tfuT'SETlluk  to  puTTheHungHo  deaflL\vEcnevcF 
TTe  showecTsigiis  ofTll-health  or  failing  strength.  One  of  the  fatal 
symjAmn.s_of  decay  was  takerL-to_.be  anEmn,pai:ltyTELaii^fi^l..bp  ^>vu7iT 
passions  of  his  wives,  of  whom  he.has  very  many,  distributor!  in  3 
large  number  of  houses  at  Fashoda.  ^When  this  ominous  weakness 
manifested  itself,  the  wives  reported  it  tKt.he  chiefs,  who  arp  pnpp |arly_ 
’;said~ to  have  intimated  to  the  king  his  ~dooni  hv  spreading  a  white 
cloth  over  his  lace  and  knees  as  he  lay  slumbering  in  the  heat  of  the 
^uETyr~^fterhoom  Execution  soon  followed  the  sentence  ot  death." 
A  hutwhs  Specially  bul'inor  the  occasion  .  the  king  was  led  mt<rtt*Trrrd 
lay  down  with  his  head  resting  on  the  lap  of  a  nubile  virgin  :  the  door 
of  the  hut  was  then  walled  up  ;  and  the  couple  were  left  without  food, 
water,  or  fire  to  die  of  hunger  and  suffocation.  This  was  the  old 
custom,  but  it  was  abolished  some  five  generations  ago  on  account  of 
the  excessive  sufferings  of  one  of  the  kings  who  perished  in  this  way. 
It  is  said  that  the  chiefs  announce  his  fate  to  the  king,  and  that  after¬ 
wards  he  is  strangled  in  a  hut  which  has  been  specially  built  for  the 
occasion. 

From  Dr.  Seligman’s  enquiries  it  appears  that  not  only  was  the 
Shilluk  king  liable  to  be  killed  with  due  ceremony  at  the  first  symptoms 
of  incipient  decay,  but  even  while  he  was  yet  in  the  prime  of  health 
and  strength  he  might  be  attacked  at  any  time  by  a  rival  and  have  to 
defend  his  crown  in  a  combat  to  the  death.  According  to  the  common 
Shilluk  tradition  any  son  of  a  king  had  the  right  thus  to  fight  the  king 
in  possession  and,  if  he  succeeded  in  killing  him,  to  reign  in  his  stead. 
As  every  king  had  a  large  harem  and  many  sons,  the  number  of  possible 
candidates  for  the  throne  at  any  time  may  well  have  been  not  in¬ 
considerable,  and  the  reigning  monarch  must  have  carried  his  life  in 
his  hand.  But  the  attack  on  him  could  only  take  place  with  any 
prospect  of  success  at  night ;  for  during  the  day  the  king  surrounded 
himself  with  his  friends  and  bodyguards,  and  an  aspirant  to  the  throne 
could  hardly  hope  to  cut  his  way  through  them  and  strike  home.  It 
was  otherwise  at  night.  For  then  the  guards  were  dismissed  and  the 
king  was  alone  in  his  enclosure  with  his  favourite  wives,  and  there  was 
no  man  near  to  defend  him  except  a  few  herdsmen,  whose  huts  stood 
a  little  way  off.  The  hours  of  darkness  wrere  therefore  the  season  of 


268 


THE  KILLING  OF  THE  DIVINE  KING 


CH. 


peril  for  the  king.  It  is  said  that  he  used  to  pass  them  in  constant 
watchfulness,  prowling  round  his  huts  fully  armed,  peering  into  the 
blackest  shadows,  or  himself  standing  silent  and  alert,  like  a  sentinel 
on  duty,  in  some  dark  corner.  When  at  last  his  rival  appeared,  the 
fight  would  take  place  in  grim  silence,  broken  only  by  the  clash  of 
spears  and  shields,  for  it  was  a  point  of  honour  with  the  king  not  to 

call  the  herdsmen  to  his  assistance. 

Like  Nyakang  himself,  their  founder,  each  of  the  Shilluk  kings 
after  death  is  worshipped  at  a  shrine,  which  is  erected  over  his  grave, 
and  the  grave  of  a  king  is  always  in  the  village  where  he  was  born. 
The  tomb-shrine  of  a  king  resembles  the  shrine  of  Nyakang,  consisting 
of  a  few  huts  enclosed  by  a  fence  ;  one  of  the  huts  is  built  over  the 
king’s  grave,  the  others  are  occupied  by  the  guardians  of  the  shrine. 
Indeed  the  shrines  of  Nyakang  and  the  shrines  of  the  kings  are  scarcely 
to  be  distinguished  from  each  other,  and  the  religious  rituals  observed 
at  all  of  them  are  identical  in  form  and  vary  only  in  matters  of  detail, 
the  variations  being  due  apparently  to  the  far  greater  sanctity  attributed 
to  the  shrines  of  Nyakang.  The  grave-shrines  of  the  kings  are  tended 
by  certain  old  men  or  women,  who  correspond  to  the  guardians  of  the 
shrines  of  Nyakang.  They  are  usually  widows  or  old  men-servants 
of  the  deceased  king,  and  when  they  die  they  are  succeeded  in  their 
office  by  their  descendants.  Moreover,  cattle  are  dedicated  to  the 
grave-shrines  of  the  kings  and  sacrifices  are  offered  at  them  just  as 
at  the  shrines  of  Nyakang. 

In  general  the  principal  element  in  the  religion  of  the  Shilluk 
would  seem  to  be  the  worship  which  they  pay  to  their  sacred  or  divine 
kings,  whether  dead  or  alive.  These  are  believed  to  be  animated 
by  a  single  divine  spirit,  which  has  been  transmitted  from  the  semi- 
mythical,  but  probably  in  substance  historical,  founder  of  the  dynasty 
through  all  his  successors  to  the  present  day.  Hence,  regarding 
their  kings  as  incarnate  divinities  on  whom  the  welfare  of  men,  of 
cattle,  and  of  the  corn  implicitly  depends,  the  Shilluk  naturally  pay 
them  the  greatest  respect  and  take  every  care  of  them ;  and  however 
strange  it  may  seem  to  us,  their  custom  of  putting  the  divine  king  to 
death  as  soon  as  he  shows  signs  of  ill-health  or  failing 'strengTIT  springs 
directly  fiTmi  their  profound  veneration  for  him  _and  from  their  ^ 
airaKty'  T'<rpreserve^  him,  or  rather  the  divine  spirit  by  which  he  is 
titrated.  m  the  most  perfect  state  ofefficiency  :  nay,  we  may  go 
.  further  and  say  that  their  practice  ot  regicidejs  the  best  proof  they_ 

t [p ^  can  give  of  the  high  regard  m  which  they  hold  their  kings.  ..For  they 
believe,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the  king’s  life  or  spirit  is  so  sympathetic- 
ally  bound  up  with  the  prosperity  of  the  whole  country,  that  if  he 
fell  ill  or  grew  senile  the  cattle  would  sicken  and  cease  to  multiply, 
the  crops  would  rot  in  the  fields,  and  men  would  perish  of  widespread 
disease.  Hence,  in  their  opinion,  the  only  way  of  averting  these 
calamities  is  to  put  the  king  to  death  while  he  is  still  hale  and  hearty, 
in  order  that  the  divine  spirit  which  he  has  inherited  from  his  pre¬ 
decessors  may  be  transmitted  in  turn  by  him  to  his  successor  while  . 


XXIV  KINGS  KILLED  WHEN  STRENGTH  FAILS  269 

it  is  still  in  full  vigour  and  has  not  yet  been  impaired  by  the  weakness 
of  disease  and  old  age;  In  this  connexion  the  particular  symptom 
which  is  commonly  said  to  seal  the  king’s  death-warrant  is  highly 
significant ,  when  he  can  no  longer  satisfy  the  passions  of  his  numerous 
vives,  in  othei  words,  when  he  has  ceased,  whether  partially  or  wholly 
_to  be  able  to  reproduce  his  kind,  it  is  time  for  him  to  die  and  to  make 
room  for  a  more  vigorous  successor.  Taken  along  with  the  other 
reasons  which  are  alleged  for  putting  the  king  to  death,  this  one 
suggests  that  the  fertility  of  men,  of  cattle,  and  of  the  crops  is  believed 
to_depend  sympathetically  on  the  generative  power  of  the  king,  so 
that  the  complete  failure  of  that  power  in  him  would  involve  a  corre¬ 
sponding  failure  in  men,  animals,  and  plants,  and  would  thereby 
_entail  at  no  distant  date  the  entire  extinction  of  all  life,  whether 
human,  animal,  or  vegetable.  No  wonder,  that  with  such  a  danger 
before  theii  eyes  the  Shilluk  should  be  most  careful  not  to  let  the 
king  die  what  we  should  call  a  natural  death  of  sickness  or  old  age. 
It  is  characteristic  of  their  attitude  towards  the  death  of  the  kings 
that  they  refrain  from  speaking  of  it  as  death  :  they  do  not  say  that 
a  king  has  died  but  simply  that  he  has  “  gone  away  ”  like  his  divine 
ancestors  Nyakang  and  Dag,  the  two  first  kings  of  the  dynasty, 
both  of  whom  are  reported  not  to  have  died  but  to  have  disappeared. 
The  similar  legends  of  the  mysterious  disappearance  of  early  kings 
in  other  lands,  for  example  at  Rome  and  in  Uganda,  may  well  point 
to  a  similar  custom  of  putting  them  to  death  for  the  purpose  of  pre¬ 
serving  their  life. 

.  On  the  whole  the  theory  and  practice  of  the  divine  kings  of  the 
Shilluk  correspond  very  nearly  to  the  theory  and  practice  of  the 
priests  of  Nemi,  the  Kings  of  the  Wood,  if  my  view  of  the  latter  is 
correct.  In  both  we  see  a  series  of  divine  kings  on  whose  life  the 
fertility  of  men,  of  cattle,  and  of  vegetation  is  believed  to  depend 
and  who  are  put  to  death,  whether  in  single  combat  or  otherwise,  in 
order  that  their  divine  spirit  may  be  transmitted  to  their  successors 
m  full  vigour,  uncontaminated  by  the  weakness  and  decay  of  sick¬ 
ness  or  old  age,  because  any  such  degeneration  on  the  part  of  the 
king  would,  in  the  opinion  of  his  worshippers,  entail  a  corresponding 
degeneration  on  mankind,  on  cattle,  and  on  the  crops.  Some  points 
in  this  explanation  of  the  custom  of  putting  divine  kings  to  death, 
particularly  the  method  of  transmitting  their  divine  souls  to  their 
successors,  will  be  dealt  with  more  fully  in  the  sequel.  Meantime 
we  pass  to  other  examples  of  the  general  practice. 

Jhe.,Dinka_are  a  congeries  of  independent  tribes  in  the  valley  of 
the  White  Nile.  They  are  essentially  a  pastoral  people,  passionately 
devoted  to  the  care  of  their  numerous  herds  of  oxen,  though  they 
also  keep  sheep  and  goats,  and  the  women  cultivate  small  quantities 
of  millet  and  sesame.  For  their  crops  and  above  all  for  their  pastures 
they  depend  on  the  regularity  of  the  rains  :  in  seasons  of  prolonged 
rought  they  are  said  to  be  reduced  to  great  extremities.  Hence 
jhq  rainTmakpx Js  a^very  important  personage  among  them  to  this  v 


CII. 


270  THE  KILLING  OF  THE  DIVINE  KING 

day;  indeed  the  men  in  authority  whom  travellers  dub  chiefs  or 
sheikhs  are  in  fact  the  actual  or  potential  rain-makers  of  the  tribe,  or 
community.  Each  of  them  is  believed  to  be  animated  by  the  spirit 
of  a  great  rain-maker,  which  has  come  doWn  to  him  through  a  succes¬ 
sion  of  rain-makers  ;  and  in  virtue  of  this  inspiration  a  successful 
rain-maker  enjoys  very  great  power  and  is  consulted  on  all  important 
matters.  Yet  in  spite,  or  rather  in  virtue,  of  the  high  honour  in  whichhe 
is  held,  no  Dinka  rain-maker  is  allowed  to  die  a  natural  death  of  sickness  I 
hr  old  ’"a pL  :  for  the  'Dinka  believe  that  if  such  an  untoward  event 
were  to  happen ,  theTtnETw^ld  suffer  from  disease  and  famine,  and^ 
the  herds  wouldnot  yield  their  increase.  So  when  a  ram-maker  leeis 
fpW  iq  growing-  old  and  infimi.  lie  tells  his  childreiL-that  he  wishes 
to  die.  Among  the  Agar  Dinka  a  large  grave  is  dug  and  the  rain¬ 
maker  lies  down  in  it,  surrounded  by  his  friends  and  relatives.  From 
time  to  time  he  speaks  to  the  people,  recalling  the  past  history  of  the 
tribe,  reminding  them  how  he  has  ruled  and  advised  them,  and  in¬ 
structing  them  how  they  are  to  act  in  the  future..  Then,  when  he  has 
concluded  his  admonition,  he  bids  them  cover  him  up.  So  the  eaith 
is  thrown  down  on  him  as  he  lies  in  the  grave,  and  he  soon  dies  of 
suffocation.  Such,  with  minor  variations,  appears  to  be  the  regular 
end  of  the  honourable  career  of  a  rain-maker  in  all  the  Dinka  tribes. 
The  Khor-Adar  Dinka  told  Dr.  Seligman  that  when  they  have  dug 
the  grave  for  their  rain-maker  they  strangle  him  in  his  house.  The 
father  and  paternal  uncle  of  one  of  Dr.  Seligman  s  informants  had 
both  been  rain-makers  and  both  had  been  killed  in  the  most  regular  $ 
and  orthodox  fashion.  Even  if  a  rain-maker  is  quite  young  he  will 
be  put  to  death  should  he  seem  likely  to  perish  of  disease.  Further^ 
every  precaution  is  taken  to  prevent  a  raimmake£_f  1  om  dying  an. 
^^j^gpTdpnth  r  for  ~Tuch~ariend,  though  nokjneady  sp„§eno!jfg3 
matter  as  death  from  illness  or  oj^^^wQlJd  be  sure^ocntail  sickness 
on  the  tribe,  As  soon  as  a  rain-maker  is  killed,  his  valuable  spmTi?: 
^{JpposeTTq^^as^To^surtabt^successOT^iSEiSill^l^TloOI^iL-^^^ 

"blood  relation. 

- - In’ th'JTcTentral  African  kingdom  of  Bunyoro  down  to  recent  years* 

custom  required  that  as  soon  as  the  king  fell  seriously  ill  or  began  to' 
break  up  from  age,  he  should  die  by  his  own  hand  ;  for,  accoiding  to 
an  old  prophecy,  the  throne  would  pass  away  from  the  dynasty,  if 
ever  the  king  were  to  die  a  natural  death.  He  killed  himself  by  drain-] 
ing  a  poisoned  cup.  If  he  faltered  or  were  too  ill  to  ask  for  the  cup, 
it  was  his  wife’s  duty  to  administer  the  poison.  When  the  king  of 
Kibanga,  on  the  Upper  Congo,  seems  near  his  end,  the  sorcerers  put 
a  rope  round  his  neck,  which  they  draw  gradually  tighter  till  he  dies. 
If  the  king  of  Gingiro  happens  to  be  wounded  in  war,  he  is  put  to 
death  by  his  comrades,  or,  if  they  fail  to  kill  him,  by  his.  kinsfolk, 
however  hard  he  may  beg  for  mercy.  .  They  say  they  do  it  that  he 
may  not  die  by  the  hands  of  his  enemies.  The  Jukos  are  a  heathen 
tribe  of  the  Benue  river,  a  great  tributary  of  the  Niger.  In  their 
country  “  the  town  of  Gatri  is  ruled  by  a  king  who  is  elected  by  the 


XXIV  KINGS  KILLED  WHEN  STRENGTH  FAILS  271 

I  big  men  of  the  town  as  follows.  When  in  the  opinion  of  the  big 
men  the  king  has  reigned  long  enough,  they  give  out  that  ‘  the  king 
I  is  sick  a  formula  understood  by  all  to  mean  that  they  are  going  to 
>  kill  him,  though  the  intention  is  never  put  more  plainly.  They  then 
K  decide  who  is  to  be  the  next  king.  How  long  he  is  to  reign  is  settled 
by  the  influential  men  at  a  meeting  ;  the  question  is  put  and  answered 
by  each  man  throwing  on  the  ground  a  little  piece  of  stick  for  each 
*  year  he.  thinks  the  new  king  should  rule.  The  king  is  then  told  and 
a  great  feast  prepared,  at  which  the  king  gets  drunk  on  guinea-corn 
beer.  After  that  he  is  speared,  and  the  man  who  was  chosen  becomes 
king.  Thus  each  Juko  king  knows  that  he  cannot  have  very  many 
more  years  to  live,  and  that  he  is  certain  of  his  predecessor’s  fate. 
This,  however,  does  not  seem  to  frighten  candidates.  The  same 
custom  of  kmg-killing  is  said  to  prevail  at  Quonde  and  Wukari  as 
well  as  at  Gatn.”  In  the  three  Hausa  kingdoms  of  Gobir,  Katsina, 
and  Daura,  in  Northern  Nigeria,  as  soon  as  a  king  showed  signs  of 
failing  health  or  growing  infirmity,  an  official  who  bore  the  title  of 
Killer  of  the  Elephant  appeared  and  throttled  him. 

The  Matiamvo  is  a  great  king  or  emperor  in  the  interior  of  Angola 
One  of  the  inferior  kings  of  the  country,  by  name  Challa,  gave  to  a 
Portuguese  expedition  the  following  account  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  Matiamvo  comes  by  his  end.  “  It  has  been  customary,”  he  said 
‘  for  our  Matiamvos  to  die  either  in  war  or  by  a  violent  death  and 
the  present  Matiamvo  must  meet  this  last  fate,  as,  in  consequence 
of  his  great  exactions,  he  has  lived  long  enough.  When  we  come  to 
this  understanding,  and  decide  that  he  should  be  killed,  we  invite 
him  to  make  war  with  our  enemies,  on  which  occasion  we  all  accompany 
him  and  his  family  to  the  war,  when  we  lose  some  of  our  people.  If 
he  escapes  unhurt,  we  return  to  the  war  again  and  fight  for  three  or 
four  days.  We  then  suddenly  abandon  him  and  his  family  to  their 
fate,  leaving  him  in  the  enemy’s  hands.  Seeing  himself  thus  deserted 
he  causes  his  throne  to  be  erected,  and,  sitting  down,  calls  his  family 
around  him.  He  then  orders  his  mother  to  approach  ;  she  kneels 
at  his  feet ;  he  first  cuts  off  her  head,  then  decapitates  his  sons  in 
succession,  next  his  wives  and  relatives,  and,  last  of  all,  his  most 
eloved .  wife,  called  Anacullo.  This  slaughter  being  accomplished, 
the  Matiamvo,  dressed  in  all  his  pomp,  awaits  his  own  death,  which 
immediately  follows,  by  an  officer  sfent  by  the  powerful  neighbouring 
chiefs,  Camqumha  and  Canica.  This  officer  first  cuts  off  his  legs 
and  arms  at  the  joints,  and  lastly  he  cuts  off  his  head  ;  after  which 
the  head  of  the  officer  is  struck  off.  All  the  potentates  retire  from  the 
encampment,  in  order  not  to  witness  his  death.  It  is  my  duty  to 
remain  and  witness  his  death,  and  to  mark  the  place  where  the  head 
and  arms  have  been  deposited  by  the  two  great  chiefs,  the  enemies 
of  the.  Matiamvo.  They  also  take  possession  of  all  the  property 
e  onging  to  the  deceased  monarch  and  his  family,  which  they  convey 
to  their  own  residence.  I  then  provide  for  the  funeral  of  the  mutilated 
remains  of  the  late  Matiamvo,  after  which  I  retire  to  his  capital  and 


272  THE  KILLING  OF  THE  DIVINE  KING  ch. 

proclaim  the  new  government.  I  then  return  to  where  the  head, 
legs,  and  arms  have  been  deposited,  and,  for  forty  slaves,  I  ransom 
them,  together  with  the  merchandise  and  other  property  belonging 
to  the  deceased,  which  I  give  up  to  the  new  Matiamvo,  who  has  been 
proclaimed.  This  is  what  has  happened  to  many  Matiamvos,  and 
what  must  happen  to  the  present  one.” 

It  appears  to  have  been  a  Zulu  custom  to  put  the  king  to  death 
as  soon  as  he  began  to  have  wrinkles  or  grey  hairs.  At  least  this 
seems  implied  in  the  following  passage  written  by  one  who  resided 
for  some  time  at  the  court  of  the  notorious  Zulu  tyrant  Chaka,  in  the 
early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  :  "  The  extraordinary  violence 
of  the  king’s  rage  with  me  was  mainly  occasioned  by  that  absurd 
nostrum,  the  hair  oil,  with  the  notion  of  which  Mr.  Earewell  had 
impressed  him  as  being  a  specific  for  removing  all  indications  of  age. 
From  the  first  moment  of  his  having  heard  that  such  a  preparation 
was  attainable,  he  evinced  a  solicitude  to  procure  it,  and  on  every 
occasion  never  forgot  to  remind  us  of  his  anxiety  respecting  it ;  more 
especially  on  our  departure  on  the  mission  his  injunctions  were  par¬ 
ticularly  directed  to  this  object.  It  will  be  seen  that  it  is  one  of  the 
barbarous  customs  of  the  Zoolas  in  their  choice  or  election  of  their 
kings  that  he  must  neither  have  wrinkles  nor  grey  hairs,  as  they  are 
both  distinguishing  marks  of  disqualification  for  becoming  a  monarch 
of  a  warlike  people.  It  is  also  equally  indispensable  that  their  king 
should  never  exhibit  those  proofs  of  having  become  unfit  and  incom¬ 
petent  to  reign ;  it  is  therefore  important  that  they  should  conceal 
these  indications  so  long  as  they  possibly  can.  Chaka  had  become 
greatly  apprehensive  of  the  approach  of  grey  hairs  ;  which  would 
at  once  be  the  signal  for  him  to  prepare  to  make  his  exit  from  this 
sublunary  world,  it  being  always  followed  by  the  death  of  the 
monarch.”  The  writer  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  this  instructive  |< 
anecdote  of  the  hair  oil  omits  to  specify  the  mode  in  which  a  grey¬ 
haired  and  wrinkled  Zulu  chief  used  “  to  make  his  exit  from  this 
sublunary  world  ”  ;  but  on  analogy  we  may  conjecture  that  he  was 
killed. 

The  custom  of  putting  kings  to  death  as  soon  as  they  suffered  ■ 
fronTariv  personal  defectprevailed  two~  cemtiniZIIaa^ 
kingdom  of_  Solalm — WeTiave  seen  thatthese  kings  of  Sofala  were 
regarded  as^gods^ByTlieir  people, •  being  entreated  to  give  rain  or  sun¬ 
shine,  according  as  each  might  be  wanted.  Nevertheless  a  slight 
b odilv  blemish,  such^sJKeUasa  of  a  tooth,  was  rnnsid-ererl  a_snfhcient 
causefor~putting  onTof  these  god-men  to  death,  as  we  learn  from  the 
folTowmgTpassage  of  an  old  Portuguese  historian  !  It  was  formerly 
the  custom  of  the  kings  of  this  land  to  commit  suicide  by  taking  poison 
when  any  disaster  or  natural  physical  defect  fell  upon  them,  such  as 
impotence,  infectious  disease,  the  loss  of  their  front  teeth,  by  which 
they  were  disfigured,  or  any  other  deformity  or  affliction.  To  put 
an  end  to  such  defects  they  killed  themselves,  saying  that  the  king 
should  be  free  from  any  blemish,  and  if  not,  it  was  better  for  his  honour 


XXIV 


KINGS  KILLED  WHEN  STRENGTH  FAILS 


273 

that  he  should  die  and  seek  another  life  where  he  would  be  made  whole 
for  there  everything  was  perfect.  But  the  Quiteve  (king)  who  reigned 
when  I  was  m  those  parts  would  not  imitate  his  predecessors  in  this 
being  discreet  and  dreaded  as  he  was  ;  for  having  lost  a  front  tooth 
he  caused  it  to  be  proclaimed  throughout  the  kingdom  that  all  should 
be  aware  that  he  had  lost  a  tooth  and  should  recognise  him  when  they 
saw  him  without  it,  and  if  his  predecessors  killed  themselves  for  such 
things  they  were  very  foolish,  and  he  would  not  do  so  ;  on  the  contrary 
he  would  be  very  sorry  when  the  time  came  for  him  to  die  a  natural 
death  for  his  life  was  very  necessary  to  preserve  his  kingdom  and 

fdlovfhis  example* ”enemieS  ^  ^  ™  to 

The  king  of  Sofala  who  dared  to  survive  the  loss  of  his  front  tooth 
was  thus  a  bold  reformer  like  Ergamenes,  king  of  Ethiopia.  We  mav 
conjecture  that  the  ground  for  putting  the  Ethiopian  kings  to  death 
was,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Zulu  and  Sofala  kings,  the  appearance  on 

whtrhPtb0n  T  b,?di1^  defCCt  °r  Sign  °f  deCay  :  and  ^at  the  oracle 
which  the  pnests  alleged  as  the  authority  for  the  royal  execution 

was  to  the  effect  that  great  calamities  would  result 'from  the  reign  of 

a  king  who  had  any  blemish  on  his  body  ;  just  as  an  oracle  warned 

Sparta  against  a  lame  reign,”  that  is,  the  reign  of  a  lame  king.  It 

is  some  confirmation  of  this  conjecture  that  the  kings  of  Ethiopia 

rfktlhnf fh  the\sif  -  ^ength,  and  beauty  long  before  the  custom 

r  Ih6™  was  ahohshed.  Tothis JayJdi^ultan  of  Wadai  must 

have  no  QkyiouS-bodily  defect,  and  the  king  of  Angoy  cannot  be 
ciowaed-iLjTtos_a^ingIe  blemishTsucras!^^ 
orjhejjcar  of -an  gMjvouna.  According  to  the  Book  of  Acaill  and 
many  other  authorities  no  king  who  was  afflicted  with  a  personal 
blemish  might  reign  over  Ireland  at  Tara.  Hence,  when  the  great 
mg  Cormac  Mac  Art  lost  one  eye  by  an  accident,  he  at  once  abdicated 
Many  days  journey  to  the  north-east  of  Abomey,  the  old  capital 
of  Dahomey,  lies  the  kingdom  of  Eyeo.  "  The  Eyeos  are  governed 
by  a  king,  no  less  absolute  than  the  king  of  Dahomey,  yet  subject  to 
a regulation  of  state,  at  once  humiliating  and  extraordinary.  When 
the  people  have  conceived  an  opinion  of  his  ill-government,  which  is 
sometimes  insidiously  infused  into  them  by  the  artifice  of  his  dis¬ 
contented  _  ministers,  they  send  a  deputation  to  him  with  a  present 
°  Parr°ts  eggs,  as  a  mark  of  its  authenticity,  to  represent  to  him 
at  the  burden  of  government  must  have  so  far  fatigued  him  that 
hey  consider  it  full  time  for  him  to  repose  from  his  cares  and  indulge 
himself  with  a  little  sleep.  He  thanks  his  subjects  for  their  attention 
to  his  ease,  retires  to  his  own  apartment  as  if  to  sleep,  and  there  gives 
directions  to  his  women  to  strangle  him.  This  is  immediately  executed 
and  his  son  quietly  ascends  the  throne  upon  the  usual  terms  of  holding 
the  reins  of  government  no  longer  than  whilst  he  merits  the  appro" 
bation  of  the  people.”  About  the  year  1774,  a  king  of  Eyeo,  whom 
B  ministers  attempted  to  remove  in  the  customary  manner,  positively 
refused  to  accept  the  proffered  parrots’  eggs  at  their  hands,  telling 


THE  KILLING  OF  THE  DIVINE  KING 


CH. 


274 

them  that  he  had  no  mind  to  take  a  nap,  but  on  the  contrary  was 
resolved  to  watch  for  the  benefit  of  his  subjects  The  ministers, 
surprised  and  indignant  at  his  recalcitrancy,  raised  a  rebellion  but 
were  defeated  with  great  slaughter,  and  thus  by  his  spirited  conduct  the 
king  freed  himself  from  the  tyranny  of  his  councillors  and  established 
a  new  precedent  for  the  guidance  of  his  successors.  However,  the  o 
custom  seems  to  have  revived  and  persisted  until  late  m  the  nineteen  t 
century  for  a  Catholic  missionary,  writing  m  1884,  speaks  ot  tne 
practice  as  if  it  were  still  in  vogue.  Another  missionary  writing  m 
1881,  thus  describes  the  usage  of  the  Egbas  and  the  /orubas  of  West 
Africa  :  “  Among  the  customs  of  the  country  one  of  the  most  curious 
is  unquestionably  that  of  judging  and  punishing  the  king.  Should 
he  have  earned  the  hatred  of  his  people  by  exceeding  his  rights  one 
of  his  councillors,  on  whom  the  heavy  duty  is  laid,  requires  of  the 
prince  that  he  shall  ‘  go  to  sleep/  which  means  simply  take  poison 
and  die/  If  his  courage  fails  him  at  the  supreme  moment,  a  men 
renders  him  this  last  service,  and  quietly,  without  betraying  the  secret, 
they  prepare  the  people  for  the  news  of  the  king’s  death.  In  Yoruba 
the'' thing  is  managed  a  little  differently.  When  a  son  is  born  to  the 
king  of  Oyo,  they  make  a  model  of  the  infant’s  right  foot  m  clay  an 
keep  it  in  the  house  of  the  elders  (< ogboni ).  If  the  king  fails  to  observe 
the  customs  of  the  country,  a  messenger,  without  speaking  a  word, 
shows  him  his  child’s  foot.  The  king  knows  what  that  means.  He 
takes  poison  and  goes  to  sleep.’’  The  old  Prussians  acknowledged  , 
as  their  supreme  lord  a  ruler  who  governed  them  m  the  name  of  the 
gods,  and  "was  known  as  “God’s  Mouth.”  When  he  felt  himse  ; 
weak  and  ill,  if  he  wished  to  leave  a  good  name  behind  him,  he  had  a 
o-reat  heap  made  of  thorn-bushes  and  straw,  on  which  he  mounted 
and  delivered  a  long  sermon  to  the  people,  exhorting  them  to  serve 
the  gods  and  promising  to  go  to  the  gods  and  speak  for  the  peop  e. 
Then  he  took  some  of  the  perpetual  fire  which  burned  m  front  oi 
the  holy  oak-tree,  and  lighting  the  pile  with  it  burned  himself  to  deat  . 

8  a.  Kings  killed  at  the  End  of  a  Fixed  Term. — In  the  cases  hitherto 
described,  the  divine  king  or  priest  is  suffered  by  his  people  to  retain 
office  until  some  outward  defect,  some  visible  symptom  of  failing 
health  or  advancing  age,  warns  them  that  he  is  no  longer  equal  to 
the  discharge  of  his  divine  duties  ;  but  not  until  such  symptoms 
have  made  their  appearance  is  he  put  to  death.  .Some  peoples,  noff£ 
ever  appear  tn  k^^fchnnght  it  unsafe  to-aaaiL-fen  even  -the-slighlfiSfe 
sympfomof  decay  and  have  preferred  to  kill  thejdng^.while  he  was  i 

'bevmrd^InHi  he  might  not  reign,  and  at  the  close  of  which Jiejnust 
etiriheTerm  fixed  upfflT5emg~short  enough  to  exclude  Urn  probability 
TPh i”cTegeTiera  Ling  phy:ncaih"HTrH4^  Hr .  some  parts  _  0 

Southern.  India  tne  period  fixed. was  twelve  years.  Thus,  accoidmg 
to  an  old  traveller,  in  the  province  of  Quilacare,  “  there  is  a  Gentile 
house  of  prayer,  in  which  there  is  an  idol  which  they  hold  m  great 
account,  and"  every  twelve  years  they  celebrate  a  great  feast  to  it 


XXIV 


KINGS  KILLED  AT  END  OF  FIXED  TERM  275 

whither  all  the  Gentiles  go  as  to  a  jubilee.  This  temple  possesses 
many  lands  and  much  revenue  :  it  is  a  very  great  affair.  This  province 
as  a  king  over  it,  who  has  not  more  than  twelve  years  to  reign  from 
jubilee  to  jubilee.  His  manner  of  living  is  in  this  wise,  that  is  to  say  : 
when  the  twelve  years  are  completed,  on  the  day  of  this  feast  there 
assemble  together  innumerable  people,  and  much  money  is  spent  in 
giving  food  to  Bramans.  The  king  has  a  wooden  scaffolding  made 
spread  over  with  silken  hangings  :  and  on  that  day  he  goes  to  bathe  at 
a  tank  with  great  ceremonies  and  sound  of  music,  after  that  he  comes 
to  the  idol  and  prays  to  it,  and  mounts  on  to  the  scaffolding,  and 
there  before  all  the  people  he  takes  some  very  sharp  knives,  and  begins 
to  cut  off  his  nose,  and  then  his  ears,  and  his  lips,  and  all  his  members 
and  as  much  flesh  off  himself  as  he  can  ;  and  he  throws  it  away  very 
hurriedly  until  so  much  of  his  blood  is  spilled  that  he  begins  to  faint, 
and  then  he  cuts  his  throat  himself.  And  he  performs  this  sacrifice 
to  the  idol,  and  whoever  desires  to  reign  other  twelve  years  and  under¬ 
take  this  martyrdom  for  love  of  the  idol,  has  to  be  present  looking  on  at 
this  :  and  from  that  place  they  raise  him  up  as  king/’ 

The  king  of  Calicut,  on  the  Malabar  coast,  bears  the  title  of  Samorin 
or  Samory. .  He  "  pretends  to  be  of  a  higher  rank  than  the  Brahmans, 
and  to  be  inferior  only  to  the  invisible  gods  ;  a  pretention  that  was 
acknowledged  by  his  subjects,  but  which  is  held  as  absurd  and  abomin¬ 
able  by  the  Brahmans,  by  whom  he  is  only  treated  as  a  Sudra  ” 
.formerly  the  Samorin  had  to  cut  his  throat  in  public  at  the  end  of  a 
twelve  years’  reign.  But  towards  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century 
the  rule  had  been  modified  as  follows  :  “  Many  strange  customs  were 
observed  in  this  country  in  former  times,  and  some  very  odd  ones  are 
still  continued.  It  was  an  ancient  custom  for  the  Samorin  to  reign 
but  twelve  years, _  and  no  longer.  If  he  died  before  his  term  was 
expired,  it  saved  him  a  troublesome  ceremony  of  cutting  his  own  throat, 
on  a  publick  scaffold  erected  for  the  purpose.  He  first  made  a  feast 
tor  all  his  nobility  and  gentry,  who  are  very  numerous.  After  the 
least  he  saluted  his  guests,  and  went  on  the  scaffold,  and  very  decently 
cut  his  own  throat  in  the  view  of  the  assembly,  and  his  body  was,  a 
itt  e  while  after,  burned  with  great  pomp  and  ceremony,  and  the 
grandees  elected  a  new  Samorin.  Whether  that  custom  was  a  religious 
or  a  civil  ceremony,  I  know  not,  but  it  is  now  laid  aside.  And  a  new 
custom  is  followed  by  the  modem  Samorins,  that  jubilee  is  proclaimed 
throughout  his  dominions,  at  the  end  of  twelve  years,  and  a  tent  is 
pitched  for  him  in  a  spacious  plain,  and  a  great  feast  is  celebrated  for 
ten  or  twelve  days,  with  mirth  and  jollity,  guns  firing  night  and  day, 
so  at  the  end  of  the  feast  any  four  of  the  guests  that  have  a  mind  to 
gam  a  crown  by  a  desperate  action,  in  fighting  their  way  through  30 
or  40,000  of  his  guards,  and  kill  the  Samorin  in  his  tent,  he  that  kills 
him  succeeds  him  in  his  empire.  In  anno  1695,  one  of  those  jubilees 
happened,  and  the  tent  pitched  near  Pennany,  a  seaport  of  his,  about 
hlteen  leagues  to  the  southward  of  Calicut.  There  were  but  three  men 
that  would  venture  on  that  desperate  action,  who  fell  in,  with  sword 


276  THE  KILLING  OF  THE  DIVINE  KING  ch. 

and  target,  among  the  guard,  and,  after  they  had  killed  and  wounded 
many,  were  themselves  killed.  One  of  the  desperados  had  a  nephew 
of  fifteen  or  sixteen  years  of  age,  that  kept  close  by  his  uncle  in  the 
attack  on  the  guards,  and,  when  he  saw  him  fall,  the  youth  got  through 
the  guards  into  the  tent,  and  made  a  stroke  at  his  Majesty’s  head,  and 
had  certainly  despatched  him  if  a  large  brass  lamp  which  was  burning 
over  his  head  had  not  marred  the  blow  ;  but,  before  he  could  make 
another,  he  was  killed  by  the  guards  ;  and,  I  believe,  the  same  Samorin 
reigns  yet.  I  chanced  to  come  that  time  along  the  coast  and  heard 
the  guns  for  two  or  three  days  and  nights  successively.” 

The  English  traveller,  whose  account  I  have  quoted,  did  not 
himself  witness  the  festival  he  describes,  though  he  heard  the  sound 
of  the  firing  in  the  distance.  Fortunately,  exact  records  of  these 
festivals  and  of  the  number  of  men  who  perished  at  them  have  been 
preserved  in  the  archives  of  the  royal  family  at  Calicut.  In  the  latter 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century  they  were  examined  by  Mr.  W.  Logan, 
with  the  personal  assistance  of  the  reigning  king,  and  from  his  work  it 
is  possible  to  gain  an  accurate  conception  both  of  the  tragedy  and  of 
the  scene  where  it  was  periodically  enacted  down  to  1743,  when  the 
ceremony  took  place  for  the  last  time. 

y  The  festival  at  which  the  king  of  Calicut  staked  his  crown  and  his 
life  on  the  issue  of  battle  was  known  as  the  “  Great  Sacrifice.”  It  fell 
every  twelfth  year,  when  the  planet  Jupiter  was  in  retrograde  motion 
\in  the  sign  of  the  Crab,  and  it  lasted  twenty-eight  days,  culminating 
\at  the  time  of  the  eighth  lunar  asterism  in  the  month  of  Makaram. 
As  the  date  of  the  festival  was  determined  by  the  position  of  Jupiter 
irt  the  sky,  and  the  interval  between  two  festivals  was  twelve  years, 
which  is  roughly  Jupiter’s  period  of  revolution  round  the  sun,  we 
may  conjecture  that  the  splendid  planet  was  supposed  to  be  in  a 
special  sense  the  king’s  star  and  to  rule  his  destiny,  the  period  of  its 
revolution  in  heaven  corresponding  to  the  period  of  his  reign  on  earth. 
However  that  may  be,  the  ceremony  was  observed  with  great  pomp 
at  the  Tirunavayi  temple,  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Ponnani  River. 
The  spot  is  close  to  the  present  railway  line.  As  the  train  rushes  by, 
you  can  just  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  temple,  almost  hidden  behind  a 
clump  of  trees  on  the  river  bank.  From  the  western  gateway  of  the 
temple  a  perfectly  straight  road,  hardly  raised  above  the  level  of  the 
surrounding  rice-fields  and  shaded  by  a  fine  avenue,  runs  for  half  a 
mile  to  a  high  ridge  with  a  precipitous  bank,  on  which  the  outlines  of 
three  or  four  terraces  can  still  be  traced.  On  the  topmost  of  these 
terraces  the  king  took  his  stand  on  the  eventful  day.  The  view  which 
it  commands  is  a  fine  one.  Across  the  flat  expanse  of  the  rice-fields, 
with  the  broad  placid  river  winding  through  them,  the  eye  ranges 
eastward  to  high  tablelands,  their  lower  slopes  embowered  in  woods, 
while  afar  off  looms  the  great  chain  of  the  western  Ghauts,  and  in  the 
furthest  distance  the  Neilgherries  or  Blue  Mountains,  hardly  dis¬ 
tinguishable  from  the  azure  of  the  sky  above. 

But  it  was  not  to  the  distant  prospect  that  the  king’s  eyes  naturally 


XXIV  KINGS  KILLED  AT  END  OF  FIXED  TERM  277 

turned  at  this  crisis  of  his  fate.  His  attention  was  arrested  by  a 
spectacle  nearer  at  hand.  For  all  the  plain  below  was  alive  with  troops, 
their  banners  waving  gaily  in  the  sun,  the  white  tents  of  their  many 
camps  standing  sharply  out  against  the  green  and  gold  of  the  rice- 
fields.  Forty  thousand  fighting  men  or  more  were  gathered  there  to 
defend  the  king.  But  if  the  plain  swarmed  with  soldiers,  the  road 
that  cuts  across  it  from  the  temple  to  the  king’s  stand  was  clear  of  them. 
Not  a  soul  was  stirring  on  it.  Each  side  of  the  way  was  barred  by 
palisades,  and  from  the  palisades  on  either  hand  a  long  hedge  of  spears, 
held  by  strong  arms,  projected  into  the  empty  road,  their  blades 
meeting  in  the  middle  and  forming  a  glittering  arch  of  steel.  All  was 
now  ready.  The  king  waved  his  sword.  At  the  same  moment  a  great 
chain  of  massy  gold,  enriched  with  bosses,  was  placed  on  an  elephant 
at  his  side.  That  was  the  signal.  On  the  instant  a  stir  might  be  seen 
half  a  mile  away  at  the  gate  of  the  temple.  A  group  of  swordsmen, 
decked  with  flowers  and  smeared  with  ashes,  has  stepped  out  from 
the  crowd.  They  have  just  partaken  of  their  last  meal  on  earth,  and 
they  now  receive  the  last  blessings  and  farewells  of  their  friends.  A 
moment  more  and  they  are  coming  down  the  lane  of  spears,  hewing 
and  stabbing  right  and  left  at  the  spearmen,  winding  and  turning  and 
writhing  among  the  blades  as  if  they  had  no  bones  in  their  bodies.  It 
is  all  in  vain.  One  after  the  other  they  fall,  some  nearer  the  king, 
some  farther  off,  content  to  die,  not  for  the  shadow  of  a  crown,  but 
for  the  mere  sake  of  approving  their  dauntless  valour  and  swordsman¬ 
ship  to  the  world.  On  the  last  days  of  the  festival  the  same  magnificent 
display  of  gallantry,  the  same  useless  sacrifice  of  life  was  repeated 
again  and  again.  T  et  perhaps  no  sacrifice  is  wholly  useless  which 
proves  that  there  are  men  who  prefer  honour  to  life. 

"  11  is<fa  singular  custom  in  Bengal,”  says  an  old  native  historian 
of  India,  that  there  is  little  of  hereditary  descent  in  succession  to  the 
sovereignty.  .  .  .  Whoever  kills  the  king,  and  succeeds  in  placing  him¬ 
self  on  that  throne,  is  immediately  acknowledged  as  king ;  all  the  amirs, 
wazirs,  soldiers,  and  peasants  instantly  obey  and  submit  to  him,  and 
consider  him  as  being  as  much  their  sovereign  as  they  did  their  former 
prince,  and  obey  his  orders  implicitly.  The  people  of  Bengal  say,  ‘  We 
are  faithful  to  the  throne  ;  whoever  fills  the  throne  we  are  obedient  and 
true  to  it.  A  custom  of  the  same  sort  formerly  prevailed  in  the 
little  kingdom  of  Passier,  on  the  northern  coast  of  Sumatra.  The 
old  Portuguese  historian  De  Barros,  who  informs  us  of  it,  remarks 
with  surprise  tnat  no  wise  man  would  wish  to  be  king  of  Passier,  since 
the  monarch  was  not  allowed  by  his  subjects  to  live  long.  From  time 
to  time  a  sort  of  fury  seized  the  people,  and  they  marched  through  the 
streets  of  the  city  chanting  with  loud  voices  the  fatal  words,  "  The 
king  must  die  !  When  the  king  heard  that  song  of  death  he  knew 
that  his  hour  had  come.  The  man  who  struck  the  fatal  blow  was  of 
the  royal  lineage,  and  as  soon  as  he  had  done  the  deed  of  blood  and 
seated  himself  on  the  throne  he  was  regarded  as  the  legitimate  king, 
provided  that  he  contrived  to  maintain  his  seat  peaceably  for  a  single 


CH. 


278  THE  KILLING  OF  THE  DIVINE  KING 

day.  This,  however,  the  regicide  did  not  always  succeed  in  doing. 
When  Fernao  Peres  d’ Andrade,  on  a  voyage  to  China,  put  m  at  1  assier 
for  a  cargo  of  spices,  two  kings  were  massacred,  and  that  m  the  most 
peaceable  and  orderly  manner,  without  the  smallest  sign  of  tumult  or 
sedition  in  the  city,  where  everything  went  on  in  its  usual  course,  as  it 
the  murder  or  execution  of  a  king  were  a  matter  of  everyday  occurrence. 
Indeed,  on  one  occasion  three  kings  were  raised  to  the  dangerous 
elevation  and  followed  each  other  on  the  dusty  road  of  death  m  a 
single  day.  The  people  defended  the  custom,  which  they  esteemed 
very  laudable  and  even  of  divine  institution,  by  saying  that  God 
would  never  allow  so  high  and  mighty  a  being  as  a  king,  who  reigned 
as  his  vicegerent  on  earth,  to  perish  by  violence  unless  for  his  sms  he 
thoroughly  deserved  it.  Far  away  from  the  tropical  island  of  Sumatra 
a  rule  of  the  same  sort  appears  to  have  obtained  among  the  old  S  avs. 
When  the  captives  Gunn  and  Jarmerik  contrived  to  slay  the  king  and 
queen  of  the  Slavs  and  made  their  escape,  they  were  pursued  by  the 
barbarians,  who  shouted  after  them  that  if  they  would  only  come 
back  they  would  reign  instead  of  the  murdered  monarch,  since  by  a 
public  statute  of  the  ancients  the  succession  to  the  throne  fell  to  the 
king’s  assassin.  But  the  flying  regicides  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  promises 
which  they  regarded  as  mere  baits  to  lure  them  back  to  destruction  ; 
they  continued  their  flight,  and  the  shouts  and  clamour  of  the  bar¬ 
barians  gradually  died  away  in  the  distance.  . 

When  kings  were  bound  to  suffer  death,  whether  at  their  own 
hands  or  at  the  hands  of  others,  on  the  expiration  of  a  fixed  term  of 
years,  it  was  natural  that  they  should  seek  to  delegate  the  painful 
duty,  along  with  some  of  the  privileges  of  sovereignty,  to  a  substitute 
who  should  suffer  vicariously  in  their  stead.  This  expedient  appears 
to  have  been  resorted  to  by  some  of  the  princes  of  Malabar.  ^  thus  we 
are  informed  by  a  native  authority  on  that  country  that  “  m  some 
places  all  powers  both  executive  and  judicial  were  delegated  for  a 
fixed  period  to  natives  by  the  sovereign.  This  institution  was  styled 
Thalavettiparothiam  or  authority  obtained  by  decapitation.  .  .  .  It 
was  an  office  tenable  for  five  years  during  which  its  bearer  was  invested 
with  supreme  despotic  powers  within  his  jurisdiction.  On  the  expiry 
of  the  five  years  the  man’s  head  was  cut  off  and  thrown  up  in  the  air 
amongst  a  large  concourse  of  villagers,  each  of  whom  vied  with  the 
other  in  trying  to  catch  it  in  its  course  down.  ^He  who  succeeded  was 

nominated  to  the  post  for  the  next  five  years.”  ... 

When  once  kings,  who  had  hitherto  been  bound  to  die  a  violent 

death  at  the  end  of  a  term  of  years,  conceived  the  happy  thought  of 
dying  by  deputy  in  the  persons  of  others,  they  would  very  naturally 
put  it  in  practice  ;  and  accordingly  we  need  not  wonder  at  finding  so 
popular  an  expedient,  or  traces  of  it,  in  many  lands.  Scandinavian 
traditions  contain  some  hints  that  of  old  the  Swedish  kings  reigne 
only  for  periods  of  nine  years,  after  which  they  were  put  to  death  or 
had  to  find  a  substitute  to  die  in  their  stead.  Thus  Aun  or  On,  king 
of  Sweden,  is  said  to  have  sacrificed  to  Odin  for  length  of  days  and  to 


XXIV  KINGS  KILLED  AT  END  OF  FIXED  TERM  279 


have  been  answered  by  the  god  that  he  should  live  so  long  as  he  sacri¬ 
ficed  one  of  his  sons  every  ninth  year.  He  sacrificed  nine  of  them  in 
this  manner,  and  would  have  sacrificed  the  tenth  and  last,  but  the 
Swedes  would  not  allow  him.  So  he  died  and  was  buried  in  a  mound 
at  Upsala.  Another  indication  of  a  similar  tenure  of  the  crown  occurs 
in  a  curious  legend  of  the  deposition  and  banishment  of  Odin.  Offended 
at  his  misdeeds,  the  other  gods  outlawed  and  exiled  him,  but  set  up 
in  his  place  a  substitute,  Oiler  by  name,  a  cunning  wizard,  to  whom 
they  accorded  the  symbols  both  of  royalty  and  of  godhead.  The 
deputy  bore  the  name  of  Odin,  and  reigned  for  nearly  ten  years,  when 
he  was  driven  from  the  throne,  while  the  real  Odin  came  to  his  own 
again.  His  discomfited  rival  retired  to  Sweden  and  was  afterwards 
slain  in  an  attempt  to  repair  his  shattered  fortunes.  As  gods  are  often 
merely  men  who  loom  large  through  the  mists  of  tradition,  we  may 
conjecture  that  this  Norse  legend  preserves  a  confused  reminiscence 
of  ancient  Swedish  kings  who  reigned  for  nine  or  ten  years  together, 
then  abdicated,  delegating  to  others  the  privilege  of  dying  for  their 
country.  The  great  festival  which  was  held  at  Upsala  every  nine 
years  may  have  been  the  occasion  on  which  the  king  or  his  deputy  was 
put  to  death.  We  know  that  human  sacrifices  formed  part  of  the  rites. 

■ddipre — are  some  grounds  for  believing  that  the  reign  of  martyr 
^ncienh_Greek  kings  was  hrmfedHo  eight  years,  or  at  least  that  at  the 
91id  of  every  "period  ot  eight  years  a  new  consecration,  a  frp^hTnTTT 
pouring  ofThU divine  grace,  \vas  regarded  asnecessarvhi  order  to  mnhl* 
•^hemjEo~' discharge  Llicn  civil  and  religious  dufins-  Thus  it  was  a  rule 
^pUthe  Spartan  constitution  that  every  eighth  year  the  ephors  should 
choose  a  clear  and  moonless  night  and  sitting  down  observe  the  skvTL 
silence.  If  during  their  vigil  they  saw  a  meteor  or  shooting  star7thev  ~ 

king  Fad  sinned"  against  the  deitv.  and  they  suspended  " 
^him  from  his_  functions  until  the  Delphic  or  Olympic  oracle  should 
^reinstate  him  in  them.  This  custom,  which  has  all  the  air  of  great 
antiqulty7  was  not  suffered  to  remain  a  dead  letter  even  in  the  last 
period  of  the  Spartan  monarchy ;  for  in  the  third  century  before  our 
era  a  king,  who  had  rendered  himself  obnoxious  to  the  reforming 
party,  was  actually  deposed  on  various  trumped-up  charges,  among 
which  the  allegation  that  the  ominous  sign  had  been  seen  in  the  sky 
took  a  prominent  place. 

If  the  tenure  of  the  regal  office  was  formerly  limited  among  the 
Spartans  to  eight  years,  we  may  naturally  ask,  why  was  that  precise 
^j^jetoed  as  the  measure  of  a  king's  relgn'T^THe^aSOTrffis-- 
probably  to  be  found  in  those  astronomical  considerations  which 
determined  the  early  Greek  calendar.  The  difficulty  of  reconciling 
lunar  with  solar  time  is  one  of  the  standing  puzzles  which  has  taxed 
the  ingenuity  of  men  who  are  emerging  from  barbarism.  Now  an 
petennial  cycle  is  the  shortest  period  at  the  end  of  which  min  aruT 
-^Elpnieal^  afta^verl^ 

QffiLJ.he  whole  of  the  interval.  Thus,  for  example,  it  is  only  nnrp  in 
... at  the  full  moon  coincides  with  the  longer  nr 


28o 


THE  KILLING  OF  THE  DIVINE  KING 


CH. 


shortest  day  ;  jmd  ng  this  coincidence  can  be  observed  witlL-thg  ai4_ 
of  a  cin,rTe7Tr^7th^ observation  is  naturally  o*ne  of  1 1 ' p  first,  to  furnisIiL 
a  base^r^--ra1pnflnr  which  shall  brine  lunar  and  solar  times  into,,^, 
Tolerable,  though  not  But  in  early  days  the  proper 

adjustment  of  the  calendar  is  a  matter  of  religious  coun^rTT^hrce-en-^ 
it  depends  a  ]mo\wle^^^e^^ir^t3is6^0T  pfbpTHatmgTTrrg^ 
who^.lavmir  is  indispensable  to  the  welfare  of  the  community.  No 
wnnHTV;~TTTm^re^  that  of  ' the"  state,  or_ 

as  himself  a  god,  should  EeTiable  toTfeposition  or  death  at  the  eiicToF 
luT  astronomical  period.  When  the  great  luminaries  had  run  their 
course  on  higipand  were- about  to  renew  the  heavenly  race,  it  might 
well  be  thought  that  the  king  should  renew  his  divine  energies,  or 
prove  them  unabated,  under  pain  of  making  room  for  a  more  vigorous 
successor.  In  Southern  India,  as  we  have  seen,  the  king’s  reign  and 
life  terminated  with  the  revolution  of  the  planet  Jupiter  round  the  :■ 
In  Greece,  on  the  other  hand,  the  king’s  fate  seems  to  have  ; 


sun. 


— ^  S  ■ 

hung  in  the  balance  at  the  end  of  every  eight  years,  ready  to  fly  up 
and  kick  the  beam  as  soon  as  the  opposite  scale  was  loaded  with  a 
falling  star. 

Whatever  its  origin  may  have  been,  the  cycle  of  eight  years  appears 
to  have  coincided  with  the  normal  length  of  the  king’s  reign  in  other 
parts  of  Greece  besides  Sparta.  Thus  Minps^ Jkipg  oL  Cpossuj?  in  Clide,,*, 
whose  great  palace  has  been  unearthed  in  recent  years,  is  said  to  have 
Tield  office  lor  periods  ot  eight  years" togeth£L._  At  the  end  oT  each"* 
'penotkiTTfetired  for  a  season  to"  the  oracular  cave  on  Mount  Ida,  and 
there  communed  with  his  divine  father  Zeus,  giving  him  an  account 
of  his  kingship  in  the  years  that  were  past,  and  receiving  from  him 
instructions  for  his  guidance  in  those  which  were  to  come.  The 
tradition  plainly  implies  that  at  the  end  of  every  eight  years  the 
king’s  sacred  powers  needed  to  be  renewed  by  intercourse  with  the 
godhead,  and  that  without  such  a  renewal  he  would  have  forfeited 
his  right  to  the  throne. 

Without  being  unduly  rash  we  may  surmise  that  the  tribute  of 
seven  youths  and  seven  maidens  whom  the  Athenians  were  bound 
to  send  to  Minos  every  eight  years  had  some  connexion  with  the 
renewal  of  the  king’s  power  for  another  octennial  cycle.  Traditions 
varied  as  to  the  fate  which  awaited  the  lads  and  damsels  on  their 
arrival  in  Crete  ;  but  the  common  view  appears  to  have  been  that 
they  were  shut  up  in  the  labyrinth,  there  to  be  devoured  by  the 
Minotaur,  or  at  least  to  be  imprisoned  for  life.  Perhaps  they  were 
sacrificed  by  being  roasted  alive  in  a  bronze  image  of  a  bull,  or  of 
a  bull-headed  man,  in  order  to  renew  the  strength  of  the  king  and 
of  the  sun,  whom  he  personated.  This  at  all  events  is  suggested 
by  the  legend  of  Talos,  a  bronze  man  who  clutched  people  to  his 
breast  and  leaped  with  them  into  the  fire,  so  that  they  were  roasted 
alive.  He  is  said  to  have  been  given  by  Zeus  to  Europa,  or  by 
Hephaestus  to  Minos,  to  guard  the  island  of  Crete,  which  he  patrolled 
thrice  daily.  According  to  one  account  he  was  a  bull,  according  to 


XXIV  KINGS  KILLED  AT  END  OF  FIXED  TERM-  281 

another  he  was  the  sun.  Probably  he  was  identical  with  the  Minotaur, 
and  stripped  of  his  mythical  features  was  nothing  but  a  bronze  image 
of  the  sun  represented  as  a  man  with  a  bulbs  head.  In  order  to 
renew  the  solai  hies,  human  victims  may  have  been  sacrificed  to 
the  idol  by  being  loasted  in  its  hollow  body  or  placed  on  its  sloping 
hands  and  allowed  to  roll  into  a  pit  of  fire.  It  was  in  the  latter 
fashion  that  the  Carthaginians  sacrificed  their  offspring  to  Moloch 
The  children  were  laid  on  the  hands  of  a  calf-headed  image  of  bronze^ 
from  which  they  slid  into  a  fiery  oven,  while  the  people  danced  to 
the  music  of  flutes  and  timbrels  to  drown  the  shrieks  of  the  burning 
victims..  .The  resemblance  which  the  Cretan  traditions  bear  to  the 
Cai  thaginian  piactice  suggests  that  the  worship  associated  with  the 
names  of  Minos  and  the  Minotaur  may  have  been  powerfully  influenced 
by  that  of  a  Semitic  Baal.  In  the  tradition  of  Phalaris,  tyrant  of 
Agrigen  turn,  and  his  brazen  bull  we  may  have  an  echo  of  similar  rites 
in  Sicily,  where  the  Carthaginian  power  struck  deep  roots. 

In  the  province  of  Lagos  the  Ijebu  tribe  of  the  Yoruba  race  is 
divided  into  two  branches,  which  are  known  respectively  as  the  Ijebu 
Ode  and  the  Ijebu  Remon.  The  Ode  branch  of  the  tribe  is  ruled  by 
a  chief  who  bears  the  title  of  Awujale  and  is  surrounded  by  a  great 
deal  of  mystery.  Down  to  recent  times  his  face  might  not  be  seen 
even  by  his  own  subjects,  and  if  circumstances  obliged  him  to  com¬ 
municate  with  them  he  did  so  through  a  screen  which  hid  him  from 
view.  The  other  or  Remon  branch  of  the  Ijebu  tribe  is  governed  by 
a  chief,  who  ranks  below  the  Awujale.  Mr.  John  Parkinson  was 
informed  that  in  former  times  this  subordinate  chief  used  to  be  killy  i 
with  ceremony  after  a  rule  of  three  years.  As  the  country  is  now 
under  British  protection  the  custom  of  putting  the  chief  to  death  at 
the  end  of  a  three  years’  reign  has  long  been  abolished,  and  Mr. 
Parkinson  was  unable  to  ascertain  any  particulars  on  the  subject. 

At  Babylon,  within  historical  times,  the  tenure  of  the  kingly  office 
was  in  practice  lifelong,  yet  in  theory  it  would  seem  to  have  been  merely 
annual.  For  every  year  at  the  festival  of  Zagmuk  the  king  had  to 
renew  his  power  by  seizing  the  hands  of  the  image  of  Marduk  in  his 
great  temple  of  Esagil  at  Babylon.  Even  when  Babylon  passed 
under  the  power  of  Assyria,  the  monarchs  of  that  country  were  expected 
to  legalise  their  claim  to  the  throne  every  year  by  coming  to  Babylon 
and  performing  the  ancient  ceremony  at  the  New  Year  festival,  and 
some  of  them  found  the  obligation  so  burdensome  that  rather  than 
discharge  it  they  renounced  the  title  of  king  altogether  and  contented 
themselves  with  the  humbler  one  of  Governor.  Further,  it  would 
appear  that  in  remote  times,  though  not  within  the  historical  period, 
the  kings  of  Babylon  or  their  barbarous  predecessors  forfeited  not 
^—ILtheijgc^own  but  their  life  at  the  endof  a  year’s  tenure  of  office. 

t  least  this  is  the  conclusion  to  which  TheMoIlowing  evidence  seems 
to.  point.  According  to  the  historian  Berosus,  who  as  a  Babylonian 
priest  spoke  with  ample  knowledge,  there  was  annually  celebrated 
ln  Babylon  a  festival  called  the  Sacaea.  It  began  on  the  sixteenth 


282  THE  KILLING  OF  THE  DIVINE  KING  CH. 

day  of  the  month  Lous,  and  lasted  for  five  days,  during  which  I 
masters  and  servants  changed  places,  the  seivants  giving  oideis 
and  the  masters  obeying  them.  A  prisoner  condemned  to  death  was  4  j 
dressed  in  the  king’s  robes,  seated  on  the  king’s  throne,  allowed  to 
issue  whatever  commands  he  pleased,  to  eat,  drink,  and  enjoy  himself, 
and  to  lie  with  the  king’s  concubines.  But  at  the  end  of  the  five 
days  he  was  stripped  of  his  royal  robes,  scourged,  and  hanged  or  I 
impaled.  During  his  brief  term  of  office  he  bore  the  title  of  Zoganes. 
This  custom  might  perhaps  have  been  explained  as  merely  a  grim  jest 
perpetrated  in  a  season  of  jollity  at  the  expense  of  an  unhappy  criminal,  j 
But  one  circumstance— the  leave  given  to  the  mock  king  to  enjoy 
the  king’s  concubines — is  decisive  against  this  interpretation.  Con¬ 
sidering  the  jealous  seclusion  of  an  oriental  despot  s  harem  we  may 
be  quite  certain  that  permission  to  invade  it  would  never  have  been 
granted  by  the  despot,  least  of  all  to  a  condemned  criminal,  except 
for  the  very  gravest  cause.  This  cause  could  hardly  be  other  than  \ 
that  the  condemned  man  was  about  to  die  in  the  king’s  stead,  and  .j 
that  to  make  the  substitution  perfect  it  was  necessary  he  should  enjoy 
the  full  rights  of  royalty  during  his  brief  reign.  There  is  nothing  1 
surprising  in  this  substitution.  The  rule  that  the  king  mjagt  be  pug  ,j 
to  death  either  on  the  appearance  of  any  symptom  of  bodily  dec  ay  ^  | 
or  at  the  end  of  a  fixed  period  is  certainly  one  which,  sooner  or  later, 
~the  kings~wou!d  seek  to  abolish  or  modify.  We  have  seen  that  in 
Ethiopia,  Sofala,  and  Eyeo  the  rule  was  boldly  set  aside  by  enlightened 
jnonarchs  ;  and  that  in  CallcuT the  old  custom_of  killing  the  king  _aj|  j 
fee  end  ^  twelve  years  was  changed  into  a  permission_grailied  to  1 
arr\Tone  at  the  end  of  the  twelve  years’  period  to  attack  the  king,  | 
event  of  killing  hlm.ToTgfinriiri^^ 
king  took  care  at  these  times  to  be  surrounded  by  his  guards,  the-vj 
porndsdon  was  little  more  than  a  form.  Another  way  of  modifying 
'the  stern  old  rule  is  seen  in  the  BaBylonian  custom  just  descubcd. 
When  the  time  drew  near  for  the  king  to  be  put  to  death  (in  Babylon 
this  appears  to  have  been  at  the  end  of  a  single  year’s  reign)  he 
abdicated  for  a  few  days,  during  which  a  temporary  king  reigned  and 
suffered  in  his  stead.  At  first  the  temporary  king  may  have  been 
an  innocent  person,  possibly  a  member  of  the  king’s  own  family ; 
but  with  the  growth  of  civilisation  the  sacrifice  of  an  innocent  person 
would  be  revolting  to  the  public  sentiment,  and  accordingly  a  con¬ 
demned  criminal  would  be  invested  with  the  brief  and  fatal  sovereignty. 

In  the  sequel  we  shall  find  other  examples  of  a  dying  criminal  repre¬ 
senting  a  dying  god.  For  we  must  not  forget  that,  as  the  case  of  the 
Shilluk  kings  clearly  shows,  the  king  is  slain  in  his  character  of  a  god 
or  a  demigod,  his  death  and  resurrection,  as  the  only  means  of  per¬ 
petuating  the  divine  life  unimpaired,  being  deemed  necessary  for  the 
salvation  of  his  people  and  the  world. 

A  vestige  of  a  practice  of  putting  the  king  to  death  at  the  end  of 
a  year’s  reign  appears  to  have  survived  in  the  festival  called  Macahity, 
which  used  to  be  celebrated  in  Hawaii  during  the  last  month  of  the 


XXV 


TEMPORARY  KINGS 


283 


year.  About  a  hundred  years  ago  a  Russian  voyager  described  the 
custom  as  follows  :  “  The  taboo  Macahity  is  not  unlike  to  our  festival 
of  Christmas.  It  continues  a  whole  month,  during  which  the  people 
amuse  themselves  with  dances,  plays,  and  sham-fights  of  every  kind. 
The  king  must  open  this  festival  wherever  he  is.  On  this  occasion 
his  majesty  dresses  himself  in  his  richest  cloak  and  helmet,  and  is 
paddled  in  a  canoe  along  the  shore,  followed  sometimes  by  many  of 
his  subjects.  He  embarks  early,  and  must  finish  his  excursion  at 
sunrise.  The  strongest  and  most  expert  of  the  warriors  is  chosen  to 
receive  him  on  his  landing.  This  warrior  watches  the  canoe  along 
the  beach  ;  and  as  soon  as  the  king  lands,  and  has  thrown  off  his 
cloak,  he  darts  his  spear  at  him,  from  a  distance  of  about  thirty  paces, 
and  the  king  must  either  catch  the  spear  in  his  hand,  or  suffer  from  it : 
there  is  no  jesting  in  the  business.  Having  caught  it,  he  carries  it  under 
his  arm,  with  the  sharp  end  downwards,  into  the  temple  or  heavoo. 
On  his  entrance,  the  assembled  multitude  begin  their  sham-fights, 
and  immediately  the  air  is  obscured  by  clouds  of  spears,  made  for  the 
occasion  with  blunted  ends.  Hamamea  [the  king]  has  been  frequently 
advised  to  abolish  this  ridiculous  ceremony,  in  which  he  risks  his  life 
every  year  ;  but  to  no  effect.  His  answer  always  is,  that  he  is  as  able 
to  catch  a  spear  as  any  one  on  the  island  is  to  throw  it  at  him.  During 
the  Macahity,  all  punishments  are  remitted  throughout  the  country  ; 
and  no  person  can  leave  the  place  in  which  he  commences  these  holidays, 
let  the  affair  be  ever  so  important.” 

That  a  king  should  regularly  have  been  put  to  death  at  the  close 
of  a  year’s  reign  will  hardly  appear  improbable  when  we  learn  that 
to  this  day  there  is  still  a  kingdom  in  which  the  reign  and  the  life  of 
the  sovereign  are  limited  to  a  single  day.  In  Ngoio,  a  province  of  the 
ancient  kingdom  of  Congo,  the  rule  obtains  that  the  chief  who  assumes 
the  cap  of  sovereignty  is  always  killed  on  the  night  after  his  coronation. 
The  right  of  succession  lies  with  the  chief  of  the  Musurongo  ;  but  we 
need  not  wonder  that  he  does  not  exercise  it,  and  that  the  throne 
stands  vacant.  “No  one  likes  to  lose  his  life  for  a  few  hours’  glory 
on  the  Ngoio  throne.” 


CHAPTER  XXV 

TEMPORARY  KINGS 

In  some  places  the  modified  form  of  the  old  custom  of  regicide  which 
appears  to  have  prevailed  at  Babylon  has  been  further  softened  down. 
The  king  still  abdicates  annually  for  a  short  time  and  his  place  is  filled 
by  a  more  or  less  nominal  sovereign  ;  but  at  the  close  of  his  short  reign 
the  latter  is  no  longer  killed,  though  sometimes  a  mock  execution  still 
survives  as  a  memorial  of  the  time  when  he  was  actually  put  to  death.  To 
take  examples.  In  the  month  of  Meac  (February)  the  king  of  Cambodia 


TEMPORARY  KINGS 


CH. 


284 


annually  abdicated  for  three  days.  During  this  time  he  performed  no 
act  of  authority,  he  did  not  touch  the  seals,  he  did  not  even  receive 
the  revenues  which  fell  due.  In  his  stead  there  reigned  a  temporary 
king  called  Sdach  Meac,  that  is,  King  February.  The  office  of 
temporary  king  was  hereditary  in  a  family  distantly  connected  with 
the  royal  house,  the  sons  succeeding  the  fathers  and  the  younger 
brothers  the  elder  brothers  just  as  in  the  succession  to  the  real  sove¬ 
reignty.  On  a  favourable  day  fixed  by  the  astrologers  the  temporary 
king  was  conducted  by  the  mandarins  in  triumphal  procession.  He 
rode  one  of  the  royal  elephants,  seated  in  the  royal  palanquin,  and 
escorted  by  soldiers  who,  dressed  in  appropriate  costumes,  represented 
the  neighbouring  peoples  of  Siam,  Annam,  Laos,  and  so  on.  In  place 
of  the  golden  crown  he  wore  a  peaked  white  cap,  and  his  regalia, 
instead  of  being  of  gold  encrusted  with  diamonds,  were  of  rough  wood. 

/  After  paying  homage  to  the  real  king,  from  whom  he  received  the 
sovereignty  for  three  days,  together  with  all  the  revenues  accruing 
during  that  time  (though  this  last  custom  has  been  omitted  for  some 
time),  he  moved  in  procession  round  the  palace  and  through  the 
streets  of  the  capital.  O11  the  third  day,  after  the  usual  procession, 
the  temporary  king  gave  orders  that  the  elephants  should  trample 
under  foot  the  “  mountain  of  rice,”  which  was  a  scaffold  of  bamboo 
surrounded  by  sheaves  of  rice.  The  people  gathered  up  the  rice,  each 
man  taking  home  a  little  with  himjto  secure  a^goad  harvest.  Some  of 
it  was  also  taken  to  the  king,  who  hacTit  cooked  and  presented  to  the 
^  monks. 

In  Siam  on  the  sixth  day  of  the  moon  in  the  sixth  month  (the 
end  of  April)  a  temporary  king  is  appointed,  who  for  three  days 
enjoys  the  royal  prerogatives,  the  real  king  remaining  shut  up  in 
his  palace.  This  temporary  king  sends  his  numerous  satellites  in . 
all  directions  to  seize  and  confiscate  whatever  they  can  find  in 
the  bazaar  and  open  shops  ;  even  the  ships  and  junks  which  arrive 
in  harbour  during  the  three  days  are  forfeited  to  him  and  must 
be  redeemed.  He  goes  to  a  field  in  the  middle  of  the  city,  whither 
they  bring  a  gilded  plough  drawn  by  gaily -decked  oxen.  After 
the  plough  has  been  anointed  and  the  oxen  rubbed  with  incense, 
the  mock  king  traces  nine  furrows  with  the  plough,  followed  by  aged 
dames  of  the  palace  scattering  the  first  seed  of  the  season.  As  soon 
as  the  nine  furrows  are  drawn,  the  crowd  of  spectators  rushes  in  and 
scrambles  for  the  seed  which  has  just  been  sown,  believing  that,  mixed 
with  the  seed-rice,  it  will  ensure  a  plentiful  crop.  Then  the  oxen  are 
unyoked,  and  rice,  maize,  sesame,  sago,  bananas,  sugar-cane,  melons, 
and  so  on,  are  set  before  them  ;  whatever  they  eat  first  will,  it  is 
thought,  be  dear  in  the  year  following,  though  some  people  interpret 
the  omen  in  the  opposite  sense.  During  this  time  the  temporary  king 
stands  leaning  against  a  tree  with  his  right  foot  resting  on  his  left  knee. 
From  standing  thus  on  one  foot  he  is  popularly  known  as  King  Hop ; 
but  his  official  title  is  Phaya  Phollathep,  “  Lord  of  the  Heavenly  Hosts," 
He  is  a  sort  of  Minister  of  Agriculture  ;  all  disputes  about  fields,  rice, 


XXV 


TEMPORARY  KINGS 


285 


and  so  forth,  are  referred  to  him.  There  is  moreover  another  ceremony 
in  which  he  personates  the  king.  It  takes  place  in  the  second  month 
(which  falls  in  the  cold  season)  and  lasts  three  days.  He  is  conducted 
in  procession  to  an  open  place  opposite  the  Temple  of  the  Brahmans, 
where  there  are  a  number  of  poles  dressed  like  May-poles,  upon  which 
the  Brahmans  swing.  All  the  while  that  they  swing  and  dance,  the 
Lord  of  the  Heavenly  Hosts  has  to  stand  on  one  foot  upon  a  seat  which 
is  made  of  bricks  plastered  over,  covered  with  a  white  cloth,  and 
hung  with  tapestry.  He  is  supported  by  a  wooden  frame  with  a  gilt 
canopy,  and  two  Brahmans  stand  one  on  each  side  of  him.  The 
dancing  Brahmans  carry  buffalo  horns  with  which  they  draw  water 
from  a  large  copper  caldron  and  sprinkle  it  on  the  spectators  ;  this  is 
supposed  to  bring  good  luck,  causing  the  people  to  dwell  in  peace  and 
quiet,  health  and  prosperity.  The  time  during  which  the  Lord  of  the 
Heavenly  Hosts  has  to  stand  on  one  foot  is  about  three  hours.  This 
is  thought  “  to  prove  the  dispositions  of  the  Devattas  and  spirits/' 
If  he  lets  his  foot  down  “  he  is  liable  to  forfeit  his  property  and  have 
his  family  enslaved  by  the  king  ;  as  it  is  believed  to  be  a  bad  omen, 
portending  destruction  to  the  state,  and  instability  to  the  throne. 
But  if  he  stand  firm  he  is  believed  to  have  gained  a  victory  over  evil 
spirits,  and  he  has  moreover  the  privilege,  ostensibly" it  leash  of  seizing 
^ny_  ship  which  may  enter  the  harbour  during  these  three  days^  and 
taking  its  contents,  ancf  also  of  entering  any  open  shop  in  the  town 
and  carrying  away  what  he  chooses.” 

Such  were  the  duties  and  privileges  of  the  Siamese  King  Hop 
down  to  about  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  or  later.  Under 
the  reign  of  the  late  enlightened  monarch  this  quaint  personage  was 
to  some  extent  both  shorn  of  the  glories  and  relieved  of  the  burden 
of  his  office.  He  still  watches,  as  of  old,  the  Brahmans  rushing  through 
the  air  in  a  swing  suspended  between  two  tall  masts,  each  some  ninety 
feet  high  ;  but  he  is  allowed  to  sit  instead  of  stand,  and,  although 
public  opinion  still  expects  him  to  keep  his  right  foot  on  his  left  knee 
during  the  whole  of  the  ceremony,  he  would  incur  no  legal  penalty 
were  he,  to  the  great  chagrin  of  the  people,  to  put  his  weary  foot  to 
the  ground.  Other  signs,  too,  tell  of  the  invasion  of  the  East  by  the 
ideas  and  civilisation  of  the  West.  The  thoroughfares  that  lead  to 
the  scene  of  the  performance  are  blocked  with  carriages  :  lamp-posts 
and  telegraph  posts,  to  which  eager  spectators  cling  like  monkeys,  rise 
above  the  dense  crowd  ;  and,  while  a  tatterdemalion  band  of  the  old 
style,  in  gaudy  garb  of  vermilion  and  yellow,  bangs  and  tootles  away 
on  drums  and  trumpets  of  an  antique  pattern,  the  procession  of  bare¬ 
footed  soldiers  in  brilliant  uniforms  steps  briskly  along  to  the  lively 
strains  of  a  modern  military  band  playing  “  Marching  through  Georgia.” 

On  the  first  day  of  the  sixth  month,  which  was  regarded  as  the 
beginning  of  the  year,  the  king  and  people  of  Samarcand  used  to  put 
on  new  clothes  and  cut  their  hair  and  beards.  Then  they  repaired  to 
a  forest  near  the  capital  where  they  shot  arrows  on  horseback  for 
seven  days.  On  the  last  day  the  target  was  a  gold  coin,  and  he  who 


TEMPORARY  KINGS 


CH. 


286 


hit  it  had  the  right  to  be  king  for  one  day.  In  Upper  Egypt  on  the 
first  day  of  the  solar  year  by  Coptic  reckoning,  that  is,  on  the  tenth  of 
September,  when  the  Nile  has  generally  reacned  its  highest  point,  the  i 
regular  government  is  suspended  for  three  days  and  every  town  chooses 
its  own  ruler.  This  temporary  lord  wears  a  sort  of  tall  fool’s  cap  and  ij 
a  long  flaxen  beard,  and  is  enveloped  in  a  strange  mantle.  With  a 
wand  of  office  in  his  hand  and  attended  by  men  disguised  as  sci  llxs, 
executioners,  and  so  forth,  he  proceeds  to  the  Governor’s  house.  The 
latter  allows  himself  to  be  deposed  ;  and  the  mock  king,  mounting 
the  throne,  holds  a  tribunal,  to  the  decisions  of  which  even  the  governor 
and  his  officials  must  bow.  After  three  days  the  mock  king  is  con¬ 
demned  to  death  ;  the  envelope  or  shell  in  which  he  was  encased  is 
committed  to  the  flames,  and  from  its  ashes  tne  Fellah  cieeps  foith. 
The  custom  perhaps  points  to  an  old  practice  of  burning  a  real  king 
in  grim  earnest.  In  Uganda  the  brothers  of  the  king  used  to  be  burned, 
because  it  was  not  lawful  to  shed  the  royal  blood. 

The  Mohammedan  students  of  Fez,  in  Morocco,  are  allowed  to 
appoint  a  sultan  of  their  own,  who  reigns  for  a  few  weeks,  and  is  known 
as  Sultan  t-tulba,  “  the  Sultan  of  the  Scribes.”  This  brief  authority  is 
put  up  for  auction  and  knocked  down  to  the  highest  bidder.  It  brings  » 
some  substantial  privileges  with  it,  for  the  holder  is  fieed  fiom  taxes  I 
thenceforward,  and  he  has  the  right  of  asking  a  favour  from  the  real 
sultan.  That  favour  is  seldom  refused  ;  it  usually  consists  in  the 
release  of  a  prisoner.  Moreover,  the  agents  of  the  student-sultan  levy 
fines  on  the  shopkeepers  and  householders,  against  whom  they  trump 
up  various  humorous  charges.  The  temporary  sultan  is  surrounded; 
with  the  pomp  of  a  real  court,  and  parades  the  streets  in  state  with 
music  and  shouting,  while  a  royal  umbiella  is  held  over  his  head. 
With  the  so-called  fines  and  free-will  offerings,  to  which  the  real  sultan 
adds  a  liberal  supply  of  provisions,  the  students  have  enough  to 
furnish  forth  a  magnificent  banquet ;  and  altogether  they  enjoy  them¬ 
selves  thoroughly,  indulging  in  all  kinds  of  games  and  amusements. 
For  the  first  seven  days  the  mock  sultan  remains  in  the  college  ;  then 
he  goes  about  a  mile  out  of  the  town  and  encamps  on  the  bank  of 
the  river,  attended  by  the  students  and  not  a  few  of  the  citizens.  On 
the  seventh  day  of  his  stay  outside  the  town  he  is  visited  by  the  real' 
sultan,  who  grants  him  his  request  and  gives  him  seven  more  days  to 
reign,  so  that  the  reign  of  “  the  Sultan  of  the  Scribes  ”  nominally  lasts 
three  weeks.  But  when  six  days  of  the  last  week  have  passed  the 
mock  sultan  runs  back  to  the  town  by  night.  This  temporary  sultan- 
ship  always  falls  in  spring,  about  the  beginning  of  April.  Its  origin 
is  said  to  have  been  as  follows.  When  Mulai  Rasheed  II.  was  fighting 
for  the  throne  in  1664  or  1665,  a  certain  Jew  usurped  the  royal  authority 
at  Taza.  But  the  rebellion  was  soon  suppressed  through  the  loyalty 
and  devotion  of  the  students.  To  effect  their  purpose  they  resorted 
to  an  ingenious  stratagem.  Forty  of  them  caused  themselves  to  be 
packed  in  chests  which  were  sent  as  a  present  to  the  usurper.  In  the 
dead  of  night,  while  the  unsuspecting  Jew  was  slumbering  peacefully 


XXV 


TEMPORARY  KINGS 


among  the  packing-cases,  the  lids  were  stealthily  raised,  the  brave 
forty  crept  forth,  slew  the  usurper,  and  took  possession  of  the  city  in 
the  name  of  the  real  sultan,  who,  to  mark  his  gratitude  for  the  help 
thus  rendered  him  in  time  of  need,  conferred  on  the  students  the  right 
of  annually  appointing  a  sultan  of  their  own.  The  narrative  has  all 
the,  air  of  a  fiction  devised  to  explain  an  old  custom,  of  which  the  real 
meaning  and  origin  had  been  forgotten. 

A  custom  of  annually  appointing  a  mock  king  for  a  single  day  was 
observed  at  Lostwithiel  in  Cornwall  down  to  the  sixteenth  century. 
On  “  little  Easter  Sunday  ”  the  freeholders  of  the  town  and  manor 
assembled  together,  either  in  person  or  by  their  deputies,  and  one  among 
them,  as  it  fell  to  his  lot  by  turn,  gaily  attired  and  gallantly  mounted, 
with  a  crown  on  his  head,  a  sceptre  in  his  hand,  and  a  sword  borne 
before  him,  rode  through  the  principal  street  to  the  church,  dutifully 
attended  by  all  the  rest  on  horseback.  The  clergyman  in  his  best 
robes  received  him  at  the  churchyard  stile  and  conducted  him  to  hear 
divine  service.  On  leaving  the  church  he  repaired,  with  the  same 
pomp,  to  a  house  provided  for  his  reception.  Here  a  feast  awaited 
him  and  his  suite,  and  being  set  at  the  head  of  the  table  he  was  served 
on  bended  knees,  with  all  the  rites  due  to  the  estate  of  a  prince.  The 
ceremony  ended  with  the  dinner,  and  every  man  returned  home. 

Sometimes  the  temporary  king  occupies  the  throne,  not  annually, 
but  once  for  all  at  the  beginning  of  each  reign.  Thus  in  the  kingdom  of 
Jambi  in  Sumatra  it  is  the  custom  that  at  the  beginning  of  a  new  reign 
a  man  of  the  people  should  occupy  the  throne  and  exercise  the  royal 
prerogatives  for  a  single  day.  The  origin  of  the  custom  is  explained  by 
a  tradition  that  there  were  once  five  royal  brothers,  the  four  elder  of 
whom  all  declined  the  throne  on  the  ground  of  various  bodily  defects, 
leaving  it  to  their  youngest  brother.  But  the  eldest  occupied  the 
throne  for  one  day,  and  reserved  for  his  descendants  a  similar  privilege 
at  the  beginning  of  every  reign.  Thus  the  office  of  temporary  king  is 
hereditary  in  a  family  akin  to  the  royal  house.  In  Bilaspur  it  seems 
to  be  the  custom,  after  the  death  of  a  Rajah,  for  a  Brahman  to  eat 
rice  out  of  the  dead  Rajah’s  hand,  and  then  to  occupy  the  throne  for 
a  year.  At  the  end  of  the  year  the  Brahman  receives  presents  and  is 
dismissed  from  the  territory,  being  forbidden  apparently  to  return. 

“  The  idea  seems  to  be  that  the  spirit  of  the  Raja  enters  into  the 
Brahman  who  eats  the  khir  (rice  and  milk)  out  of  his  hand  when  he 
is  dead,  as  the  Brahman  is  apparently  carefully  watched  during  the 
whole  year,  and  not  allowed  to  go  away.”  The  same  or  a  similar 
custom  is  believed  to  obtain  among  the  hill  states  about  Kangra. 
The  custom  of  banishing  the  Brahman  who  represents  the  king  may 
be  a  substitute  for  putting  him  to  death.  At  the  installation  of  a 
prince  of  Carinthia  a  peasant,  in  whose  family  the  office  was  hereditary, 
ascended  a  marble  stone  which  stood  surrounded  by  meadows  in  a 
spacious  valley  ;  on  his  right  stood  a  black  mother-cow,  on  his  left 

I  a  lean  ugly  mare.  A  rustic  crowd  gathered  about  him.  Then  the 
future  prince,  dressed  as  a  peasant  and  carrying  a  shepherd’s  staff, 


288 


TEMPORARY  KINGS 


CH. 


drew  near,  attended  by  courtiers  and  magistrates.  On  perceiving 
him  the  peasant  called  out,  “  Who  is  this  whom  I  see  coming  so  proudly 
along  ?  ”  The  people  answered,  “  The  prince  of  the  land.”  The 
peasant  was  then  prevailed  on  to  surrender  the  marble  seat  to  the 
prince  on  condition  of  receiving  sixty  pence,  the  cow  and  mare,  and 
exemption  from  taxes.  But  before  yielding  his  place  he  gave  the 
prince  a  light  blow  on  the  cheek. 

Some  points  about  these  temporary  kings  deserve  to  be  specially 
noticed  before  we  pass  to  the  next  branch  of  the  evidence.  In  the  first 
place,  the  Cambodian  and  Siamese  examples  show  clearly  that  it  is 
especially  the  divine  or  magical  Junctions  of  the  king  which  are  trans¬ 
ferred  to  his  temporary  substitute.  This  appears  from  the  belief  that 
by  keeping  up  his  foot  the  temporary  king  of  Siam  gained  a  victory 
over  the  evil  spirits,  whereas  by  letting  it  down  he  imperilled  the 
existence  of  the  state.  Again,  the  Cambodian  ceremony  of  trampling 
down  the  “  mountain  of  rice,”  and  the  Siamese  ceremony  of  opening 
the  ploughing  and  sowing,  are  charms  to  produce  a  plentiful  harvest, 
as  appears  from  the  belief  that  those  who  carry  home  some  of  the 
trampled  rice,  or  of  the  seed  sown,  will  thereby  secure  a  good  crop. ; 
Moreover,  when  the  Siamese  representative  of  the  king  is  guiding  the 
plough,  the  people  watch  him  anxiously,  not  to  see  whether  he  drives 
a  straight  furrow,  but  to  mark  the  exact  point  on  his  leg  to  which  the 
skirt  of  his  silken  robe  reaches  ;  for  on  that  is  supposed  to  hang  the 
state  of  the  weather  and  the  crops  during  the  ensuing  season.  If  the 
Lord  of  the  Heavenly  Hosts  hitches  up  his  garment  above  his  knee,' 
the  weather  will  be  wet  and  heavy  rains  will  spoil  the  harvest.  If  he 
lets  it  trail  to  his  ankle,  a  drought  will  be  the  consequence.  But  fine 
weather  and  heavy  crops  will  follow  if  the  hem  of  his  robe  hangs 
exactly  half-way  down  the  calf  of  his  leg.  So  closely  is  the  course  of 
nature,  and  with  it  the  weal  or  woe  of  the  people,  dependent  on  the 
minutest  act  or  gesture  of  the  king’s  representative.  But  the  task  of 
making  the  crops  grow,  thus  deputed  to  the  temporary  kings,  is  one 
of  the  magical  functions  regularly  supposed  to  be  discharged  by  kings 
in  primitive  society.  The  rule  that  the  mock  king  must  stand  on  one 
foot  upon  a  raised  seat  in  the  rice-field  was  perhaps  originally  meant 
as  a  charm  to  make  the  crop  grow  high  ;  at  least  this  was  the  object 
of  a  similar  ceremony  observed  by  the  old  Prussians.  The  tallest  girl, 
standing  on  one  foot  upon  a  seat,  with  her  lap  full  of  cakes,  a  cup  of 
brandy  in  her  right  hand  and  a  piece  of  elm-bark  or  linden-bark  in  her 
left,  prayed  to  the  god  Waizganthos  that  the  flax  might  grow  as  high 
as  she  was  standing.  Then,  after  draining  the  cup,  she  had  it  refilled, 
and  poured  the  brandy  on  the  ground  as  an  offering  to  Waizganthos, 
and  threw  down  the  cakes  for  his  attendant  sprites.  If  she  remained 
steady  on  one  foot  throughout  the  ceremony,  it  was  an  omen  that  the 
flax  crop  would  be  good  ;  but  if  she  let  her  foot  down,  it  was  feared 
that  the  crop  might  fail.  The  same  significance  perhaps  attaches  to 
the  swinging  of  the  Brahmans,  which  the  Lord  of  the  Heavenly  Hosts 
had  formerly  to  witness  standing  on  one  foot.  On  the  principles  of 


XXVI  SACRIFICE  OF  THE  KING’S  SON  289 

homoeopathic  or  imitative  magic  it  might  be  thought  that  the  higher 
the  priests  swing  the  higher  will  grow  the  rice.  For  the  ceremony  is 
described  as  a  harvest  festival,  and  swinging  is  practised  by  Setts 
Russia  with  the  avowed  intention  of  influencing  the  growth  of  the 

Hi  Wtb In  thG  Spnn^  and  f arly  summer-  between  Easter  fnd  St.  John’s 
Day  (the  summer  solstice),  every  Lettish  peasant  is  said  to  devote  his 

eisure  hours  to  swinging  diligently ;  for  the  higher  he  rises  in  the  ak 
the  higher  will  his  flax  grow  that  season. 

in  accoSanceTth!  appoinjgdannually 

ment  is  made  onjyfaimeet  a  special  urgency,  suchTto  reW  the 
eal  king  from  some  actual  or  threatened  evil  by  diverting  it  to  a 
substitute  who  takes  his  place  on  the  throne  for  a  short  Ze  The 

the  Shah  Th^ Slf  iIakk  ms!;an“s  of  such  occasional  substitutes  for 

in  the  year  Tsqt  to  -f  ^  the1Great’  being  warned  bY  his  astrologers 
,  y  59  hat  a  serious  danger  impended  over  him,  attempted 

to  avert  the  omen  by  abdicating  the  throne  and  appointing  a  certain 

unbeliever  named  Yusoofee,  probably  a  Christian,  to  reign  in  his  stead 

t-letS^KStpUte-WaSi.aCCOrdmsly  crowned»  and  for  three  days,  if  we  may 
timt  the  Persian  historians,  he  enjoyed  not  only  the  name  and  the 

mft  to  Ud  P°tnera  f  ^  k'ng’  At  the  end  of  his  brief  reign  he  was 
P  ,1  A°L  ,  eat  l  ;  t  le  decree  of  the  stars  was  fulfilled  by  this  sacrifice  • 
an  Abbas,  who  reascended  his  throne  in  a  most  propitious  hour  was 
piomised  by  his  astrologers  a  long  and  glorious  reign. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

SACRIFICE  OF  THE  KING’S  SON 

A  POINT  to  notice  about  the  temporary  kings  described  in  the  fore¬ 
going  chapter  is  that  m  two  places  (Cambodia  and  Jambi)  they  come 
rf  a  stock  which  is  believed  to  be  akin  to  the  royal  family.  If  the 
/iew  here  taken  of  the  origin  of  these  temporary  kingships  Is  correct, 
e  can  easily  understand  why  the  king’s  substitute  should  sometimes 

of  thtt  S3yfe  rfCe  the  king'  When  the  k’nS  first  succeeded  in 
,ettmg  the  life  of  another  accepted  as  a  sacrifice  instead  of  his  own 

le  would  have  to  show  that  the  death  of  that  other  would  serve  the 

ourpose  quite  as  well  as  his  own  would  have  done.  Now  it  was  as  a 

&evlg°,d  tbe  king  had  to  die  therefore  the  substitute  who 
hed  for  him  had  to  be  invested,  at  least  for  the  occasion,  with  the 

of  the  klng'  Thls-  ^  we  have  just  seen,  was  certainly 
he  case  Wlth  the  temporary  kings  of  Siam  and  Cambodia  ;  they  were 
nvested  with  the  supernatural  functions,  which  in  an  earlier  stage  of 
ociety  were  the  special  attributes  of  the  king.  But  no  one  could  so 
ell  repiesent  the  king  in  his  divine  character  as  his  son,  who  mivht 
>e  supposed  to  share  the  divine  afflatus  of  his  father.  No  one,  therefore, 


290 


SACRIFICE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON 


CII. 


could  so  appropriately  die  for  the  king  and,  through  him,  for  the  whole 

people,  as  the  king’s  son.  „  , 

We  have  seen  that  according  to  tradition,  Aun  or  On,  King  ot 

Sweden,  sacrificed  nine  of  his  sons  to  Odin  at  Upsala  in  oidei  that  his 
own  life  might  be  spared.  After  he  had  sacrificed  his  second  son  he 
received  from  the  god  an  answer  that  he  should  live  so  long  as  he  gave 
him  one  of  his  sons  every  ninth  year.  When  he  had  sacrificed  his 
seventh  son,  he  still  lived,  but  was  so  feeble  that  he  could  not  walk 
but  had  to  be  carried  in  a  chair.  Then  he  offered  up  his  eighth  son, 
and  lived  nine  years  more,  lying  in  his  bed.  After  that  he  sacrificed 
his  ninth  son,  and  lived  another  nine  years,  but  so  that  he  drank  out 
of'  a  horn  like  a  weaned  child.  He  now  wished  to  sacrifice  his  only 
remaining  son  to  Odin,  but  the  Swedes  would  not  allow  him.  So  he 

died  and  was  buried  in  a  mound  at  Upsala. 

In  ancient  Greece  there  seems  to  have  been  at  least  one.  kingly 
house  of  great  antiquity  of  which  the  eldest  sons  were  always  liable  to 
be  sacrificed  in  room  of  their  royal  sires.  When  Xerxes  was  marching 
through  Thessaly  at  the  head  of  his  mighty  host  to  attack  the  Spartans 
at  Thermopylae,  he  came  to  the  town  of  Alus.  Here  he  was  shown 
the  sanctuary  of  Taphystian  Zeus,  about  which  his  guides  told  him  a  j 
strange  tale.  It  ran  somewhat  as  follows.  Once  upon  a  time  the  king 
of  the  country,  by  name  Athamas,  married  a  wife  Nephele,  and  had 
by  her  a  son  called  Phrixus  and  a  daughter  named  Helle.  Afterwards 
he  took  to  himself  a  second  wife  called  Ino,  by  whom  he  had  two  sons, 
Learchus  and  Melicertes.  But  his  second  wife  was  jealous  of  her  step¬ 
children,  Phrixus  and  Helle,  and  plotted  their  death.  She  went  about 
very  cunningly  to  compass  her  bad  end.  First  of  all  she  persuaded 
the  women  of  the  country  to  roast  the  seed  corn  secretly  before  it  was 
committed  to  the  ground.  So  next  year  no  crops  came  up  and  the 
people  died  of  famine.  Then  the  king  sent  messengers  to  the  oracle 
at  Delphi  to  enquire  the  cause  of  the  dearth.  But  the  wicked  step¬ 
mother  bribed  the  messenger  to  give  out  as  the  answer  of  the  god  that 
the  dearth  would  never  cease  till  the  children  of  Athamas  by  his  first 
wife  had  been  sacrificed  to  Zeus.  When  Athamas  heard  that,  he  sent 
for  the  children,  who  were  with  the  sheep.  But  a  ram  with  a  fleece 
of  gold  opened  his  lips,  and  speaking  with  the  voice  of  a  man  warned 
the  children  of  their  danger.  So  they  mounted  the  ram  and  fled  with 
him  over  land  and  sea.  As  they  flew  over  the  sea,  the  girl  slipped 
from  the  animal's  back,  and  falling  into  water  was  drowned.  But 
her  brother  Phrixus  was  brought  safe  to  the  land  of  Colchis,  where 
reigned  a  child  of  the  Sun.  Phrixus  married  the  king’s  daughter,  and 
she  bore  him  a  son  Cytisorus.  And  there  he  sacrificed  the.  ram  with 
the  golden  fleece  to  Zeus  the  God  of  Flight ;  but  some  will  have  it 
that  he  sacrificed  the  animal  to  Laphystian  Zeus.  The  golden  fleece 
itself  he  gave  to  his  wife’s  father,  who  nailed  it  to  an  oak  tree,  guarded 
by  a  sleepless  dragon  in  a  sacred  grove  of  Ares.  Meanwhile  at  home 
an  oracle  had  commanded  that  King  Athamas  himself  should  be  sacri¬ 
ficed  as  an  expiatory  offering  for  the  whole  country.  So  the  people 


XXVI  SACRIFICE  OF  THE  KING’S  SON  2gi 

decked  him  with  garlands  like  a  victim  and  led  him  to  the  altar,  where 
they  weie  just  about  to  sacrifice  him  when  he  was  rescued  either  by 
his  grandson  Cytisorus,  who  arrived  in  the  nick  of  time  from  Colchis 
or  by  Hercules,  who  brought  tidings  that  the  king’s  son  Phrixus  was 
:yet  alive.  Thus  Athamas  was  saved,  but  afterwards  he  went  mad 
and  mistaking  his  son  Learchus  for  a  wild  beast  shot  him  dead.  Next 
he  attempted  the  life  of  his  remaining  son  Melicertes,  but  the  child 
was  rescued  by  his  mother  Ino,  who  ran  and  threw  herself  and  him 
from  a  high  rock  into  the  sea.  Mother  and  son  were  changed  into 
marine  divinities,  and  the  son  received  special  homage  in  the  isle  of 

Tei}ed°s’where  babes  Were  sacrificed  to  him.  Thus  bereft  of  wife 
and  children  the  unhappy  Athamas  quitted  his  country,  and  on 
enquiring  of  the  oracle  where  he  should  dwell  was  told  to  take  up  his 
abode  wherever  he  should  be  entertained  by  wild  beasts.  He  fell  in 
with  a  pack  of  wolves  devouring  sheep,  and  when  they  saw  him  they 
fled  and  left  him  the  bleeding  remnants  of  their  prey.  In  this  way 
the  oracle  was  fulfilled.  But  because  King  Athamas  had  not  been 
sacrificed  as  a  sin-offering  for  the  whole  country,  it  was  divinely  decreed 
I  ^  at  eldest  male  scion  of  his  family  in  each  generation  should  be 
sacrificed  without  fail,  if  ever  he  set  foot  in  the  town-hall,  where  the 
offerings  were  made  to  Laphystian  Zeus  by  one  of  the  house  of  Athamas. 
Many  of  the  family,  Xerxes  was  informed,  had  fled  to  foreign  lands  to 
escape  this  doom  ;  but  some  of  them  had  returned  long  afterwards, 
and  being  caught  by  the  sentinels  in  the  act  of  entering  the  town-hall 
were  wreathed  as  victims,  led  forth  in  procession,  and  sacrificed. 
T  ese  instances  appear  to  have  been  notorious,  if  not  frequent  *  for 
the  writer  of  a  dialogue  attributed  to  Plato,  after  speaking  of  the 
immolation  of  human  victims  by  the  Carthaginians,  adds  that  such 
practices  were  not  unknown  among  the  Greeks,  and  he  refers  with 
1  horror  to  the  sacrifices  offered  on  Mount  Lycaeus  and  by  the  descend¬ 
ants  of  Athamas. 

The  suspicion  that  this  barbarous  custom  by  no  means  fell  into 
;  disuse  even  in  later  days  is  strengthened  by  a  case  of  human  sacrifice 
vKich  occurred  m  Plutarch’s  time  at  Orchomenus,  a  very  ancient  city 
of  Boeotia,  distant  only  a  few  miles  across  the  plain  from  the  historian’s 
birthplace.  Here  dwelt  a  family  of  which  the  men  went  by  the  name 
of  Psoloeis  or  “  Sooty,”  and  the  women  by  the  name  of  Oleae  or 
;  "  Destructive.”  Every  year  at  the  festival  of  the  Agrionia  the  priest 
o  Dionysus  pursued  these  women  with  a  drawn  sword,  and  if  he  over¬ 
took  one  of  them  he  had  the  right  to  slay  her.  In  Plutarch’s  lifetime 
the  right  was  actually  exercised  by  a  priest  Zoilus.  The  family  thus 
lable  to  furnish  at  least  one  human  victim  every  year  was  of  roval 
escent,  for  they  traced  their  lineage  to  Minyas,  the  famous  old  king 
o  ichomenus,  the  monarch  of  fabulous  wealth,  whose  stately  treasury, 
as  it  is  called,  still  stands  in  ruins  at  the  point  where  the  long  rocky 
1 1  of  Orchomenus  melts  into  the  vast  level  expanse  of  the  Copaic 
p  am.  Tradition  ran  that  the  king’s  three  daughters  long  despised 
he  other  women  of  the  country  for  yielding  to  the  Bacchic  frenzy, 


292  SACRIFICE  OF  THE  KING'S  SON  ch. 

and  sat  at  home  in  the  king’s  house  scornfully  plying  the  distaff  and 
the  loom,  while  the  rest,  wreathed  with  flowers,  their  dishevelled  locks 
streaming  to  the  wind,  roamed  in  ecstasy  the  barren  mountains  that 
rise  above  Orchomenus,  making  the  solitude  of  the  hills  to  echo  to  the 
wild  music  of  cymbals  and  tambourines.  But  in  time  the  divine  fury 
infected  even  the  royal  damsels  in  their  quiet  chamber  ;  they  were 
seized  with  a  fierce  longing  to  partake  of  human  flesh,  and  cast  lots 
among  themselves  which  should  give  up  her  child  to  furnish  a  cannibal 
feast.  The  lot  fell  on  Leucippe,  and  she  surrendered  her  son  Hippasus, 
who  was  torn  limb  from  limb  by  the  three.  From  these  misguided 
women  sprang  the  Oleae  and  the  Psoloeis,  of  whom  the  men  were  said 
to  be  so  called  because  they  wore  sad-coloured  raiment  in  token  of  i 
their  mourning  and  grief. 

Now  this  practice  of  taking  human  victims  from  a  family  of  royal 
descent  at  Orchomenus  is  all  the  more  significant  because  Athamas  1 
himself  is  said  to  have  reigned  in  the  land  of  Orchomenus  even  before  :| 
the  time  of  Minyas,  and  because  over  against  the  city  there  rises  Mount  j 
Laphystius,  on  which,  as  at  Alus  in  Thessaly,  there  was  a  sanctuary 
of  Laphystian  Zeus,  where,  according  to  tradition,  Athamas  purposed 
to  sacrifice  his  two  children  Phrixus  and  Helle.  On  the  whole,  com¬ 
paring  the  traditions  about  Athamas  with  the  custom  that  obtained 
with  regard  to  his  descendants  in  historical  times,  we  may  fairly  infer 
that  in  Thessaly  and  probably  in  Boeotia  there  reigned  of  old  a  dynasty 
of  which  the  kings  were  liable  to  be  sacrificed  for  the  good  of  the 
country  to  the  god  called  Laphystian  Zeus,  but  that  they  contrived  ' 
to  shift  the  fatal  responsibility  to  their  offspring,  of  whom  the  eldest 
son  was  regularly  destined  to  the  altar.  As  time  went  on,  the  cruel  , 
custom  was  so  far  mitigated  that  a  ram  was  accepted  as  a  vicarious  i 
sacrifice  in  room  of  the  royal  victim,  provided  always  that  the  prince 
abstained  from  setting  foot  in  the  town-hall  where  the  sacrifices  were 
offered  to  Laphystian  Zeus  by  one  of  his  kinsmen.  But  if  he  were 
rash  enough  to  enter  the  place  of  doom,  to  thrust  himself  wilfully,  as 
it  were,  on  the  notice  of  the  god  who  had  good-naturedly  winked  at  the 
substitution  of  a  ram,  the  ancient  obligation  which  had  been  suffered 
to  lie  in  abeyance  recovered  all  its  force,  and  there  was  no  help  for  it 
but  he  must  die.  The  tradition  which  associated  the  sacrifice  of  the 
king  or  his  children  with  a  great  dearth  points  clearly  to  the  belief,  so 
common  among  primitive  folk,  that  the  king  is  responsible  for  the 
weather  and  the  crops,  and  that  he  may  justly  pay  with  his  life  for  the 
inclemency  of  the  one  or  the  failure  of  the  other.  Athamas  and  his 
line,  in  short,  appear  to  have  united  divine  or  magical  with  royal 
functions  ;  and  this  view  is  strongly  supported  by  the  claims  to- 
divinity  which  Salmoneus,  the  brother  of  Athamas,  is  said  to  have  set 
up.  We  have  seen  that  this  presumptuous  mortal  professed  to  be  no 
other  than  Zeus  himself,  and  to  wield  the  thunder  and  lightning,  of 
which  he  made  a  trumpery  imitation  by  the  help  of  tinkling  kettles 
and  blazing  torches.  If  we  may  judge  from  analogy,  his  mock  thunder 
and  lightning  were  no  mere  scenic  exhibition  designed  to  deceive  and 


XXVII 


SUCCESSION  TO  THE  SOUL  293 

impress  the  beholders  ;  they  were  enchantments  practised  by  the 
royal  magician  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  about  the  celestial  pheno¬ 
mena  which  they  feebly  mimicked. 

Among  the  Semites  of  Western  Asia  the  king,  in  a  time  of  national 
danger,  sometimes  gave  his  own  son  to  die  as  a  sacrifice  for  the  people. 
Thus  Philo  of  Byblus,  in  his  work  on  the  Jews,  says  :  “  It  was  an 
ancient  custom  in  a  crisis  of  great  danger  that  the  ruler  of  a  city  or 
nation  should  give  his  beloved  son  to  die  for  the  whole  people,  as 
a  ransom  offered  to  the  avenging  demons ;  and  the  children  thus 
offered  were  slain  with  mystic  rites.  So  Cronus,  whom  the  Phoenicians 
call  Israel,  being  king  of  the  land  and  having  an  only-begotten  son 
called  Jeoud  (for  in  the  Phoenician  tongue  Jeoud  signifies  *  only- 
begotten  ’),  dressed  him  in  royal  robes  and  sacrificed  him  upon  an 
altar  in  a  time  of  war,  when  the  country  was  in  great  danger  from  the 
enemy.”  When  the  king  of  Moab  was  besieged  by  the  Israelites  and 
hard  beset,  he  took  his  eldest  son,  who  should  have  reigned  in  his 
stead,  and  offered  him  for  a  burnt  offering  on  the  wall. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

SUCCESSION  TO  THE  SOUL 

To  the  view  that  in  early  times,  and  among  barbarous  races,  kings 
have  frequently  been  put  to  death  at  the  end  of  a  short  reign,  it  may 
be  objected  that  such  a  custom  would  tend  to  the  extinction  of  the 
royal  family.  ^  The  objection  may  be  met  by  observing,  first,  that 
the  kingship  is  often  not  confined  to  one  family,  but  may  be  shared 

I  in  turn  by  several ;  second,  that  the  office  is  frequently  not  hereditary, 

II  but  is  open  to  men  of  any  family,  even  to  foreigners,  who  may  fulfil 
the  requisite  conditions,  such  as  marrying  a  princess  or  vanquishing 
the  king  in  battle  ;  and,  third,  that  even  if  the  custom  did  tend  to 
the  extinction  of  a  dynasty,  that  is  not  a  consideration  which  would 
prevent  its  observance  among  people  less  provident  of  the  future 
and  less  heedful  of  human  life  than  ourselves.  Many  races,  like  many 
individuals,  have  indulged  in  practices  which  must  in  the  end  destroy 
them.  The  Polynesians  seem  regularly  to  have  killed  two-thirds  of  their 
children.  In  some  parts  of  East  Africa  the  proportion  of  infants 
massacred  at  birth  is  said  to  be  the  same.  Only  children  born  in 
certain  presentations  are  allowed  to  live.  The  Jagas,  a  conquering 
tribe  in  Angola,  are  reported  to  have  put  to  death  all  their  children, 
without  exception,  in  order  that  the  women  might  not  be  cumbered 
with  babies  on  the  march.  They  recruited  their  numbers  by  adopting 
boys  and  girls  of  thirteen  or  fourteen  years  of  age,  whose  parents  they 
had  killed  and  eaten.  Among  the  Mbaya  Indians  of  South  America  the 
women  used  to  murder  all  their  children  except  the  last,  or  the  one  they 
believed  to  be  the  last.  If  one  of  them  had  another  child  afterwards. 


SUCCESSION  TO  THE  SOUL 


294 


CH, 


she  killed  it.  We  need  not  wonder  that  this  practice  entirely  destroyed 
a  branch  of  the  Mbaya  nation,  who  had  been  for  many  years  the  most 
formidable  enemies  of  the  Spaniards.  Among  the  Lengua  Indians  of 
the  Gran  Chaco,  the  missionaries  discovered  what  they  describe  as  “  a 
carefully  planned  system  of  racial  suicide,  by  the  practice  of  infanticide 
by  abortion,  and  other  methods.”  Nor  is  infanticide  the  only  mode 
in  which  a  savage  tribe  commits  suicide.  A  lavish  use  of  the  poison 
ordeal  may  be  equally  effective.  Some  time  ago  a  small  tribe  named 
Uwet  came  down  from  the  hill  country,  and  settled  on  the  left 
branch  of  the  Calabar  river  in  West  Africa.  When  the  missionaries 
first  visited  the  place,  they  found  the  population  considerable,  distri¬ 
buted  into  three  villages.  Since  then  the  constant  use  of  the  poison 
ordeal  has  almost  extinguished  the  tribe.  On  one  occasion  the  whole 
population  took  poison  to  prove  their  innocence.  About  half  perished 
on  the  spot,  and  the  remnant,  we  are  told,  still  continuing  their  super¬ 
stitious  practice,  must  soon  become  extinct.  With  such  examples 
before  us  we  need  not  hesitate  to  believe  that  many  tribes  have 
felt  no  scruple  or  delicacy  in  observing  a  custom  which  tends  to  wipe 
out  a  single  family.  To  attribute  such  scruples  to  them  is  to  commit 
the  common,  the  perpetually  repeated  mistake  of  judging  the  savage 
by  the  standard  of  European  civilisation.  If  any  of  my  readers  set 
out  with  the  notion  that  all  races  of  men  think  and  act  much  in 
the  same  way  as  educated  Englishmen,  the  evidence  of  superstitious 
belief  and  custom  collected  in  this  work  should  suffice  to  disabuse 
him  of  so  erroneous  a  prepossession. 

The  explanation  here  given  of  the  custom  of  killing  divine  persons 
assumes,  or  at.  ] easTTs" readiTvTbm bined  witTiTTl'ieTcIea ~ that  the^oul  oT 
jETslain  divinity  is~ transmitted  to  his  successor.  Of  this  transmission  j: 
I  haveno  direct  proof  except  in  the  case  of  the  Shilluk,  among  whom 
the  practice  of  killing  the  divine  king  prevails  in  a  typical  form,  and 
with  whom  it  is  a  fundamental  article  of  faith  that  the  soul  of  the  divine 
founder  of  the  dynasty  is  immanent  in  every  one  of  his  slain  successors. 
But- if  this  is  the  only  actual  example  of  such  a  belief  which  I  can 
adduce,  analogy  seems  to  render  it  probable  that  a  similar  succession 
to  the  soul  of  the  slain  god  has  been  supposed  to  take  place  in  other 
instances,  though  direct  evidence  of  it  is  wanting.  For_.it  has  been 
already  shown  that  the  soul  of  the  incarnate  deity  is  often  suppogeTt 
to  transmigrate  at  death  into  anotfier  incarnation  Uand^if  this  takes 
place~when~Ttre~ death  is  a  na'fural  one,  there  seems  no  reason  why  it 
should  not  take  place  when  the  death  has  been  brought  about  by 
violence.  Certainly  the  idea  that  the  soul  of  a  dying  person  may  be 
transmitted  to  his  successor  is  perfectly  familiar  to  primitive  peoples. 
In  Nias  the  eldest  son  usually  succeeds  his  father  in  the  chieftainship. 
But  if  from  any  bodily  or  mental  defect  the  eldest  son  is  disqualified 
for  ruling,  the  father  determines  in  his  lifetime  which  of  his  sons  shall 
succeed  him.  In  order,  however,  to  establish  his  right  of  succession, 
it  is  necessary  that  the  son  upon  whom  his  father’s  choice  falls  shall 
catch  in  his  mouth  or  in  a  bag  the  last  breath,  and  with  it  the  soul, 


XXVII 


SUCCESSION  TO  THE  SOUL  295 

of  the  dying  chief.  For  whoever  catches  his  last  breath  is  chief  equally 
with  the  appointed  successor.  Hence  the  other  brothers,  and  sometimes 
also  •  strangers,  crowd  round  the  dying  man  to  catch  his  soul  as  it 
passes.  The  houses  in  Nias  are  raised  above  the  ground  on  posts, 
and  it  has  happened  that  when  the  dying  man  lay  with  his  face  on 
the  floor,  one  of  the  candidates  has  bored  a  hole  in  the  floor  and  sucked 
in  the  chief’s  last  breath  through  a  bamboo  tube.  When  the  chief 
has  no  son,  his  soul  is  caught  in  a  bag,  which  is  fastened  to  an  image 
made  to  represent  the  deceased  ;  the  soul  is  then  believed  to  pass 
into  the  image. 

Sometimes  it  would  appear  that  the  spiritual  link  between  a  king 
and  the  souls  of  his  predecessors  is  formed  by  the  possession  of  some 
part  of  their  persons.  In  Southern  Celebes  the  regalia  often  consist 
of  corporeal  portions  of  deceased  rajahs,  which  are  treasured  as  sacred 
relics  and  confer  the  right  to  the  throne.  Similarly  among  the  Saka- 
lavas  of  Southern  Madagascar  a  vertebra  of  the  neck,  a  nail,  and  a 
lock_ofJiair  of  a  deceased  king  are  placed  in  a  crocodile’s  tooth  and 
carefully  kept  along  with  the  similar  relics  of  his  predecessors  in  a 
house  set  apart  for  the  purpose.  Ihe  possession  of  these  relics  con¬ 
stitutes  the  right  to  the  throne.  A  .legitimate  heir  who  should  be 
deprived  of  them  would  lose  all  his  authority  over  the  people,  and  on 
the  contrary  a  usurper  who  should  make  himself  master  of  the  relics 
would  be  acknowledged  king  without  dispute.  When  the  Alake  or 
king  of  Abeokuta  in  West  Africa  dies,  the  principal  men  decapitate 
his  body,  and  placing  the  head  in  a  large  earthen  vessel  deliver  it  to 
the  new  sovereign  ;  it  becomes  his  fetish  and  he  is  bound  to  pay  it 
honours.  Sometimes,  in  order  apparently  that  the  new  sovereign 
niayLinherit  more  surely  the  magical  and  other  virtues  of  the  royal ' 
line,  he  is  required  to  eat  a  piece  of  his  dead  predecessor.  Thus  at 
Abeokuta  not  only  was  the  head  of  the  late  king  presented  to  his 
successor,  but  the  tongue  was  cut  out  and  given  him  to  eat.  Hence, 
when  the  natives  wish  to  signify  that  the  sovereign  reigns,  they  say, 

“  He  has  eaten  the  king.”  A  custom  of  the  same  sort  is  still  practised 
at  Ibadan,  a  large  town  in  the  interior  of  Lagos,  West  Africa.  When 
th&Jdng  dies  his  head  is  cut  off  and  sent  to  his  nominal  suzerain,  the 
Alafin  of  Oyo,  the  paramount  king  of  Yoruba  land ;  but  his  heart  is 
eaten  by  his  successor.  This  ceremony  was  performed  not  very 
many  years  ago  at  the  accession  of  a  new  king  of  Ibadan. 

4  Taking  the  whole  of  the  preceding  evidence  into  account,  we  may 
fairly  suppose  that  when  the  divine  king  or  priest  is  put  to  death  his 
spirit  is  believed  to  pass  into  his  successor.  In  point  of  fact,  among 
the  Shilluk  of  the  White  Nile,  who  regularly  kill  their  divine  kings, 
every  king  on  his  accession  has  to  perform  a  ceremony  which  appears 
designed  to  convey  to  him  the  same  sacred  and  worshipful  spirit  which 
animated  all  his  predecessors,  one  after  the  other,  on  the  throne. 


296 


THE  KILLING  OF  THE  TREE-SPIRIT 


CII. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

THE  KILLING  OF  THE  TREE-SPIRIT 

§  1.  The  Whitsuntide  Mummers . — It  remains  to  ask  what  light  the 
custom  of  killing  the  divine  king  or  priest  sheds  upon  the  special 
subject  of  our  enquiry.  In  an  earlier  part  of  this  work  we  saw  reason 
to  suppose  that  the  King  of  the  Wood  at  Nemi__was  regarded  as  an 
incarnation  of  a  tree-spirit  or  of  the  spirit  of  vegetation,  and  that  as 
such  he  would  be  endowed,  in  the  belief  of  his  worshippers,  with  a 
magical  power  of  making  the  trees  to  bear  fruit,  the  crops  to  grow, 
and  so  on.  His  life  must  therefore  have  been  held  very  precious  by 
his  worshippers,  and  was  probably  hedged  in  by  a  system  of  elaborate 
precautions  or  taboos  like  those  by  which,  in  so  many  places,  the  life 
of  the  man-god  has  been  guarded  against  the  malignant  influence  of 
demons  and  sorcerers.  But  we  have  seen  that  the  very  value  attached 
to  the  life  of  the  man-god  necessitates  his  violent  death  as  the  only 
means  of  preserving  it  from  the  inevitable  decay  of  age.  The  same 
reasoning  would  apply  to  the  King  of  the  Wood  ;  he,  too,  had  to  be 
killed  in  order  that  the  divine  spirit,  incarnate  in  him,  might  be  trans¬ 
ferred  in  its  integrity  to  his  successor.  The  rule  that  he  held  office 
till  a  stronger  should  slay  him  might  be  supposed  to  secure  both  the 
preservation  of  his  divine  life  in  full  vigour  and  its  transference  to  a 
suitable  successor  as  soon  as  that  vigour  began  to  be  impaired.  For 
so  long  as  he  could  maintain  his  position  by  the  strong  hand,  it  might 
be  inferred  that  his  natural  force  was  not  abated  ;  whereas  his  defeat 
and  death  at  the  hands  of  another  proved  that  his  strength  was  begin¬ 
ning  to  fail  and  that  it  was  time  his  divine  life  should  be  lodged  in 
a  less  dilapidated  tabernacle.  This  explanation  of  the  rule  that  the 
King  of  the  Wood  had  to  be  slain  by  his  successor  at  least  renders 
that  rule  perfectly  intelligible.  It  is  strongly  supported  by  the  theory 
and  practice  of  the  Shilluk,  who  put  their  divine  king  to  death  at  the 
first  signs  of  failing  health,  lest  his  decrepitude  should  entail  a  corre¬ 
sponding  failure  of  vital  energy  on  the  corn,  the  cattle,  and  men. 
Moreover,  it  is  countenanced  by  the  analogy  of  the  Chitome,  upon 
whose  life  the  existence  of  the  world  was  supposed  to  hang,  and  who 
was  therefore  slain  by  his  successor  as  soon  as  he  showed  signs  of 
breaking  up.  Again,  the  terms  on  which  in  later  times  the  King  of 
Calicut  held  office  are  identical  with  those  attached  to  the  office  of 
King  of  the  Wood,  except  that  whereas  the  former  might  be  assailed 
by  a  candidate  at  any  time,  the  King  of  Calicut  might  only  be  attacked 
once  every  twelve  years.  But  as  the  leave  granted  to  the  King  of 
Calicut  to  reign  so  long  as  he  could  defend  himself  against  all  comers 
was  a  mitigation  of  the  old  rule  which  set  a  fixed  term  to  his  life,  so 
we  may  conjecture  that  the  similar  permission  granted  to  the  King  of 
the  Wood  was  a  mitigation  of  an  older  custom  of  putting  him  to  death 
at  the  end  of  a  definite  period.  In  both  cases  the  new  rule  gave  to  the 


XXVIII 


THE  WHITSUNTIDE  MUMMERS 


297 

god-man  at  least  a  chance  for  his  life,  which  under  the  old  rule  was 
enied  him  ;  and  people  probably  reconciled  themselves  to  the  change 
by  reflecting  that  so  long  as  the  god-man  could  maintain  himself  by 

t  e  sword  against  all  assaults,  there  was  no  reason  to  apprehend  that 
the  fatal  decay  had  set  in. 

The  conjecture  that  the  King  of  the  Wood  was  formerly  put  to 

for  hkai  f  m  PKlry  0f/  fix®diterm-  with°ut  being  allowed  a  chance 
o7™rio^AlT  V be  confirmed  if  evidence  can  be  adduced  of  a  custom 

P,  L.  y.  Pnf,hls  counterparts,  the  human  representatives  of 

L  s  T^!  •  ?  ^  °,r!hern  EuroPe-  Now  in  point  of  fact  such  a  custom 
has  left  unmistakable  traces  of  itself  m  the  rural  festivals  of  the 
peasantry.  To  take  examples. 

At  Niederporing  in  Lower  Bavaria,  the  Whitsuntide  representative 
of  the  tree-spmt— the  Pfingstl  as  he  was  called-was  clad  from  top  to 
toe  m  leaves  and  flowers.  On  his  head  he  wore  a  high  pointed  lap, 
the  ends  of  which  rested  on  his  shoulders,  only  two  holes  being  left 
m  it  tor  his  eyes.  The  cap  was  covered  with  water-flowers  and  sur¬ 
mounted  with  a  nosegay  of  peonies.  The  sleeves  of  his  coat  were 
a  so  made  of  water-plants,  and  the  rest  of  his  body  was  enveloped  in 
alder  and  hazel  leaves.  On  each  side  of  him  marched  a  boy  holding 
up  one  of  the  Pfingstl’ s  arms.  These  two  boys  carried  drawn  swords 
and  so  did  most  of  the  others  who  formed,  the  procession.  They 
stopped  at  every  house  where  they  hoped  to  receive  a  present ;  and 
the  people,  in  hiding,  soused  the  leaf-clad  boy  with  water.  All  reioiced 
when  he  was  well  drenched.  Finally  he  waded  into  the  brook  up  to 
his  middle  ;  whereupon  one  of  the  boys,  standing  on  the  bridge  pre¬ 
tended  to  cut  off  his  head.  At  Wurmlingen,  in  Swabia,  a  slore  of 
joung  fellows  dress  themselves  on  Whit-Monday  in  white  shirts  and 
white  trousers,  with  red  scarves  round  their  waists  and  swords  hanging 
rom  the  scarves.  They  ride  on  horseback  into  the  wood,  led  by  two 
trumpeters  blowing  their  trumpets.  In  the  wood  they  cut  down 
leafy  oak  branches,  m  which  they  envelop  from  head  to  foot  him  who 
was  the  last  of  their  number  to  ride  out  of  the  village.  His  legs 
however,  are  encased  separately,  so  that  he  may  be  able  to  mount 
his  horse  again  Further,  they  give  him  a  long  artificial  neck,  with 
an  artificial  head  and  a  false  face  on  the  top  of  it.  Then  a  May-tree 

a  C,Utj  gen?raI1y  an  asPen  or  beech  about  ten  feet  high  ;  and  being 
decked  with  coloured  handkerchiefs  and  ribbons  it  is  entrusted  to  a 
special  May-bearer.  ”  The  cavalcade  then  returns  with  music  and  song 
to  the  village.  Amongst  the  personages  who  figure  in  the  procession 
are  a  Moorish  king  with  a  sooty  face  and  a  crown  on  his  head,  a  Dr 
iron-Beard,  a  corporal,  and  an  executioner.  They  halt  on  the  village 
green,  and  each  of  the  characters  makes  a  speech  in  rhyme  The 
executioner  announces  that  the  leaf-clad  man  has  been  condemned  to 
ea  •  and  cuts  off  his  false  head.  Then  the  riders  race  to  the  May- 
ree,  which  has  been  set  up  a  little  way  off.  The  first  man  who  succeeds 
wrenching  it  from  the  ground  as  he  gallops  past  keeps  it  with  all  its 
decorations.  The  ceremony  is  observed  every  second  or  third  year. 


CH. 


298  THE  KILLING  OF  THE  TREE-SPIRIT 

In  Saxony  and  Thiiringen  there  is  a  Whitsuntide  ceremony  called 
“  chasing  the  Wild  Man  out  of  the  bush,”  or  "  fetching  the  Wild  Man 
out  of  the  wood.”  A  young  fellow  is  enveloped  in  leaves  or  moss  and 
called  the  Wild  Man.  He  hides  in  the  wood  and  the  other  lads  of  the 
village  go  out  to  seek  him.  They  find  him,  lead  him  captive  out  of 
the  wood,  and  fire  at  him  with  blank  muskets.  He  falls  like  dead  to 
the  ground,  but  a  lad  dressed  as  a  doctor  bleeds  him,  and  he  comes 
to  life  again.  At  this  they  rejoice,  and,  binding  him  fast  on  a  waggon, 
take  him  to  the  village,  where  they  tell  all  the  people  how  they  have 
caught  the  Wild  Man.  At  every  house  they  receive  a  gift.  In  the 
Erzgebirge  the  following  custom  was  annually  observed  at  Shrovetide 
about  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Two  men  disguised 
as  Wild  Men,  the  one  in  brushwood  and  moss,  the  other  in  straw, 
were  led  about  the  streets,  and  at  last  taken  to  the  market-place,  where 
they  were  chased  up  and  down,  shot  and  stabbed.  Before  falling  they 
reeled  about  with  strange  gestures  and  spirted  blood  on  the  people 
from  bladders  which  they  carried.  When  they  were  down,  the  hunts¬ 
men  placed  them  on  boards  and  carried  them  to  the  ale-house,  the 
miners  marching  beside  them  and  winding  blasts  on  their  mining 
tools  as  if  they  had  taken  a  noble  head  of  game.  A  very  similar  Shrove¬ 
tide  custom  is  still  observed  near  Schluckenau  in  Bohemia.  A  man 
dressed  up  as  a  Wild  Man  is  chased  through  several  streets  till  he 
comes  to  a  narrow  lane  across  which  a  cord  is  stretched.  He  stumbles  . 
over  the  cord  and,  falling  to  the  ground,  is  overtaken  and  caught  by 
his  pursuers.  The  executioner  runs  up  and  stabs  with  his  sword  a 
bladder  filled  with  blood  which  the  Wild  Man  wears  round  his  body ; 
so  the  Wild  Man  dies,  while  a  stream  of  blood  reddens  the  ground. 
Next  day  a  straw-man,  made  up  to  look  like  the  Wild  Man,  is  placed 
on  a  litter,  and,  accompanied  by  a  great  crowd,  is  taken  to.  a  pool 
into  which  it  is  thrown  by  the  executioner.  The  ceremony  is  called  ■ 

“  burying  the  Carnival.”  . 

In  Semic  (Bohemia)  the  custom  of  beheading  the  King  is  observed 
on  Whit-Monday.  A  troop  of  young  people  disguise  themselves; 
each  is  girt  with  a  girdle  of  bark  and  carries  a  wooden  sword  and  a 
trumpet  of  willow-bark.  The  King  wears  a  robe  of  tree-bark  adorned 
with  flowers,  on  his  head  is  a  crown  of  bark  decked  with  flowers  and 
branches,  his  feet  are  wound  about  with  ferns,  a  mask  hides  his  face, 
and  for  a  sceptre  he  has  a  hawthorn  switch  in  his  hand.  A  lad  leads 
him  through  the  village  by  a  rope  fastened  to  his  foot,  while  the  rest 
dance  about,  blow  their  trumpets,  and  whistle.  In  every  farmhouse 
the  King  is  chased  round  the  room,  and  one  of  the  troop,  amid  much 
noise  and  outcry,  strikes  with  his  sword  a  blow  on  the  King’s  robe  of 
bark  till  it  rings  again.  Then  a  gratuity  is  demanded.  The  ceremony 
of  decapitation,  which  is  here  somewhat  slurred  over,  is  carried  out 
with  a  greater  semblance  of  reality  in  other  parts  of  Bohemia.  Thus 
in  some  villages  of  the  Koniggratz  district  on  Whit-Monday  the  girls 
assemble  under  one  lime-tree  and  the  young  men  under  another,  all 
dressed  in  their  best  and  tricked  out  with  ribbons.  The  young  men 


XXVIII 


THE  WHITSUNTIDE  MUMMERS 


299 

I!!110  f,  garJand  f°r  tbe  Queen,  and  the  girls  another  for  the  King. 

t^oeLrle7  ha?  C30SeI!  t!le  King  and  Qlleen  they  ab  go  in  procession 
•  two  and  two,  to  the  ale-house,  from  the  balcony  of  which  the  crier 

2  -  name?  °!  the  King  and  Gueen-  Both  are  then  invested 

the  insignia  of  their  office  and  are  crowned  with  the  garlands, 

whiffi  the  music  plays  up.  Then  some  one  gets  on  a  bench  and  accuses 
the  King  of  various  offences,  such  as  ill-treating  the  cattle.  The  King 
appeals  to  witnesses  and  a  trial  ensues,  at  the  close  of  which  the  judge^ 
who  carries  a  white  wand  as  his  badge  of  office,  pronounces  a  verdict 
of  Guilty  or  Not  guilty/'  If  the  verdict  is  “  Guilty/’  the  judge 
breaks  his  wand,  the  King  kneels  on  a  white  cloth,  all  heads  are  bared 
and  a  soldier  sets  three  or  four  hats,  one  above  the  other,  on  his 
Majesty  s  head.  The  judge  then  pronounces  the  word  “Guilty” 
thrice  m  a  loud  voice,  and  orders  the  crier  to  behead  the  King.  The 
crier  obeys  by  striking  off  the  Kings  hats  with  his  wooden  sword. 

ut  perhaps  for  our  purpose,  the  most  instructive  of  these  mimic 
executions  is  the  following  Bohemian  one.  In  some  places  of  the 
Pilsen  district  (Bohemia)  on  Whit-Monday  the  King  is  dressed  in 
bark,  ornamented  with  flowers  and  ribbons  ;  he  wears  a  crown  of  gilt 
paper  and  rides  a  horse,  which  is  also  decked  with  flowers.  Attended 
by  a  judge,  an  executioner,  and  other  characters,  and  followed  by  a 
tram  of  soldiers  all  mounted,  he  rides  to  the  village  square,  where  a 
nut  or  arbour  of  green  boughs  has  been  erected  under  the  May-trees 
which  are  firs,  freshly  cut,  peeled  to  the  top,  and  dressed  with  flowers 
1  and.  ribb°ns.  After  the  dames  and  maidens  of  the  village  have  been 
,  criticised  and  a  frog  beheaded,  the  cavalcade  rides  to  a  place  previously 
etermmed  upon,  in  a  straight,  broad  street.  Here  they  draw  up  in 
wo  mes  anc  the  King  takes  to  flight.  He  is  given  a  short  start  and 

+  1  ??  ^  ful1  sPeed’  Pursued  by  the  whole  troop.  If  they  fail  to 
catch  him  he  remains  King  for  another  year,  and  his  companions  must 
pay  his  score  at  the  ale-house  in  the  evening.  But  if  they  overtake 
and  catch  him  he  is  scourged  with  hazel  rods  or  beaten  with  the 
wooden  swords  and  compelled  to  dismount.  Then  the  executioner 
asks,.  Shall  I  behead  this  King  ?  ”  The  answer  is  given,  “  Behead 
m  the  executioner  brandishes  his  axe,  and  with  the  words 
One,  two,  three,  let  the  King  headless  be  !  ”  he  strikes  off  the  King’s 
crown  Amid  the  loud  cries  of  the  bystanders  the  King  sinks  to  the 
ground ,  then  he  is  laid  on  a  bier  and  carried  to  the  nearest  farmhouse 
.  ln  .™st  of  tbe  Personages  who  are  thus  slain  in  mimicry  it  is 
impossible,  not  to  recognise  representatives  of  the  tree-spirit  or  spirit 
ot  vegetation,  as  he  is  supposed  to  manifest  himself  in  spring.  The 
bark,  leaves,  and  flowers  in  which  the  actors  are  dressed,  and  the 
season  of  the  year  at  which  they  appear,  show  that  they  belong  to 
the  same  class  as  the  Grass  King,  King  of  the  May,  Jack-in-the-Green, 
and  other  representatives  of  the  vernal  spirit  of  vegetation  which 
we  examined  m  an  earlier  part  of  this  work.  As  if  to  remove  any 
possible  doubt  on  this  head,  we  find  that  in  two  cases  these  slain 
men  are  brought  into  direct  connexion  with  May-trees,  which  are  the 


CH. 


300 


THE  KILLING 


OF  THE  TREE-SPIRIT 


impersonal,  as  the  May  King,  Grass  King,  and  so  forth,  are  the  personal 
representatives  of  the  tree-spirit.  The  drenching  of  the  Pfingstl  with 
water  and  his  wading  up  to  the  middle  into  the  brook  are,  therefore, 
no  doubt  rain-charms  like  those  which  have  been  already  described. 

But  if  these  personages  represent,  as  they  certainly  do,  the  spirit 
‘of  vegetation  in  spring,  the  question  arises,  Why  kill  them  ?  What  is 
the  object  -of  slaying  the  spirit  of  veg^MlVm  ariY  fl'1Tlfi  ariTHTbove 
all  hTspring.  when  fife  services  are  most  wanted  ?  The  only  probable 
answer  tothis  question  seems  to  be  given  in  the  explanation  already 
proposed  of  the  custom  of  killing  the  divine  king  or  priest.  The  divine 
life,  incarnate  in  a  material  and  mortal  body,  is  liable  to  be  tainted 
and  corrupted  by  the  weakness  of  the  frail  medium  in  which  it  is  for  a 
time  enshrined  ;  and  if  it  is  to  be  saved  from  the  increasing  enfeeble- 
ment  which  it  must  necessarily  share  with  its  human  incarnation  as  \ 
he  advances  in  years,  it  must  be  detached  from  him  before,  or  at  least 
as  soon  as,  he  exhibits  signs  of  decay,  in  order  to  be  transferred  to  a 
vigorous  successor.  This  is  done  by  killing  the  old  representative  of 
the  god  and  conveying  the  divine  spirit  from  him  to  a  new  incarnation. 
The  killing  of  the  god,  that  is.  of  his  human  incarnation,  is  therefore 

merely  a  necessary  ^tep  to  his  revival  or  resurrection  in  a  better  form. 

Bar  from  being  an  extinction  of  the  divine  spirit,  it  is  only  the  beginning 
of  a  purer  and  stronger  manifestation  of  it.  If  this  explanation  holds 
good  of  the  custom  of  killing  divine  kings  and  priests  in  general,  it  is 
still  more  obviously  applicable  to  the  custom  of  annually  killing  the 
representative  of  the  tree-spirit  or  spirit  of  vegetation  in  spring.  For 
tUa  rlAP^y  nf  plant  lifp  in  winter  is  readily  interpreted_by  primitive 
rn  n  rTr  q"  ,n  rTTii  f  Pf-bl  em  en  t  otthe  spiritual  vegetation  T  the  spirit  has, 
he  ttoksTgrown  old  and  weak  and  must  therMonThp  T^TuF/ated  by 
being’^Tam  and  brought  to  life  in  a  younger  and  fresher  form.  Thus 
the  Tolling  of  the  representative  of  the  tree-spirit  m  spnngTs  regarded 
as  a  means  to  promote  and  quicken  the  growth  of  vegetation.  For 
the  killing  of  the  tree-spirit  is  associated  always  (we  must  suppose) 
implicitly,  and  sometimes  explicitly  also,  with  a  revival  or  resurrection 
of  him  in  a  more  youthful  and  vigorous  form.  So  in  the  Saxon  and 
Thiiringen  custom,  after  the  Wild  Man  has  been  shot  he  is  brought  to 
life  again  by  a  doctor  ;  and  in  the  Wurmlingen  ceremony  there  figures 
a  Dr.  Iron-Beard,  who  probably  once  played  a  similar  part ;  certainly 
in  another  spring  ceremony,  which  will  be  described  presently,  Dr. 
Iron-Beard  pretends  to  restore  a  dead  man  to  life.  But  of  this  revival 
or  resurrection  of  the  god  we  shall  have  more  to  say  anon. 

The  points  of  similarity  between  these  North  European  personages 
and  the  subject  of  our  enquiry — the  King  of  the  Wood  or  priest  of 
Nemi — are  sufficiently  striking.  In  these  northern  maskers  we  see 
kings,  whose  dress  of  bark  and  leaves  along  with  the  hut  of  green 
boughs  and  the  fir-trees,  under  which  they  hold  their  court,  proclaim 
them  unmistakably  as,  like  their  Italian  counterpart,  Kings  of  the 
Wood.  Like  him  they  die  a  violent  death,  but  like  him  they  may 
escape  from  it  for  a  time  by  their  bodily  strength  and  agility  ;  for  in 


XXVIII 


BURYING  THE  CARNIVAL 


301 


several  of  these  northern  customs  the  flight  and  pursuit  of  the  king  is 
a  prominent  part  of  the  ceremony,  and  in  one  case  at  least  if  the  king 
can  outrun  his  pursuers  he  retains  his  life  and  his  office  for  another 
year.  In  this  last  case  the  king  in  fact  holds  office  on  condition  of 
running  for  his  hfe  once  a  year,  just  as  the  King  of  Calicut  in  later 
times  held  office  on  condition  of  defending  his  life  against  all  comers 
once  every  twelve  years,  and  just  as  the  priest  of  Nemi  held  office  on 
condition  of  defending  himself  against  any  assault  at  any  time.  In 
every  one  of  these  instances  the  life  of  the  god-man  is  prolonged  on 
condition  of  his  showing,  in  a  severe  physical  contest  of  fight  or  flight 
that  his  bodily  strength  is  not  decayed,  and  that,  therefore,  the  violent 
death,  which  sooner  or  later  is  inevitable,  may  for  the  present  be 
postponed.  With  regard  to  flight  it  is  noticeable  that  flight  figured 
conspicuously  both  m  the  legend  and  in  the  practice  of  the  King  of  the 
Wood.  He  had  to  be  a  runaway  slave  in  memory  of  the  flight  of 
Orestes,  the  traditional  founder  of  the  worship  ;  hence  the  'Kings  of 
the  Wood  are  described  by  an  ancient  writer  as  “  both  strong  of  hand 
and  fleet  of  foot/’  Perhaps  if  we  knew  the  ritual  of  the  Arician  grove 
fully  we  might  find  that  the  king  was  allowed  a  chance  for  his  life  by 
ght,  like  his  Bohemian  brother.  I  have  already  conjectured  that 
the  annual  flight  of  the  priestly  king  at  Rome  {regifugium)  was  at 
first  a  fhght  of  the  same  kind  ;  in  other  words,  that  he  was  originally 
one  of  those  divine  kings  who  are  either  put  to  death  after  a  fixed 
period  or  allowed  to  prove  by  the  strong  hand  or  the  fleet  foot  that 
their  divinity  is  vigorous  and  unimpaired.  One  more  point  of  re¬ 
semblance  may  be  noted  between  the  Italian  King  of  the  Wood  and 
his  northern  counterparts.  In  Saxony  and  Thuringen  the  repre¬ 
sentative  of  the  tree-spirit,  after  being  killed,  is  brought  to  life  again 
^  ,^do„ctor,T_.Thls  ls  exactly  What  legend  affirmed  to  have  happened 
to  the  first  King  of  the  Wood  at  Nemi,  Hippolytus  or  Virbius,  who 
alter  he  had  been  killed  by  his  horses  was  restored  to  life  by  the 
physician  Aesculapius.  Such  a  legend  tallies  well  with  the  theory 
that  the  slaying  of  the  King  of  the  Wood  was  only  a  step  to  his  revival 
or  resurrection  in  his  successor. 


*  A2'  Burying  the  Carnival. — Thus  far  I  have  offered  an  explanation 
of  the  rule  which  required  that  the  priest  of  Nemi  should  be  slain  by 
fiis  successor,  the  explanation  claims  to  be  no  more  than  probable  • 
our  scanty  knowledge  of  the  custom  and  of  its  history  forbids  it  to 
be  more.  But  its  probability  will  be  augmented  in  proportion  to  the 
extent  to  which  the  motives  and  modes  of  thought  which  it  assumes 
can  be  proved  to  have  operated  in  primitive  society.  Hitherto  the 
god  with  whose  death  and  resurrection  we  have  been  chiefly  concerned 
fias  been  the  tree-god.  But  if  I  can  show  that  the  custom  of  killing 
tfie  god  and  the  belief  in  his  resurrection  originated,  or  at  least  existed 
m  the  hunting  and  pastoral  stage  of  society,  when  the  slain  god  was 
an  animal,  and  that  it  survived  into  the  agricultural  stage,  when  the 
s  am  god  was  the  corn  or  a  human  being  representing  the  corn  the 
probability  of  my  explanation  will  have  been  considerably  increased. 


302  THE  KILLING  OF  THE  TREE-SPIRIT  ch. 

This  I  shall  attempt  to  do  in  the  sequel,  and  in  the  course  of  the  dis¬ 
cussion  I  hope  to  clear  up  some  obscurities  which  still  remain,  and  to 
answer  some  objections  which  may  have  suggested  themselves  to  the 

reader 

We  start  from  the  point  at  which  we  left  off— the  spring  customs 
of  European  peasantry.  Besides  the  ceremonies  already  described 
there  are  two  kindred  sets  of  observances  in  which  the  simulated 
death  of  a  divine  or  supernatural  being  is  a  conspicuous  feature.  In 
one  ^tb«M-.thfi-.be.iiig  whose  deaths, ..dramatically  represented  is  a 
■p^rcnnifiratioTi—Df  the  Carnival  :  in  the  other  if  is  Ueatk  himself. 
The  former  ceremony  falls  naturally  “at  the  end  of  the  Carnival,  either 
on  the  last  day  of  that  merry  season,  namely  Shrove  Tuesday,  or  on 
the  first  day  of  Lent,  namely  Ash  Wednesday.  The  date  of  the  other 
ceremony — the  Carrying  or  Driving  out  of  Death,  as  it  is  commonly 
called — is  not  so  uniformly  fixed.  Generally  it  is  the  fourth  Sunday 
in  Lent,  which  hence  goes  by  the  name  of  Dead  Sunday  ;  but  in 
some  places  the  celebration  falls  a  week  earlier,  in  others,  as  among 
the  Czechs  of  Bohemia,  a  week  later,  while  in  certain  German  villages 
of  Moravia  it  is  held  on  the  first  Sunday  after  Easter.  Perhaps,  as 
has  been  suggested,  the  date  may  originally  have  been  variable,  de¬ 
pending  on  the  appearance  of  the  first  swallow  or  some  other  herald 
of  the  spring.  Some  writers  regard  the  ceremony  as  Slavonic  in  its 
origin.  Grimm  thought  it  was  a  festival  of  the  New  Year  with  the 
old  Slavs,  who  began  their  year  in  March.  We  shall  first  take  examples 
of  the  mimic  death  of  the  Carnival,  which  always  falls  before  the  other 
in  the  calendar. 

At  Frosinone,  in  Latium,  about  half-way  between  Rome  and 
Naples,  the  dull  monotony  of  life  in  a  provincial  Italian  town  is  agree¬ 
ably  broken  on  the  last  day  of  the  Carnival  by  the  ancient  festival 
known  as  the  Radica.  About  four  o’clock  in  the  afternoon  the  town 
band,  playing  lively  tunes  and  followed  by  a  great  crowd,  proceeds  to 
the  Piazza  del  Plebiscito,  where  is  the  Sub-Prefecture  as  well  as  the 
rest  of  the  Government  buildings.  Here,  in  the  middle  of  the  square, 
the  eyes  of  the  expectant  multitude  are  greeted  by  the  sight  of  an 
immense  car  decked  with  many-coloured  festoons  and  drawn  by  four 
horses.  Mounted  on  the  car  is  a  huge  chair,  on  which  sits  enthroned 
the  majestic  figure  of  the  Carnival,  a  man  of  stucco  about  nine  feet 
high  with  a  rubicund  and  smiling  countenance.  Enormous  boots,  a 
tin  helmet  like  those  which  grace  the  heads  of  officers  of  the  Italian 
marine,  and  a  coat  of  many  colours  embellished  with  strange  devices, 
adorn  the  outward  man  of  this  stately  personage.  His  left  hand 
rests  on  the  arm  of  the  chair,  while  with  his  right  he  gracefully  salutes 
the  crowd,  being  moved  to  this  act  of  civility  by  a  string  which  is 
pulled  by  a  man  who  modestly  shrinks  from  publicity  under  the 
mercy-seat.  And  now  the  crowd,  surging  excitedly  round  the  car, 
gives  vent  to  its  feelings  in  wild  cries  of  joy,  gentle  and  simple  being 
mixed  up  together  and  all  dancing  furiously  the  S altar ello.  A  special 
feature  of  the  festival  is  that  every  one  must  carry  in  his  hand  what 


XXVIII  BURYING  THE  CARNIVAL  303 

is  called  a  uxdica  (  loot  ),  by  which  is  meant  a  huge  leaf  of  the  aloe 
or  rather  the  agave.  Any  one  who  ventured  into  the  crowd  without 
such  a  leaf  would  be  unceremoniously  hustled  out  of  it,  unless  indeed 
he  bore  as  a  substitute  a  large  cabbage  at  the  end  of  a  long  stick  or  a 
bunch  of  grass  curiously  plaited.  When  the  multitude,  after  a  short 
turn,  has  escoited  the  slow-moving  car  to  the  gate  of  the  Sub-Prefecture, 
they  halt,  and  the  car,  jolting  over  the  uneven  ground,  rumbles  into 
the  courtyard.  A  hush  now  falls  on  the  crowd,  their  subdued  voices 
sounding,  according  to  the  description  of  one  who  has  heard  them, 
like  the  murmur  of  a  troubled  sea.  All  eyes  are  turned  anxiously  to 
the  door  from  which  the  Sub-Prefect  himself  and  the  other  repre¬ 
sentatives  of  the  majesty  of  the  law  are  expected  to  issue  and  pay 
their  homage  to  the  hero  of  the  hour.  A  few  moments  of  suspense 
and  then  a  storm  of  cheers  and  hand-clapping  salutes  the  appearance 
of  the  dignitaries,  as  they  file  out  and,  descending  the  staircase, 
take  their  place  in  the  procession.  The  hymn  of  the  Carnival  is  now 
thundered  out,  after  which,  amid  a  deafening  roar,  aloe  leaves  and 
cabbages  are  whirled  aloft  and  descend  impartially  on  the  heads  of 
the  just  and  the  unjust,  who  lend  fresh  zest  to  the  proceedings  by 
engaging  in  a  free  fight.  When  these  preliminaries  have  been  con¬ 
cluded  to  the  satisfaction  of  all  concerned,  the  procession  gets  under 
weigh.  The  rear  is  brought  up  by  a  cart  laden  with  barrels  of  wine 
and  policemen,  the  latter  engaged  in  the  congenial  task  of  serving 
out  wine  to  all  who  ask  for  it,  while  a  most  internecine  struggle,  accom¬ 
panied  by  a  copious  discharge  of  yells,  blows,  and  blasphemy,  goes 
on  among  the  surging  crowd  at  the  cart’s  tail  in  their  anxiety  not 
to  miss  the  glorious  opportunity  of  intoxicating  themselves  at  the 
public  expense.  Finally,  after  the  procession  has  paraded  the  principal”  ( 
streets  in  this  majestic  manner,  the  effigy  of  Carnival  is  taken  to  the 
middle  of  a  public  square,  stripped  of  his  finery,  laid  on  a  pile  of  wood, 
and  burnt  amid  the  cries  of  the  multitude,  who  thundering  out  once 
more  the  song  of  the  Carnival  fling  their  so-called  “  roots  ”  on  the 
pyre  and  give  themselves  up  without  restraint  to  the  pleasures  of  * 
the  dance. 

In  the  Abruzzi  a  pasteboard  figure  of  the  Carnival  is  carried  by 
four  grave-diggers  with  pipes  in  their  mouths  and  bottles  of  wine 
slung  at  their  shoulder-belts.  In  front  walks  the  wife  of  the  Carnival, 
dressed  in  mourning  and  dissolved  in  tears.  From  time  to  time  the 
company  halts,  and  while  the  wife  addresses  the  sympathising  public, 
the  grave-diggers  refresh  the  inner  man  with  a  pull  at  the  bottle.  In 
the  open  square  the  mimic  corpse  is  laid  on  a  pyre,  and  to  the  roll  of 
drums,  the  shrill  screams  of  the  women,  and  the  gruffer  cries  of  the 
men  a  light  is  set  to  it.  While  the  figure  burns,  chestnuts  are  thrown 
about  among  the  crowd.  Sometimes  the  Carnival  is  represented  by 
a  straw-man  at  the  top  of  a  pole  which  is  borne  through  the  town  by 
a  troop  of  mummers  in  the  course  of  the  afternoon.  When  evening 
comes  on,  four  of  the  mummers  hold  out  a  quilt  or  sheet  by  the 
corners,  and  the  figure  of  the  Carnival  is  made  to  tumble  into  it.  The 


304  THE  KILLING  OF  THE  TREE-SPIRIT  ch. 

procession  is  then  resumed,  the  performers  weeping  crocodile  tears  and 
emphasising  the  poignancy  of  their  grief  by  the  help  of  saucepans  and 
dinner  bells.  Sometimes,  again,  in  the  Abruzzi  the  dead  Carnival 
is  personified  by  a  living  man  who  lies  in  a  coffin,  attended  by  another 
who  acts  the  priest  and  dispenses  holy  water  in  great  profusion  from 
a  bathing  tub. 

At  Lerida,  in  Catalonia,  the  funeral  of  the  Carnival  was  witnessed 
by  an  English  traveller  in  1877.  On  the  last  Sunday  of  the  Carnival  i 
a  grand  procession  of  infantry,  cavalry,  and  maskers  of  many  sorts,  I 
some  on  horseback  and  some  in  carriages,  escorted  the  grand  car  of  i 
His  Grace  Pau  Pi,  as  the  effigy  was  called,  in  triumph  through  the  j 
principal  streets.  For  three  days  the  revelry  ran  high,  and  then  at  :] 
midnight  on  the  last  day  of  the  Carnival  the  same  procession  again  I 
wound  through  the  streets,  but  under  a  different  aspect  and  for  a 
different  end.  The  triumphal  car  was  exchanged  for  a  hearse,  in  which  1 
reposed  the  effigy  of  his  dead  Grace  :  a  troop  of  maskers,  who  in  the  I 
first  procession  had  played  the  part  of  Students  of  Folly  with  many 
a  merry  quip  and  jest,  now,  robed  as  priests  and  bishops,  paced  slowly  ! 
along  holding  aloft  huge  lighted  tapers  and  singing  a  dirge.  All  the  i 
mummers  wore  crape,  and  all  the  horsemen  carried  blazing  flambeaux.  1 
Down  the  high  street,  between  the  lofty,  many-storeyed  and  balconied 
houses,  where  every  window,  every  balcony,  every  housetop  was 
crammed  with  a  dense  mass  of  spectators,  all  dressed  and  masked  in 
fantastic  gorgeousness,  the  procession  took  its  melancholy  way.  Over 
the  scene  flashed  and  played  the  shifting  cross-lights  and  shadows 
from  the  moving  torches  :  red  and  blue  Bengal  lights  flared  up  and 
died  out  again  ;  and  above  the  trampling  of  the  horses  and  the 
measured  tread  of  the  marching  multitude  rose  the  voices  of  the  priests  : 
chanting  the  requiem,  while  the  military  bands  struck  in  with  the 
solemn  roll  of  the  muffled  drums.  On  reaching  the  principal  square  1 
the  procession  halted,  a  burlesque  funeral  oration  was  pronounced 
over  the  defunct  Pau  Pi,  and  the  lights  were  extinguished.  Im¬ 
mediately  the  devil  and  his  angels  darted  from  the  crowd,  seized  the 
body  and  fled  away  with  it,  hotly  pursued  by  the  whole  multitude, 
yelling,  screaming,  and  cheering.  Naturally  the  fiends  were  over¬ 
taken  and  dispersed  ;  and  the  sham  corpse,  rescued  from  their  clutches, 
was  laid  in  a  grave  that  had  been  made  ready  for  its  reception.  Thus 
the  Carnival  of  1877  at  Lerida  died  and  was  buried.  \l 

A  ceremony  of  the  same  sort  is  observed  in  Provence  on  Ash 
Wednesday.  An  effigy  called  Caramantran,  whimsically  attired,  is 
drawn  in  a  chariot  or  borne  on  a  litter,  accompanied  by  the  populace 
in  grotesque  costumes,  who  carry  gourds  full  of  wine  and  drain  them 
with  all  the  marks,  real  or  affected,  of  intoxication.  At  the  head  of  j 
the  procession  are  some  men  disguised  as  judges  and  barristers,  and 
a  tall  gaunt  personage  who  masquerades  as  Lent ;  behind  them  follow 
young  people  mounted  on  miserable  hacks  and  attired  as  mourners 
who  pretend  to  bewail  the  fate  that  is  in  store  for  Caramantran.  In 
the  principal  square  the  procession  halts,  the  tribunal  is  constituted, 


XXVIII 


BURYING  THE  CARNIVAL 


305 


todeatrr^ra^laCed  at  thf  b,ar‘  After  a  f0rmal  trial  he  is  fenced 

k  d,  he  groans  0f  the  mob:  the  barrister  who  defended 

their' dent  ^  -the  IaSt  time  :  the  officers  of  justice  do 
duty-  the  condemned  is  set  with  his  back  to  a  wall  and  hurried 

into  eternity  under  a  shower  of  stones.  The  sea  or  a  river  receives 

it  Sw“sananddstilTamS'  throughout  nearly  the  whole  of  the  Ardennes 
ITT  d  U  customary  °n  Ash  Wednesday  to  burn  an  effi-y 
which  is  supposed  to  represent  the  Carnival,  while  appropriate  versus 
are  sung  round  about  the  blazing  figure.  Very  often  an  ^tteJS  t 

to  bVkttfaitM^K"  thefIikTSS  0f  the  hUSband  Wh0  is  rePuted 

perhaps  Si^  .£££ 

portrmture  under  these  painful  circumstances  has  a  sl?ght  tendency 

of  thehous0emoefSthVfS’  f 1 p6ClaUy  7hen  the  P°rtrait  is  burnt  in  fron* 
rh^nfcTrf  *  f  the,gay  deceiver  whom  it  represents,  while  a  powerful 

' lestimon v'^t^t^'n  S ’  groans-  and  other  melodious  sounds  beam  public 
testimony  to  the  opinion  which  his  friends  and  neighbours  entertain 

i  fliSinVaHteK,VlraUa-  In,S°me  villages  of  the  Ardennes  a  young  man 
J  cf  and  blo,od’  dlress®d  up  m  hay  and  straw,  used  to  act  thf  part 

f  ®  T}1^d-ayiSf‘,r*  G/aS>’  as  the  Personification  of  the  Carnival 

often  called  m  France  after  the  last  day  of  the  period  which  he 

ersonates  He  was  brought  before  a  mock  tribunal  and  being  com 
lemned  to  death  was  placed  with  his  back  to  a  wall,  like  a  soldier  at 
f  uudary  execution,  and  fired  at  with  blank  cartridges.  At  Vrigne- 

T'vuf.  i°k6  °f  th®sebarmIess  buffoons,  named  Thierry,  was  accidfnt- 
1  y  killed  by  a  wad  that  had  been  left  in  a  musket  of  the  firing-party 

'Vhen  poor  Shrove  Tuesday  dropped  under  the  fire  the  aDDlaufe 
vas  loud  and  long,  he  did  it  so  naturally ;  but  when’  he  did  not  get 

P  agaln'  they  ran  to  hlm  aud  found  him  a  corpse.  Since  then  there 
jave  been  no  more  of  these  mock  executions  in  the  Ardennes 

In  Normandy  on  the  evening  of  Ash  Wednesday  it  used  to  be  the 
ustom  to  hold  a  celebration  called  the  Burial  of  Shrove  Tuesday. 

'  s<iualid  effigy  scantily  clothed  in  rags,  a  battered  old  hat  crushed 

J!"  °n+  blSdlrtJ. face’  hls  great  round  Paunch  stuffed  with  straw 
presented  the  disreputable  old  rake  who,  after  a  long  course  of 

jssipation,  was  now  about  to  suffer  for  his  sins.  Hoisted  on  the 
jioulders  of  a  sturdy  fellow,  who  pretended  to  stagger  under  the 

of c™  “ 

.  streets  for  the  last  time  in  a  manner  the  reverse  of  triumphal 
receded  by  a  drummer  and  accompanied  by  a  jeering  rabble  amon- 

gmat  ?omCe  Th  ^  ^  ^  and  bobtail  ^town  mustere! 
great  force,  the  figure  was  carried  about  by  the  flickering  light  of 

ches  to  the  discordant  din  of  shovels  and  tongs  pots  and  nans 

mingledwitb  bootings,  groans,  aid  hisses.  From 

,  A  i  ‘I16  Procession  baited,  and  a  champion  of  morality 

i  tted  and®  f  °kemi°T  °ld  Sinner  °f  a11  the  excesses  be  had  con^ 
tted  and  for  which  he  was  now  about  to  be  burned  alive.  The 

Ipnt,  having  nothing  to  urge  in  his  own  defence,  was  thrown  on  a 


CH. 


306  THE  KILLING  OF  THE  TREE-SPIRIT 

heap  of  straw,  a  torch  was  put  to  it,  and  a  great  blaze  shot  up,  to  the  I 
delight  of  the  children  who  frisked  round  it  screaming  out  some  old 
popular  verses  about  the  death  of  the  Carnival.  Sometimes  the 
effigy  was  rolled  down  the  slope  of  a  hill  before  being  burnt.  At 
Saint-Lo  the  ragged  effigy  of  Shrove  Tuesday  was  followed  by  his 
widow,  a  big  burlv  lout  dressed  as  a  woman  with  a  crape  veil,  who 
emitted  sounds  of  lamentation  and  woe  in  a  stentorian  voice.  After 
being  carried  about  the  streets  on  a  litter  attended  by  a  crowd  of 
maskers,  the  figure  was  thrown  into  the  River  Vire.  The  final  scene  has 
been  graphically  described  by  Madame  Octave  Feuillet  as  she  witnessed 
it  in  her  childhood  some  sixty  years  ago.  My  parents  invited  friends 
to  see,  from  the  top  of  the  tower  of  Jeanne  Couillard,  the  funeral  | 
procession  passing.  It  was  there  that,  quaffing  lemonade  the  only  I 
refreshment  allowed  because  of  the  fast— we  witnessed  at  nightfall 
a  spectacle  of  which  I  shall  always  preserve  a  lively  recollection.  At 
our  feet  flowed  the  Vire  under  its  old  stone  bridge.  On  the  middle  I 
of  the  bridge  lay  the  figure  of  Shrove  Tuesday  on  a  litter  of  leaves, 
surrounded  by  scores  of  maskers  dancing,  singing,  and  carrying  torches. 
Some  of  them  in  their  motley  costumes  ran  along  the  parapet  like 
fiends.  The  rest,  worn  out  with  their  revels,  sat  on  the  posts  and 
dozed.  Soon  the  dancing  stopped,  and  some  of  the  troop,  seizing  a 
torch,  set  fire  to  the  effigy,  after  which  they  flung  it  into  the  river 
with  redoubled  shouts  and  clamour.  The  man  of  straw,  soaked, 
with  resin,  floated  away  burning  down  the  stream  of  the  Vire,  lighting  j 
up  with  its  funeral  fires  the  woods  on  the  bank  and  the  battlements  j 
of  the  old  castle  in  wrhich  Louis  XI.  and  Francis  I.  had  slept.  When  ; 
the  last  glimmer  of  the  blazing  phantom  had  vanished,  like  a  falling  j 
star,  at  the  end  of  the  valley,  every  one  withdrew,  crowd  and  maskers 
alike,  and  we  quitted  the  ramparts  with  our  guests.” 

In  the  neighbourhood  of  Tubingen  on  Shrove,  Tuesday  a  straw- 
man,  called  the  Shrovetide  Bear,  is  made  up  ;  he  is  dressed  in  a  pair 
of  old  trousers,  and  a  fresh  black-pnulding  or  two  squirts  filled  with 
blood  are  inserted  in  his  neck.  After  a  formal  condemnation  he  isJ 
beheaded,  laid  in  a  coffin,  and  on  Ash  Wednesday  is  buried  in  the 
churchyard.  This  is _called  “  Burying  the  Carnival.”  Amongst  some 
of  the  Saxons  of  Transylvania  the  CarnivaTli^hanged.  Thus  at 
Braller  on  Ash  Wednesday  or  Shrove  Tuesday  two  white  and  two 
chestnut  horses  draw  a  sledge  on  which  is  placed  a  straw-man  swathed 
in  a  white  cloth  ;  beside  him  is  a  cart-wheel  which  is  kept  turning  round. 
Two  lads  disguised  as  old  men  follow  the  sledge  lamenting.  The 
rest  of  the  village  lads,  mounted  on  horseback  and  decked  with  ribbons, 
accompany  the  procession,  which  is  headed  by  two  girls  crowned 
with  evergreen  and  drawn  in  a  waggon  or  sledge.  A  trial  is  held  undei 
a  tree,  at  which  lads  disguised  as  soldiers  pronounce  sentence  of  death 
The  two  old  men  try  to  rescue  the  straw-man  and  to  fly  with  him 
but  to  no  purpose  ;  he  is  caught  by  the  two  girls  and  handed  over  tel 
the  executioner,  who  hangs  him  on  a  tree.  In  vain  the  old  men  try. 
to  climb  up  the  tree  and  take  him  down  ;  they  always  tumble  down 


XXVIII 


CARRYING  OUT  DEATH 


307 


and  at  last  in  despair  they  throw  themselves  on  the  ground  and  weep 
and  howl  for  the  hanged  man.  An  official  then  makes  a  speech  in 
wnch  he  declares  that  the  Carnival  was  condemned  to  death  because 
he  had  done  them  harm,  by  wearing  out  their  shoes  and  making  them 
tired  and  sleepy.  At  the  "  Burial  of  Carnival  ”  in  Lechrain,  a  man 
dressed  as  a  woman  m  black  clothes  is  carried  on  a  litter  or  bier  bv 
four  men  ;  he  is  lamented  over  by  men  disguised  as  women  in  black 
clothes,  then  thrown  down  before  the  village  dung-heap,  drenched 
with  water,  buried  m  the  dung-heap,  and  covered  with  straw.  On 
the  evening  of  Shrove  Tuesday  the  Esthonians  make  a  straw  figure 
I  caded  inetstk  or  wood-spirit  ”  ;  one  year  it  is  dressed  with  a  man’s 
coat  and  hat,  next  year  with  a  hood  and  a  petticoat.  This  figure  is 
stuck  on  a  long  pole,  carried  across  the  boundary  of  the  village  with 
loud  cries  of  joy,  and  fastened  to  the  top  of  a  tree  in  the  wood  The 
ceremony  1S  believed  to_bea  protection  againstallJands  of  misfortune 
sometimes  at  these  Shrovetide  or  Lenten  ceremonies  the  resur- 
rection  of  the  pretended  dead  person  is  enacted.  Thus,  in  some  parts 
of  Swabia  on  Shrove  Tuesday  Dr.  Iron-Beard  professes  to  bleed  a 
sick  man,  who  thereupon  falls  as  dead  to  the  ground ;  but  the  doctor 
at  last  restores  him  to  life  by  blowing  air  into  him  through  a  tube. 
In  the  Harz  Mountains,  when  Carnival  is  over,  a  man  is  laid  on  a  baking- 
trough  and  carried  with  dirges  to  a  grave  ;  but  in  the  grave  a  glass 
of  biandy  is  buried  instead  of  the  man.  A  speech  is  delivered  and 
then  the  people  return  to  the  village-green  or  meeting-place,  where 
•they  smoke  the  long  clay  pipes  which  are  distributed  at  funerals 
On  the  morning  of  Shrove  Tuesday  in  the  following  year  the  brandy 
is  dug  up  and  the  festival  begins  by  every  one  tasting  the  spirit  which 
as  the  phrase  goes,  has  come  to  life  again. 

§  3.  Carrying  out  Death. — -The  ceremony  of  “  Carrying  out  Death  ” 
presents  much  the  same  features  as  “  Burying  the  Carnival  ”  *  except ' 
that  the  carrying  out  of  Death  is  generally  followed  by  a  ceremony  • 
or  at  least  accompanied  by  a  profession,  of  bringing  in  Summer’ 
opring,  or  Life.  Thus  in  Middle  Franken,  a  province  of  Bavaria,  on 
the  fourth  Sunday  in  Lent,  the  village  urchins  used  to  make  a  straw 
effigy  of  Death,  which  they  carried  about  with  burlesque  pomp  through 
he  streets,,  and  afterwards  burned  with  loud  cries  beyond  the  bounds. 

1  e  Frankish  custom  is  thus  described  by  a  writer  of  the  sixteenth 
century  :  “At  Mid-Lent,  the  season  when  the  church  bids  us  rejoice, 
e  y°ung  people  of  my  native  country  make  a  straw  image  of  Death* 
and  fastening  it  to  a  pole  carry  it  with  shouts  to  the  neighbouring 
villages  By  some  they  are  kindly  received,  and  after  being  refreshed 
W1  4-  ™  k*  Pea^>  and  dried  pears,  the  usual  food  of  that  season,  are 
.sent. home  again.  Others,  however,  treat  them  with  anything  but 
pospitahty  ;  for,  looking  on  them  as  harbingers  of  misfortune,  to  wit 
deat,ffi  t]iey  drive  them  from  their  boundaries  with  weapons  and 
nsults.  In  the  villages  near  Erlangen,  when  the  fourth  Sunday 
n  Lent  came  round,  the  peasant  girls  used  to  dress  themselves  in  all 
-heir  finery  with  flowers  in  their  hair.  Thus  attired  they  repaired 


308  THE  KILLING  OF  THE  TREE-SPIRIT  ch. 

to  the  neighbouring  town,  carrying  puppets  which  were  adorned  with 
leaves  and  covered  with  white  cloths.  These  they  took  from  house 
to  house  in  pairs,  stopping  at  every  door  where  they  expected  to  receive 
something,  and  singing  a  few  lines  in  which  they  announced  that  it 
was  Mid-Lent  and  that  they  were  about  to  throw  Death  into  the 
water.  When  they  had  collected  some  trifling  gratuities  they  went 
to  the  River  Regnitz  and  flung  the  puppets  representing  Death  into 
the  stream.  This  was  done  to  ensure  a  fruitful  and  prosperous  year ; 
further,  it  was  considered  a  safeguard  against  pestilence  and  sudden 
death.  At  Nuremberg  girls  of  seven  to  eighteen  years  of  age  go 
through  the  streets  bearing  a  little  open  coffin,  in  which  is  a  doll  hidden 
under  a  shroud.  Others  carry  a  beech  branch,  with  an  apple  fastened 
to  it  for  a  head,  in  an  open  box.  They  sing,  “  We  carry  Death  into 
the  water,  it  is  well,,,  or  “  We  carry  Death  into  the  water,  carry  him 
in  and  out  again.”  In  some  parts  of  Bavaria  down  to  1780  it  was 
believed  that  a  fatal  epidemic  would  ensue  if  the  custom  of  “  Carrying 
out  Death  ”  were  not  observed. 

In  some  villages  of  Thuringen,  on  the  fourth  Sunday  of  Lent,  the 
children  used  to  carry  a  puppet  of  birchen  twigs  through  the  village, 
and  then  threw  it  into  a  pool,  while  they  sang,  “  We  carry  the  old 
Death  out  behind  the  herdsman’s  old  house  ;  we  have  got  Summer, 
and  Kroden’s  (?)  power  is  destroyed.”  At  Debschwitz  or  Dobschwitz, 
near  Gera,  the  ceremony  of  “  Driving  out  Death  ”  is  or  was  annually 
observed  on  the  first  of  March.  The  young  people  make  up  a 
figure  of  straw  or  the  like  materials,  dress  it  in  old  clothes,  which  they 
have  begged  from  houses  in  the  village,  and  carry  it  out  and  throw  it 
into  the  river.  On  returning  to  the  village  they  break  the  good  news 
to  the  people,  and  receive  eggs  and  other  victuals  as  a  reward.  The 
ceremony  is  or  was  supposed  to  purify  the  village  and  to  protect  the 
inhabitants  from  sickness  and  plague.  In  other  villages  of  Thuringen, 
in  which  the  population  was  originally  Slavonic,  the  carrying  out  of 
the  puppet  is  accompanied  with  the  singing  of  a  song,  which  begins, 
“-Now  we  carry  Death  out  of  the  village  and  Spring  into  the  village/' 
At  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  and  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century 
the  custom  was  observed  in  Thuringen  as  follows.  The  boys  and 
girls  made  an  effigy  of  straw  or  the  like  materials,  but  the  shape  of 
the  figure  varied  from  year  to  year.  In  one  year  it  would  represent 
an  old  man,  in  the  next  an  old  woman,  in  the  third  a  young  man,  and 
in  the  fourth  a  maiden,  and  the  dress  of  the  figure  varied  with  the 
character  it  personated.  There  used  to  be  a  sharp  contest  as  to  where 
the  effigy  was  to  be  made,  for  the  people  thought  that  the  house  from 
which  it  was  carried  forth  would  not  be  visited  with  death  that  year. 
Having  been  made,  the  puppet  was  fastened  to  a  pole  and  carried  by 
a  girl  if  it  represented  an  old  man,  but  by  a  boy  if  it  represented  an 
old  woman.  Thus  it  was  borne  in  procession,  the  young  people  holding 
sticks  in  their  hands  and  singing  that  they  were  driving  out  Death. 
When  they  came  to  water  they  threw  the  effigy  into  it  and  ran  hastily 
back,  fearing  that  it  might  jump  on  their  shoulders  and  wring  their 


XXVIII  CARRYING  OUT  DEATH  309 

necks.  They  also  took  care  not  to  touch  it,  lest  it  should  dry  them 
up.  On  their  return  they  beat  the  cattle  with  the  sticks,  believing 
that  this  would  make  the  animals  fat  or  fruitful.  Afterwards  they 
visited  the  house  or  houses  from  which  they  had  carried  the  image  of 
Death,  where  they  received  a  dole  of  half-boiled  peas.  The  custom 
of  Carrying  out  Death  ”  was  practised  also  in  Saxony.  At  Leipsic 
the  bastards  and  public  women  used  to  make  a  straw  effigy  of  Death 
every  year  at  Mid-Lent.  This  they  carried  through  all  the  streets 
with  songs  and  showed  it  to  the  young  married  women.  Finally 
they  threw  it  into  the  River  Parthe.  By  this  ceremony  they  professed 
to  make  the  young  wives  fruitful,  to  purify  the  city,  and  to  protect 
the  inhabitants  for  that  year  from  plague  and  other  epidemics. 

Ceremonies  of  the  same  sort  are  observed  at  Mid-Lent  in  Silesia. 
Thus  in  many  places  the  grown  girls  with  the  help  of  the  young  men 
dress  up  a  straw  figure  with  women’s  clothes  and  carry  it  out  of  the 
village  towards  the  setting  sun.  At  the  boundary  they  strip  it  of  its 
clothes,  tear  it  in  pieces,  and  scatter  the  fragments  about  the  fields. 
This  is  called  “  Burying  Death.”  As  they  carry  the  image  out,  they 
sing  that  they  are  about  to  bury  Death  under  an  oak,  that  he  may  depart 
from  the  people.  Sometimes  the  song  runs  that  they  are  bearing 
Death  over  hill  and  dale  to  return  no  more.  In  the  Polish  neighbour¬ 
hood  of  Gross-Strehlitz  the  puppet  is  called  Goik.  It  is  carried  on 
horseback  and  thrown  into  the  nearest  water.  The  people  think 
that  the  ceremony  protects  them  from  sickness  of  every  sort  in  the 
coming  year.  In  the  districts  of  Wohlau  and  Guhrau  the  image  of 
Death  used  to  be  thrown  over  the  boundary  of  the  next  village.  But 
as  the  neighbours  feared  to  receive  the  ill-omened  figure,  they  were 
on  the  look-out  to  repel  it,  and  hard  knocks  were  often  exchanged 
between  the  two  parties.  In  some  Polish  parts  of  Upper  Silesia  the 
effigy,  representing  an  old  woman,  goes  by  the  name  of  Marzana,  the 
goddess  of  death.  It  is  made  in  the  house  where  the  last  death  occurred, 
and  is  carried  on  a  pole  to  the  boundary  of  the  village,  where  it  is 
thrown  into  a  pond  or  burnt.  At  Polkwitz  the  custom  of  “  Carrying 
out  Death  ”  fell  into  abeyance  ;  but  an  outbreak  of  fatal  sickness 
which  followed  the  intermission  of  the  ceremony  induced  the  people 
to  resume  it. 

In  Bohemia  the  children  go  out  with  a  straw-man,  representing 
Death,  to  the  end  of  the  village,  where  they  bum  it,  singing — 

“  Now  carry  we  Death  out  of  the  village,  Welcome,  dear  Summer, 

The  new  Summer  into  the  village,  Green  little  corn.” 

At  Tabor  in  Bohemia  the  figure  of  Death  is  carried  out  of  the  town 
and  flung  from  a  high  rock  into  the  water,  while  they  sing— 

“  Death  swims  on  the  water, 

Summer  will  soon  he  here, 

We  carried  Death  away  for  you, 

We  brought  the  Summer. 


And  do  thou,  0  holy  Mar  beta, 
Give  us  a  good  year 
For  wheat  and  for  rye.” 


3io  THE  KILLING  OF  THE  TREE-SPIRIT  ch. 

In  other  parts  of  Bohemia  they  carry  Death  to  the  end  of  the  village, 
singing— 

“  We  carry  Death  out  of  the  village,  Dear  Spring,  we  hid  you  welcome. 

And  the  New  Year  into  the  village.  Green  grass,  we  hid  you  welcome .” 

Behind  the  village  they  erect  a  pyre,  on  which  they  bum  the  straw 
figure,  reviling  and  scoffing  at  it  the  while.  Then  they  return,  singing — 

“  We  have  carried  away  Death,  He  has  taken  up  his  quarters  in  the  village, 
And  brought  Life  hack.  Therefore  sing  joyous  songs.” 

In  some  German  villages  of  Moravia,  as  in  Jassnitz  and  Seitendorf, 
the  young  folk  assemble  on  the  third  Sunday  in  Lent  and  fashion  a 
straw-man,  who  is  generally  adorned  with  a  fur  cap  and  a  pair  of  old 
leathern  hose,  if  such  are  to  be  had.  The  effigy  is  then  hoisted  on  a 
pole  and  carried  by  the  lads  and  lasses  out  into  the  open  fields.  On 
the  way  they  sing  a  song,  in  which  it  is  said  that  they  are  carrying 
Death  away  and  bringing  dear  Summer  into  the  house,  and  with 
Summer  the  May  and  the  flowers.  On  reaching  an  appointed  place  \ 
they  dance  in  a  circle  round  the  effigy  with  loud  shouts  and  screams, 
then  suddenly  rush  at  it  and  tear  it  to  pieces  with  their  hands.  Lastly, 
the  pieces  are  thrown  together  in  a  heap,  the  pole  is  broken,  and  fire 
is  set  to  the  whole.  While  it  burns  the  troop  dances  merrily  round  it, 
rejoicing  at  the_victory  woaJjy  Spring  ;  and  when  the  fire  has  nearly 
died  out  they  go  to  the  householders  to  beg  for  a  present  of  eggs  where¬ 
with  to  hold  a  feast,  taking  care  to  give  as  a  reason  for  the  request  that 
thcyjiave  carried^Death_put  and  away. 

The  preceding  evidence  shows  that  the  effigy  of  Death  is  often 
regarded  with  fear  and  treated  with  marks  of  hatred  and  abhorrence. 
Thus  the  anxiety  of  the  villagers  to  transfer  the  figure  from  their  own 
to  their  neighbours'  land,  and  the  reluctance  of  the  latter  to  receive 
the  ominous  guest,  are  proof  enough  of  the  dread  which  it  inspires. 
Further,  in  Lusatia  and  Silesia  the  puppet  is  sometimes  made  to  look 
in  at  the  window  of  a  house,  and  it  is  believed  that  some  one  in  the 
house  will  die  within  the  year  unless  his  life  is  redeemed  by  the  pay¬ 
ment  of  money.  Again,  after  throwing  the  effigy  away,  the  bearers 
sometimes  run  home  lest  Death  should  follow  them,  and  if  one  of  them 
falls  in  running,  it  is  believed  that  he  will  die  within  the  year.  At 
Chrudim,  in  Bohemia,  the  figure  of  Death  is  made  out  of  a  cross,  with 
a  head  and  mask  stuck  at  the  top,  and  a  shirt  stretched  out  on  it.  On 
the  fifth  Sunday  in  Lent  the  boys  take  this  effigy  to  the  nearest  brook 
or  pool,  and  standing  in  a  line  throw  it  into  the  water.  Then  they  all 
plunge  in  after  it  ;  but  as  soon  as  it  is  caught  no  one  more  may  enter 
the  water.  The  boy  who  did  not  enter  the  water  or  entered  it  last 
will  die  within  the  year,  and  he  is  obliged  to  carry  the  Death  back  to 
the  village.  The  effigy  is  then  burned.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
believed  that  no  one  will  die  within  the  year  in  the  house  out  of  which 
the  figure  of  Death  has  been  carried  ;  and  the  village  out  of  which 
Death  has  been  driven  is  sometimes  supposed  to  be  protected  against 


XXVIII 


BRINGING  IN  SUMMER 


3ii 


sickness  and  plague.  In  some  villages  of  Austrian  Silesia  on  the 
Saturday  before  Dead  Sunday  an  effigy  is  made  of  old  clothes,  hay, 
and  straw,  for  the  purpose  of  driving  Death  out  of  the  village.  On 
Sunday  the  people,  armed  with  sticks  and  straps,  assemble  before  the 
house  where  the  figure  is  lodged.  Four  lads  then  draw  the  effigy  by 
cords  through  the  village  amid  exultant  shouts,  while  all  the  others 
beat  it  with  their  sticks  and  straps.  On  reaching  a  field  which  belongs 
to  a  neighbouring  village  they  lay  down  the  figure,  cudgel  it  soundly, 
and  scatter  the  fragments  over  the  field.  The_peopb  believe  that  the 
village  from  which  Death  has  been  thus  carried  out  willlxr safe~  from 
any  infectious  disease  for  the  whole  year. 

§  4.  Bringing  in  Slimmer. — In  the  preceding  ceremonies  the  return 
of  Spring,  Summer,  or  Life,  as  a  sequel  to  the  expulsion  of  Death,  is 
only  implied  or  at  most  announced.  In  the  following  ceremonies  it  is 
plainly  enacted.  Thus  in  some  parts  of  Bohemia  the  effigy  of  Death 
is  drowned  by  being  thrown  into  the  water  at  sunset ;  then  the  girls 
go  out  into  the  wood  and  cut  down  a  young  tree  with  a  green  crown, 
hang  a  doll  dressed  as  a  woman  on  it,  deck  the  whole  with  green,  red, 
and  white,  ribbons,  and  march  in  procession  with  their  Lito  (Summer) 
into  the  village,  collecting  gifts  and  singing — 

“  Death  swims  in  the  water,  With  yellow  pancakes. 


Spring  comes  to  visit  us, 
With  eggs  that  are  red, 


We  carried  Death  out  of  the  village. 

We  are  carrying  Summer  into  the  village. 


In  many  Silesian  villages  the  figure  of  Death,  after  being  treated 
with  respect,  is  stript  of  its  clothes  and  flung  with  curses  into  the 
water,  or  torn  to  pieces  in  a  field.  Then  the  young  folk  repair  to  a 
wood,  cut  down  a  small  fir-tree,  peel  the  trunk,  and  deck  it  with 
festoons  of  evergreens,  paper  roses,  painted  egg-shells,  motley  bits  of 
cloth,  and  so  forth.  The  tree  thus  adorned  is  called  Summer  or  May. 
Boys  carry  it  from  house  to  house  singing  appropriate  songs  and  begging 
for  presents.  Among  their  songs  is  the  following  : 

“  We  have  carried  Death  out,  The  Summer  and  the  May, 

We  are  bringing  the  dear  Summer  back,  And  all  the  flowers  gay.'’ 

Sometimes  they  also  bring  back  from  the  wood  a  prettily  adorned 
figure,  which  goes  by  the  name  of  Summer,  May,  or  the  Bride  ;  in  the 
Polish  districts  it  is  called  Dziewanna,  the  goddess  of  spring. 

At  Eisenach  on  the  fourth  Sunday  in  Lent  young  people  used  to 
fasten  a  straw-man,  representing  Death,  to  a  wheel,  which  they  trundled 
to  the  top  of  a  hill.  Then  setting  fire  to  the  figure  they  allowed  it  and 
the  wheel  to  roll  down  the  slope.  Next  they  cut  a  tall  fir-tree,  tricked 
it  out  with  ribbons,  and  set  it  up  in  the  plain.  The  men  then  climbed 
the  tree  to  fetch  down  the  ribbons.  In  Upper  Lusatia  the  figure  of 
Death,  made  of  straw  and  rags,  is  dressed  in  a  veil  furnished  by  the 
last  bride  and  a  shirt  provided  by  the  house  in  which  the  last  death 
took  place.  Thus  arrayed  the  figure  is  stuck  on  the  end  of  a  long  pole 
and  carried  at  full  speed  by  the  tallest  and  strongest  girl,  while  the  rest 


312 


THE  KILLING  OF  THE  TREE-SPIRIT 


CH. 


pelt  the  effigy  with  sticks  and  stones.  Whoever  hits  it  will  be  sure 
to  live  through  the  year.  In  this  way  Death  is  carried  out  of  the 
village  and  thrown  into  the  water  or  over  the  boundary  of  the  next 
village.  On  their  way  home  each  one  breaks  a  green  branch  and 
carries  it  gaily  with  him  till  he  reaches  the  village,  when  he  throws  it 
away.  Sometimes  the  young  people  of  the  next  village,  upon  whose 
land  the  figure  has  been  thrown,  run  after  them  and  hurl  it  back,  not 
wishing  to  have  Death  among  them.  Hence  the  two  parties  occasion¬ 
ally  come  to  blows. 

In  these  cases  Death  is  represented  by  the  puppet  which  is  thrown 
away.  Summer  or  Life  by  the  branches  or  trees  which  are  brought 
back.  But  sometimes  a  new  potency  of  life  seems  to  be  attributed 
to  the  image  of  Death  itself,  and  by  a  kind  of  resurrection  it  becomes 
the  instrument  of  the  general  revival.  Thus  in  some  parts  of  Lusatia 
women  alone  are  concerned  in  carrying  out  Death,  and  suffer  no  male 
to  meddle  with  it.  Attired  in  mourning,  which  they  wear  the  whole 
day,  they  make  a  puppet  of  straw,  clothe  it  in  a  white  shirt,  and 
give  it  a  broom  in  one  hand  and  a  scythe  in  the  other.  Singing  songs 
and  pursued  by  urchins  throwing  stones,  they  carry  the  puppet  to  the 
village  boundary,  where  they  tear  it  in  pieces.  Then  they  cut  down 
a  fine  tree,  hang  the  shirt  on  it,  and  carry  it  home  singing.  On  the 
Feast  of  Ascension  the  Saxons  of  Brail er,  a  village  of  Transylvania, 
not  far  from  Hermannstadt,  observe  the  ceremony  of  “  Carrying  out 
Death  ”  in  the  following  manner.  After  morning  service  all  the 
school-girls  repair  to  the  house  of  one  of  their  number,  and  there  dress 
up  the  Death.  This  is  done  by  tying  a  threshed-out  sheaf  of  corn  into 
a  rough  semblance  of  a  head  and  body,  while  the  arms  are  simulated 
by  a  broomstick  thrust  through  it  horizontally.  The  figure  is  dressed 
in  the  holiday  attire  of  a  young  peasant  woman,  with  a  red  hood,  silver 
brooches,  and  a  profusion  of  ribbons  at  the  arms  and  breast.  The 
girls  bustle  at  their  work,  for  soon  the  bells  will  be  ringing  to  vespers, 
and  the  Death  must  be  ready  in  time  to  be  placed  at  the  open  window, 
that  all  the  people  may  see  it  on  their  way  to  church.  When  vespers 
are  over,  the  longed-for  moment  has  come  for  the  first  procession 
with  the  Death  to  begin  ;  it  is  a  privilege  that  belongs  to  the  school¬ 
girls  alone.  Two  of  the  older  girls  seize  the  figure  by  the  arms  and 
walk  in  front :  all  the  rest  follow  two  and  two.  Boys  may  take  no 
part  in  the  procession,  but  they  troop  after  it  gazing  with  open-mouthed 
admiration  at  the  “  beautiful  Death.”  So  the  procession  goes  through 
all  the  streets  of  the  village,  the  girls  singing  the  old  hymn  that  begins — 

“  Gott  mein  Vater,  deine  Liebe 
Reicht  so  weit  der  Himmel  ist” 

to  a  tune  that  differs  from  the  ordinary  one.  When  the  procession 
has  wound  its  way  through  every  street,  the  girls  go  to  another  house, 
and  having  shut  the  door  against  the  eager  prying  crowd  of  boys  who 
follow  at  their  heels,  they  strip  the  Death  and  pass  the  naked  truss  of 
straw  out  of  the  window  to  the  boys,  who  pounce  on  it,  run  out  of  the 


xxvm  BRINGING  IN  SUMMER  313 

village  with  it  without  singing,  and  fling  the  dilapidated  effigy  into 
the  neighbouring  brook.  This  done,  the  second  scene  of  the  little 
drama  begins.  While  the  boys  were  carrying  away  the  Death  out  of 
the  village,  the  girls  remained  in  the  house,  and  one  of  them  is  now 
dressed  in  all  the  finery  which  had  been  worn  by  the  effigy.  Thus 
arrayed  she  is  led  in  procession  through  all  the  streets  to  the  singing 
of  the  same  hymn  as  before.  When  the  procession  is  over  they  all 
betake  themselves  to  the  house  of  the  girl  who  played  the  leading  part. 
Here  a  feast  awaits  them  from  which  also  the  boys  are  excluded.  It 
is  a  popular  belief  that  the  children  may  safely  begin  to  eat  gooseberries 
and  other  fruit  after  the  day  on  which  Death  has  thus  been  carried 
out ,  for  Death,  which  up  to  that  time  lurked  especially  in  gooseberries, 
is  now  destroyed..  Further,  they  may  now  bathe  with  impunity  out 
of  doors.  Very  similar  is  the  ceremony  which,  down  to  recent  years, 
was  observed  in  some  of  the  German  villages  of  Moravia.  Boys  and 

|  giHs  met  on  the  afternoon  of  the  first  Sunday  after  Easter,  and  together 
fashioned  a  puppet  of  straw  to  represent  Death.  Decked  with  bright- 
coloured  ribbons  and  cloths,  and  fastened  to  the  top  of  a  long  pole,  the 
effigy  was  then  borne  with  singing  and  clamour  to  the  nearest  height, 
where  it  was  stript  of  its  gay  attire  and  thrown  or  rolled  down  the 
slope.  One  of  the  girls  was  next  dressed  in  the  gauds  taken  from  the 
®Higy  of  Death,  and  with  her  at  its  head  the  procession  moved  back 
to  the  village.  In  some  villages  the  practice  is  to  bury  the  effigy  in 
the  place  that  has  the  most  evil  reputation  of  all  the  country-side  .* 
others  throw  it  into  running  water. 

,  In  the  Lusatian  ceremony  described  above,  the  tree  which  is  brought 
home  after  the  destruction  of  the  figure  of  Death  is  plainly  equivalent 

I  to  the  trees  or  branches  which,  in  the  preceding  customs,  were  brought 
back  as  representatives  of  Summer  or  Life,  after  Death  had  been 
thrown  away  or  destroyed.  But  the  transference  of  the  shirt  worn 
by  the  effigy  of  Death  to  the  tree  clearly  indicates  that  the  tree  is  a 
kind  of  revivification,  in  a  new  form,  of  the  destroyed  effigy.  This 
comes  out  also  in  the  Transylvanian  and  Moravian  customs  :  the 
dressing  of  a  girl  in  the  clothes  worn  by  the  Death,  and  the  leading  her 
about  the  village  to  the  same  song  which  had  been  sung  when  the 
Death  was  being  carried  about,  show  that  she  is  intended  to  be  a  kind 
of  resuscitation  of  the  being  whose  effigy  has  just  been  destroyed. 
These  examples  therefore  suggest  that  the  Death  whose  demolition 
is  represented  in  these  ceremonies  cannot  be  regarded  as  the  purely 
destructive  agent  which  we  understand  by  Death.  If  the  tree  which 
is  brought  back  as  an  embodiment  of  the  reviving  vegetation  of  spring 
is  clothed  in  the  shirt  worn  by  the  Death  which  has  just  been  destroyed, 
the  object  certainly  cannot  be  to  check  and  counteract  the  revival  of 
vegetation  :  it  can  only  be  to  foster  and  promote  it.  Therefore  the 
being  which  has  just  been  destroyed— the  so-called  Death— must  be_ 
supposed  to  be  endowed  with  a  vivifying  and  quickening  influence, 
which  it  can  communicate  to  the  vegetable  and  even  thejinimal  world. 
This  ascription  of  a  life-giving  virtue  to  the  figure  of  Death  is  put 


THE  KILLING  OF  THE  TREE-SPIRIT 


CH. 


314 


beyond,  a  doubt  by  the  custom,  observed  in  some  places,  of  taking 
pieces  of  the  straw  effigy  of  Death  and  placing  them  in  the  fields  to 
make  the  crops  grow,  or  in  the  manger  to  make  the  cattle  thrive. 
Thus  in  Spachendorf,  a  village  of  Austrian  Silesia,  the  figure  of  Death, 
made  of  straw,  brushwood,  and  rags,  is  carried  with  wild  songs  to  .an 
open  place  outside  the  village  and  there  burned,  and  while  it  is  burning 
a  general  struggle  takes  place  for  the  pieces,  which  are  pulled  out  of 
the  flames  with  bare  hands.  Each  one  who  secures  a  fragment  of  the 
effigy  ties  it  to  a  branch  of  the  largest  tree  in  his  garden,  or  buries  it 
in  his  field,  in  the  belief  that  this  causes  the  crops  to  grow  better.  In 
the  Troppau  district  of  Austrian  Silesia  the  straw  figure  which  the 
boys  make  on  the  fourth  Sunday  in  Lent  is  dressed  by  the  girls  in 
woman’s  clothes  and  hung  with  ribbons,  necklace,  and  garlands. 
Attached  to  a  long  pole  it  is  carried  out  of  the  village,  followed  by  a 
troop  of  young  people  of  both  sexes,  who  alternately  frolic,  lament, 
and  sing  songs.  Arrived  at  its  destination — a  field  outside  the  village 
— the  figure  is  stripped  of  its  clothes  and  ornaments  ;  then  the  crowd  j 
rushes  at  it  and  tears  it  to  bits,  scuffling  for  the  fragments.  Every  1 
one  tries  to  get  a  wisp  of  the  straw  of  which  the  effigy  was  made, 
because  such  a  wisp,  placed  in  the  manger,  is  believed  to  make  the 
cattle  thrive.  Or  the  straw  is  put  in  the  hens’  nest,  it  being  supposed 
that  this  prevents  the  hens  from  carrying  away  their  eggs,  and  makes 
them  brood  much  better.  The  same  attribution  of  a  fertilising  power 
to  the  figure  of  Death  appears  in  the  belief  that  if  the  bearers  of  the 
figure,  after  throwing  it  away,  beat  cattle  with  their  sticks,  this  will 
render  the  beasts  fat  or  prolific.  Perhaps  the  sticks  had  been  previously 
used  to  beat  the  Death,  and  so  had  acquired  the  fertilising  power 
ascribed  to  the  effigy.  We  have  seen,  too,  that  at  Leipsic  a  straw 
effigy  of  Death  was  shown  to  young  wives  to  make  them  fruitful. 

It  seems  hardly  possible  to  separate  from  the  May-trees  the  trees 
or  branches  which  are  brought  into  the  village  after  the  destruction 
of  the  Death.  The  bearers  who  bring  them  in  profess  to  be  bringing 
in  the  Summer,  therefore  the  trees  obviously  represent  the  Summer ; 
indeed  in  Silesia  they  are  commonly  called  the  Summer  or  the  May, 
and  the  doll  which  is  sometimes  attached  to  the  Summer-tree  is  a 
duplicate  representative  of  the  Summer,  just  as  the  May  is  sometimes 
represented  at  the  same  time  by  a  May-tree  and  a  May  Lady.  Further, 
the  Summer-trees  are  adorned  like  May-trees  with  ribbons  and  so  on  ; 
like  May-trees,  when  large,  they  are  planted  in  the  ground  and  climbed 
up  ;  and  like  May-trees,  when  small,  they  are  carried  from  door  to 
door  by  boys  or  girls  singing  songs  and  collecting  money.  And  as  if 
to  demonstrate  the  identity  of  the  two  sets  of  customs  the  bearers  of 
the  Summer-tree  sometimes  announce  that  they  are  bringing  in  the  : 
Summer  and  the  May.  The  customs,  therefore,  of  bringing  in  the 
May  and  bringing  in  the  Summer  are  essentially  the  same  ;  and  the 
Summer-tree  is  merely  another  form  of  the  May-tree,  the  only  dis¬ 
tinction  (besides  that  of  name)  being  in  the  time  at  which  they  are 
respectively  brought  in  ;  for  while  the  May-tree  is  usually  fetched  in 


XXVIII 


BRINGING  IN  SUMMER  315 

on  the  hist  of  May  or  at  Whitsuntide,  the  Summer-tree  is  fetched  in 
on  the  fourth  Sunday  in  Lent.  Therefore,  if  the  May-tree  is  an  em¬ 
bodiment  of  the  tree-spirit  or  spirit  of  vegetation,  the  Summer-tree 
must  likewise  be  an  embodiment  of  the  tree-spirit  or  spirit  of  vegeta¬ 
tion.  .  But  we  have  seen  that  the  Summer-tree  is  in  some  cases  a 
revivification  of  the  effigy  of  Death.  It  follows,  therefore,  that  in 
these  cases  the.  effigy  called  Death  must  be  an  embodiment  of  the 
tree-spiiit  or  spirit  of  vegetation.  This  inference  is  confirmed,  first, 
by  the  vivifying  and  fertilising  influence  which  the  fragments  of  the 
effigy  of  Death  are  believed  to  exercise  both  on  vegetable  and  on  animal 
life  ,  for  this  influence,  as  we  saw  in  an  earlier  part  of  this  work,  is 
supposed  to  be  a  special  attribute  of  the  tree-spirit.  It  is  confirmed, 
secondly,  by  observing  that  the  effigy  of  Death  is  sometimes  decked 
with  leaves  or  made  of  twigs,  branches,  hemp,  or  a  threshed-out  sheaf 
of  corn  ;  and  that  sometimes  it  is  hung  on  a  little  tree  and  so  carried 
about  by  girls  collecting  money,  just  as  is  done  with  the  May-tree  and 
the  May  Lady,  and  with  the  Summer-tree  and  the  doll  attached  to  it. 
In^hort,  wfi-are  driven.  tcujeffarrLihe  expulsion  of  Death  and  the 
bringing  m  of  Summer  as,  in  some  cas^s  alde^t  Tm-m 

of  thatMeath  and  revival  of  the  spirit  of  vegetation  in  spring: which 
we  enacted  in  the  killing  anT, resurrection  ot  the  wild  lYffirT  The 
bunaUand  r^urrec4re^^  is"  pmlx^^nothpr  way  of 

exprQSfi]  ng .  The  interment  of  the  representative  of  the 
Carnival  under  a  dung-heap  is  natural,  if  he  is  supposed  to  possess  a 
quickening  and  fertilising  influence  like  that  ascribed  to  the  effigy  of 
Death.  The  Esthonians,  indeed,  who  carry  the  straw  figure  out  of 
the  village  in  the  usual  way  on  Shrove  Tuesday,  do  not  call  it  the 
Carnival,  but  the  Wood-spirit  (. Metsik ),  and  they  clearly  indicate  the 
identity  of  the  effigy  with  the  wood-spirit  by  fixing  it  to  the  top  of 
a  tree  in  the  w^ood,  where  it  remains  for  a  year,  and  is  besought  almost 
daily  with  prayers  and  offerings  to  protect  the  herds  ;  for  like  a  true 
wood-spirit  the  Metsik  is  a  patron  of  cattle.  Sometimes  the  Metsik 
is  made  of  sheaves  of  corn. 

Thus  W£_may  fairly^conjecture  that  the  names  Carnival.  Death, 
and  Summer  are  comparatively  lute  and  inadequate  expressions  for 
the  jbeing^personifiecLor  embodiedjn  the  customs  with  which  we  have 
been  dealing.  The  very  abstractness  of  the  names  bespeaks  a  modem 
origin  ;  for  the  personification  of  times  and  seasons  like  the  Carnival 
and  Summer,  or  of  an  abstract  notion  like  death,  is  not  primitive. 
But  the  ceremonies  themselves  bear  the  stamp  of  a  dateless  antiquity  : 
therefore  we  can  hardly  help  supposing  that  in  their  origin  the  Ideas- 
which  they  embodied  were  of  a  more  simple  and  concrete  order.  The 
notion  of  a  tree,  perhaps  of  a  particular  kind  of  tree  (for  some  savages 
^la^e.no  word  for  tree  in  general),  or  even  of  an  individual  tree,  is 
sufficiently  concrete  to  supply  a  basis  from  which  by  a  gradual  process  of 
generalisation  the  wider  idea  of  a  spirit  of  vegetation  might  be  reached. 
But  this  general,  idea  of  vegetation  would  readily  be  confounded 
With  the  season  in  which  it  manifests  itself  ;  hence  the  substitution 


CH. 


316  THE  KILLING  OF  THE  TREE-SPIRIT 

of  Spring,  Summer,  or  May  for  the  tree-spirit  or  spirit  of  vegetation 
would  be’ easy  and  natural.  Again,  the  concrete  notion  of  the  dying 
tree  or  dying  vegetation  would  by  a  similar  process  of  genei  alisation 
glide  into  a  notion  of  death  in  general ;  so  that  the  practice  of  carrying 
out  the  dying  or  dead  vegetation  in  spring,  as  a  preliminary  to  its 
revival,  would  in  time  widen  out  into  an  attempt  to  banish  Death  in 
general  from  the  village  or  district,  the  view  that  in  these  spring 
ceremonies  Death  meant  originally  the  dying  or  dead  vegetation  of 
winter  has  the  high  support  of  W.  Mannhardt ;  and  he  confiims  it 
by  the  analogy  of  the  name  Death  as  applied  to  the  spirit  of  the  ripe 
corn.  Commonly  the  spirit  of  the  ripe  corn  is  concei\  ed,  not  as  dead, 
but  as  old,  and  hence  it  goes  by  the  name  of  the  Old  Man  or  the  Old 
Woman.  But  in  some  places  the  last  sheaf  cut  at  harvest,  which  is 
generally  believed  to  be  the  seat  of  the  corn  spirit,  is  called  “  the  Dead 
One  ”  :  children  are  warned  against  entering  the  corn-fields  because 
Death  sits  in  the  corn  ;  and,  in  a  game  played  by  Saxon  children  m 
Transylvania  at  the  maize  harvest,  Death  is  represented  by  a  child 

completely  covered  with  maize  leaves. 

§5.  Battle  of  Summer  and  Winter.  —  Sometimes  in  the  popular 
customs  of  the  peasantry  the  contrast  between  the  dormant  powers 
of  vegetation  in  winter  and  their  awakening  vitality  in  spring  takes 
the  form  of  a  dramatic  contest  between  actors  who  play  the  paits 
respectively  of  Winter  and  Summer.  Thus  in  the  towns  of  Sweden 
on  May  Day  two  troops  of  young  men  on  horseback  used  to  meet  as 
if  for  mortal  combat.  One  of  them  was  led  by  a  representative  of 
Winter  clad  in  furs,  who  threw  snowballs  and  ice  in  Older  to  piolong 
the  cold  weather.  The  other  troop  was  commanded  by  a  repiesenta- 
tive  of  Summer  covered  with  fresh  leaves  and  floweis. .  In  the  sham 
fight  which  followed  the  party  of  Summer  came  off  victorious,  .  and 
the  ceremony  ended  with  a  feast.  Again,  in  the  region  of  the  middle 
Rhine,  a  representative  of  Summer  clad  in  ivy  combats  a  repi  esentative 
of  Winter  clad  in  straw  or  moss  and  finally  gains  a  victory  over  him. 
The  vanquished  foe  is  thrown  to  the  ground  and  stiipped  of  his  casing 
of  straw,  which  is  torn  to  pieces  and  scattered  about,  while  the  youthful 
comrades  of  the  two  champions  sing  a  song  to  commemorate  the  defeat 
of  Winter  by  Summer.  Afterwards  they  carry  about  a  summer 
garland  or  branch  and  collect  gifts  of  eggs  and  bacon  from  house  to 
house.  Sometimes  the  champion  who  acts  the  part  of  Summer  is 
dressed  in  leaves  and  flowers  and  wears  a  chaplet  of  floweis  on  his 
head.  In  the  Palatinate  this  mimic  conflict  takes  place  on  the  fourth 
Sunday  in  Lent.  All  over  Bavaria  the  same  drama  used  to  be  acted 
on  the  same  day,  and  it  was  still  kept  up  in  some  places  down  to  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  or  later.  While  Summer  appeared 
clad  all  in  green,  decked  with  fluttering  ribbons,  and  carrying  a  branch 
in  blossom  or  a  little  tree  hung  with  apples  and  pears,  Winter  was 
muffled  up  in  cap  and  mantle  of  fur  and  bore  in  his  hand  a  snow-shovel 
or  a  flail.  Accompanied  by  their  respective  retinues  dressed  in  corre¬ 
sponding  attire,  they  went  through  all  the  streets  of  the  village,  halting 


XXVIII  DEATH  AND  RESURRECTION  OF  KOSTRUBONKO  317 

before  the  houses  and  singing  staves  of  old  songs,  for  which  they 
received  presents  of  bread,  eggs,  and  fruit.  Finally,  after  a  short 
struggle,  Winter  was  beaten  by  Summer  and  ducked  in  the  village 
well  or  driven  out  of  the  village  with  shouts  and  laughter  into  the  forest. 

At  Goepfritz  in  Lower  Austria,  two  men  personating  Summer  and 
Winter  useci  to  go  from  house  to  house  on  Shrove  Tuesday,  and  were 
everywhere  welcomed  by  the  children  with  great  delight.  The  repre¬ 
sentative  of  Summer  was  clad  in  white  and  bore  a  sickly  ;  his  comrade 
who  played  the  part  of  Winter,  had  a  fur  cap  on  his  head,  his  arms 
and  legs  were  swathed  in  straw,  and  he  carried  a  flail.  In  every 
house  they  sang  verses  alternately.  At  Dromling  in  Brunswick,  down 
to  the  present  time,  the  contest  between  Summer  and  Winter  is  acted 
every  year  at  Whitsuntide  by  a  troop  of  boys  and  a  troop  of  girls. 
The  boys  rush  singing,  shouting,  and  ringing  bells  from  house  to  house 
to  drive  Winter  away ;  after  them  come  the  girls  singing  softly  and 
j  led  by  a  May  Bride,  all  in  bright  dresses  and  decked  with  flowers 
and  garlands  to  represent  the  genial  advent  of  spring.  Formerly  the 
part  of  Winter  was  played  by  a  straw-man  which  the  boys  carried 
with  them  ;  now  it  is  acted  by  a  real  man  in  disguise. 

Among  the  central  Esquimaux  of  North  America  the  contest 
between  representatives  of  summer  and  winter,  which  in  Europe  has 
long  degenerated  into  a  mere  dramatic  performance,  is  still  kept  up 
as  a  magical  ceremony  of  which  the  avowed  intention  is  to  influence 
the  weather.  In  autumn,  when  storms  announce  the  approach  of  the 
dismal  Arctic  winter,  the  Esquimaux  divide  themselves  into  two 
parties  called  respectively  the  ptarmigans  and  the  ducks,  the  ptarmi¬ 
gans  comprising  all  persons  born  in  winter,  and  the  ducks  all  persons 
born  in  summer.  A  long  rope  of  sealskin  is  then  stretched  out,  and 
each  party  laying  hold  of  one  end  of  it  seeks  by  tugging  with  might 
and  main  to  diag  the  other  party  over  to  its  side.  If  the  ptarmigans 
get  the  worst  of  it,  then  summer  has  won  the  game  and  fine  weather 
may  be  expected  to  prevail  through  the  winter. 

§  6.  Death  and  Resuyy ection  of  Kostyubonko. — In  Russia  funeral 
ceremonies  like  those  of  “  Burying  the  Carnival  ”  and  “  Carrying  out 
Death  ”  are  celebrated  under  the  names,  not  of  Death  or  the  Carnival 
but  of  certain  mythic  figures,  Kostrubonko,  Kostroma,  Kupalo,  Lada,’ 
and  Yaiilo.  These  Russian  ceremonies  are  observed  both  in  spring 
and  at  midsummer.  Thus  “  in  Little  Russia  it  used  to  be  the  custom 
at  Eastertide  to  celebrate  the  funeral  of  a  being  called  Kostrubonko, 
the  deity  of  the  spring.  A  circle  was  formed  of  singers  who  moved 

slowly  around  a  girl  who  lay  on  the  ground  as  if  dead,  and  as  they  went 
they  sang : 

'  Dead,  dead  is  our  Kostrubonko  ! 

Dead,  dead  is  our  dear  one  !  ' 

mtil  the  girl  suddenly  sprang  up,  on  which  the  chorus  iovfullv 
exclaimed: 


Come  to  life,  come  to  life  has  our  Kostrubonko  l 
Come  to  life,  come  to  life  has  our  dear  one  !  '  ” 


3i8 


THE  KILLING  OF  THE  TREE-SPIRIT 


CH. 


On  the  Eve  of  St.  John  (Midsummer  Eve)  a  figure  of  Kupalo  is  made 
of  straw  and"  is  dressed  in  woman’s  clothes,  with  a  necklace  and  a 
floral  crown.  Then  a  tree  is  felled,  and,  after  being  decked  with 
ribbons,  is  set  up  on  some  chosen  spot.  Near  this  tree,  to  which  they 
give  the  name  of  Marena  [Winter  or  Death],  the  straw  figure  is  placed, 
together  with  a  table,  on  which  stand  spirits  and  viands.  Afterwards 
a  bonfire  is  lit,  and  the  young  men  and  maidens  jump  over  it  in  couples, 
carrying  the  figure  with  them.  On  the  next  day  they  strip  the  tree 
and  the  figure  of  their  ornaments,  and  throw  them  both  into  a  stream.” 
On  St.  Peter’s  Day,  the  twenty-ninth  of  June,  or  on  the  following 
Sunday,  “  the  Funeral  of  Kostroma  ”  or  of  Lada  or  of  Yarilo  is  cele¬ 
brated  in  Russia.  In  the  Governments  of  Penza  and  Simbirsk  the 
funeral  used  to  be  represented  as  follows.  A  bonfire  was  kindled  on 
the  twenty-eighth  of  June,  and  on  the  next  day  the  maidens  chose  one 
of  their  number  to  play  the  part  of  Kostroma.  Her  companions 
saluted  her  with  deep  obeisances,  placed  her  on  a  board,  and  carried 
her  to  the  bank  of  a  stream.  There  they  bathed  her  in  the  water, 
while  the  oldest  girl  made  a  basket  of  lime-tree  bark  and  beat  it  like 
a  drum.  Then  they  returned  to  the  village  and  ended  the  day  with 
processions,  games,  and  dances.  In  the  Murom  district  Kostroma 
was  represented  by  a  straw  figure  dressed  in  woman’s  clothes  and 
flowers.  This  was  laid  in  a  trough  and  carried  with  songs  to  the  bank 
of  a  lake  or  river.  Here  the  crowd  divided  into  two  sides,  of  which 
the  one  attacked  and  the  other  defended  the  figure.  At  last  the 
assailants  gained  the  day,  stripped  the  figure  of  its  dress  and  ornaments, 
tore  it  in  pieces,  trod  the  straw  of  which  it  was  made  under  foot,  and 
flung  it  into  the  stream  ;  while  the  defenders  of  the  figure  hid  their 
faces  in  their  hands  and  pretended  to  bewail  the  death  of  Kostroma. 
In  the  district  of  Kostroma  the  burial  of  Yarilo  was  celebrated  on  the 
twenty-ninth  or  thirtieth  of  June.  The  people  chose  an  old  man  and 
gave  him  a  small  coffin  containing  a  Priapus-like  figure  representing 
Yarilo.  This  he  carried  out  of  the  town,  followed  by  women  chanting 
dirges  and  expressing  by  their  gestures  grief  and  despair.  In  the 
open  fields  a  grave  was  dug,  and  into  it  the  figure  was  lowered  amid 
weeping  and  wailing,  after  which  games  and  dances  were  begun, 
“  calling  to  mind  the  funeral  games  celebrated  in  old  times  by  the 
pagan  Slavonians.”  In  Little  Russia  the  figure  of  Yarilo  was  laid 
in  a  coffin  and  carried  through  the  streets  after  sunset  surrounded  by 
drunken  women,  who  kept  repeating  mournfully,  “  He  is  dead  !  he 
is  dead  !  ”  The  men  lifted  and  shook  the  figure  as  if  they  were  trying 
to  recall  the  dead  man  to  life.  Then  they  said  to  the  women,  “  Women, 
weep  not.  I  know  what  is  sweeter  than  honey.”  But  the  women 
continued  to  lament  and  chant,  as  they  do  at  funerals.  “  Of  what 
was  he  guilty  ?  He  was  so  good.  He  will  arise  no  more.  O  how  shall 
we  part  from  thee  ?  What  is  life  without  thee  ?  Arise,  if  only  for  a 
brief  hour.  But  he  rises  not,  he  rises  not.”  At  last  the  Yarilo  was 
buried  in  a  grave. 

§  7.  Death  and  Revival  of  Vegetation . — These  Russian  customs  are 


ANALOGOUS  RITES  IN  INDIA 


XXVIII 


319 


plainly  of  the  same  nature  as  those  which  in  Austria  and  Germany  are 
known  as  “  Carrying  out  Death/'  Therefore  if  the  interpretation  here 
adopted  of  the  latter  is  right,  the  Russian  Kostrubonko,  Yarilo,  and 
the  rest  must  also  have  been  originally  embodiments  of  the  spirit  of 
vegetation,  and  their  death  must  have  been  regarded  as  a  necessary 
preliminary  to  their  revival.  The  revival  as  a  sequel  to  the  death  is 
enacted  in  the  first  of  the  ceremonies  described,  the  death  and  resur¬ 
rection  of  Kostrubonko.  The  reason  why  in  some  of  these  Russian 
ceremonies  the  death  of  the  spirit  of  vegetation  is  celebrated  at  mid¬ 
summer  may  be  that  the  decline  of  summer  is  dated  from  Midsummer 
Day,  after  which  the  days  begin  to  shorten,  and  the  sun  sets  out  on 
his  downward  journey : 

“To  the  darksome  hollows 
Where  the  frosts  of  winter  lie." 


Such  a  turning-point  of  the  year,  when  vegetation  might  be  thought 
to  share  the  incipient  though  still  almost  imperceptible  decay  of 
summer,  might  very  well  be  chosen  by  primitive  man  as  a  fit  moment 
for  resorting  to  those  magic  rites  by  which  he  hopes  to  stay  the  decline, 
or  at  least  to  ensure  the  revival,  of  plant  life. 

But  while  the  death  of  vegetation  appears  to  have  been  repre¬ 
sented  in  all,  and  its  revival  in  some,  of  these  spring  and  midsummer 
ceremonies,  there  are  features  in  some  of  them  which  can  hardly  be 
explained  on  this  hypothesis  alone.  The  solemn  funeral,  the  lamenta¬ 
tions,  and  the  mourning  attire,  which  often  characterise  these  rites, 
are  indeed  appropriate  at  the  death  of  the  beneficent  spirit  of  vegeta¬ 
tion.  But  what  shall  we  say  of  the  glee  with  which  the  effigy  is  often 
carried  out,  of  the  sticks  and  stones  with  which  it  is  assailed,  and  the 
taunts  and  curses  which  are  hurled  at  it  ?  What  shall  we  say  of  the 
dread  of  the  effigy  evinced  by  the  haste  with  which  the  bearers  scamper 
home  as  soon  as  they  have  thrown  it  away,  and  by  the  belief  that  some 
one  must  soon  die  in  any  house  into  which  it  has  looked  ?  This  dread 
might  perhaps  be  explained  by  a  belief  that  there  is  a  certain  infectious¬ 
ness  in  the  dead  spirit  of  vegetation  which  renders  its  approach  danger¬ 
ous.  But  this  explanation,  besides  being  rather  strained,  does  not 
cover  the  rejoicings  which  often  attend  the  carrying  out  of  Death. 
We  must  therefore  recognise  two  distinct  and  seemingly  opposite 
features  in  these  ceremonies  :  on  the  one  hand,  sorrow  for  the  death, 
and  affection  and  respect  for  the  dead  ;  on  the  other  hand,  fear  and 
hatred  of  the  dead,  and  rejoicings  at  his  death.  How  the  former  of 
these  features  is  to  be  explained  T  have  attempted  to  show  :  how  the 
latter  came  to  be  so  closely  associated  with  the  former  is  a  question 
which  I  shall  try  to  answer  in  the  sequel. 

§  8.  Analogous  Rites  in  India.— hi  the  Ivanagra  district  of  India 
there  is  a  custom  observed  by  young  girls  in  spring  which  closely 
resembles  some  of  the  European  spring  ceremonies  just  described.  It 
is  called  the  Rail  Ka  meld,  or  fair  of  Rail,  the  Rail  being  a  small  painted 
earthen  image  of  Siva  or  Parvati.  The  custom  is  in  vogue  all  over  the 


320 


THE  KILLING  OF  THE  TREE-SPIRIT 


CH. 


Kanagra  district,  and  its  celebration,  which  is  entirely  confined  to 
young  girls,  lasts  through  most  of  Chet  (March- April)  up  to  the  Sankrant 
of  Baisakh  (April).  On  a  morning  in  March  all  the  young  girls  of  the 
village  take  small  baskets  of  dub  grass  and  flowers  to  an  appointed 
place,  where  they  throw  them  in  a  heap.  Round  this  heap  they  stand 
in  a  circle  and  sing.  This  goes  on  every  day  for  ten  days,  till  the  heap 
of  grass  and  flowers  has  reached  a  fair  height.  Then  they  cut  in  the 
jungle  two  branches,  each  with  three  prongs  at  one  end,  and  place 
them,  prongs  downwards,  over  the  heap  of  flowers,  so  as  to  make  two 
tripods  or  pyramids.  On  the  single  uppermost  points  of  these  branches 
they  get  an  image-maker  to  construct  two  clay  images,  one  to  represent 
Siva,  and  the  other  Parvati.  The  girls  then  divide  themselves  into 
two  parties,  one  for  Siva  and  one  for  Parvati,  and  marry  the  images  in 
the  usual  way,  leaving  out  no  part  of  the  ceremony.  After  the  marriage 
they  have  a  feast,  the  cost  of  which  is  defrayed  by  contributions 
solicited  from  their  parents.  Then  at  the  next  Sankrant  (Baisakh) 
they  all  go  together  to  the  river-side,  throw  the  images  into  a  deep 
pool,  and  weep  over  the  place,  as  though  they  were  performing  funeral 
obsequies.  The  boys  of  the  neighbourhood  often  tease  them  by  diving 
after  the  images,  bringing  them  up,  and  waving  them  about  while  the 
girls  are  crying  over  them.  The  object  of  the  fair  is  said  to  be  to  secure 
a  good  husband. 

That  in  this  Indian  ceremony  the  deities  Siva  and  Parvati  are 
conceived  as  spirits  of  vegetation  seems  to  be  proved  by  the  placing  of 
their  images  on  branches  over  a  heap  of  grass  and  flowers.  Here,  as 
often  in  European  folk-custom’,  the  divinities  of  vegetation  are  repre¬ 
sented  in  duplicate,  by  plants  and  by  puppets.  The  marriage  of  these 
Indian  deities  in  spring  corresponds  to  the  European  ceremonies  in 
which  the  marriage  of  the  vernal  spirits  of  vegetation  is  represented 
by  the  King  and  Queen  of  May,  the  May  Bride,  Bridegroom  of  the 
May,  and  so  forth."  The  throwing  of  the  images  into  the  water,  and 
the  mourning  for  them,  are  the  equivalents  of  the  European  customs 
of  throwing  the  dead  spirit  of  vegetation  under  the  name  of  Death, 
Yarilo,  Kostroma,  and  the  rest,  into  the  water  and  lamenting  over  it. 
Again,  in  India,  as  often  in  Europe,  the  rite  is  performed  exclusively 
by  females.  The  notion  that  the  ceremony  helps  to  procure  husbands 
for  the  girls  can  be  explained  by  the  quickening  and  fertilising  influence 
which  the  spirit  of  vegetation  is  believed  to  exert  upon  the  life  of  man 
as  well  as  of  plants. 

§  9.  The  Magic  Spring.- — -The  general  explanation  which  we  have 
been  led  to  adopt  of  these  and  many  similar  ceremonies  is  that  they  are, 
or  were  in  their  origin,  magical  rites  intended  to  ensure  the  revival  of 
nature  in  spring.  The  means  by  which  they  were  supposed  to  effect 
this  end  were  imitation  and  sympathy.  Led  astray  by  his  ignorance 
of  the  true  causes  of  things,  primitive  man  believed  that  in  order  to 
produce  the  great  phenomena  of  nature  on  which  his  life  depended  he 
had  only  to  imitate  them,  and  that  immediately  by  a  secret  sympathy 
or  mystic  influence  the  little  drama  which  he  acted  in  forest  glade  or 


XXVIII 


THE  MAGIC  SPRING 


321 

,“am  del1/  °n  desert  plain  or  wind-swept  shore,  would  be  taken 
up  n  repeated  by  mightier  actors  on  a  vaster  stage.  He  fancied 
that  by  masquerading  m  leaves  and  flowers  he  helped  the  bare  earth 
to  clothe  herself  with  verdure,  and  that  by  playing  the  death  and 

twitb  rntrt'  hf6  d+r0Ve  that  gloomy  season  away,  and  made  smooth 
the  path  for  the  footsteps  of  returning  spring.  If  we  find  it  hard  to 

throw  ourselves  even  in  fancy  into  a  mental  condition  in  which  such 

things  seem  possible,  we  can  more  easily  picture  to  ourselves  the 

anxiety  which  the  savage,  when  he  first  began  to  lift  his  thoughts 

above  the  satisfaction  of  his  merely  animal  wants,  and  to  meditate  on 

the  causes  of  things,  may  have  felt  as  to  the  continued  operation  of 

what  we  now  call  the  laws  of  nature.  To  us,  familiar  as  we  are  with  „ 

CQSI^pli^l!! ,  °n ^Vlth  I 

appiyhpnsion  that  the  causes  which,  prndncn  tlnn  ,  lvj|i  rc-.-c  to  ] 

sTabfltK1,  '  tCt  ''ltldu  ,U-  near  future.  Bat  this  confidence  in  the 
,  .ty  fif-tiature  is  bred  only  by  fhp  gvpprjerirf  whj7-TrrY^puri-if  wide 
observation  andteng  tradition  TmiI  the  sava.^  with  ’fZ 

°ff  |0rjjrvaMgirai.J  his  short-lived  tVadidon, 

experience,  »jnr,h ^  alone  r^d4-9«i4»9-BM.5a^itre^%'  face  of  the 

No  wonder 

erefore,  that  he  is  thrown  into  a  panic  by  an  eclipse,  and  thinks  that 

andrtT  T  m°°n  ^°"ldsurely  Perish,  if  he  did  not  raise  a  clamour  ^ 
and  shoot  his  puny  shafts  into  the  air  to  defend  the  luminaries  from 

the  monster  who  threatens  to  devour  them.  No  wonder  he  is  terrified 

when  m  the  darkness  of  night  a  streak  of  sky  is  suddenly  illumined  by 

Sh  the  °fifH  IT  °f  tn®  Yh°le  ®XpanSe  of  the  ceIesdal  arch  glows 

th  the  fitful  light  of  the  Northern  Streamers.  Even  phenomena 
w  ich  recur  at  fixed  and  uniform  intervals  may  be  viewed  by  him  with 

rTcurrenrrnThef°re  f  haSi  COme  t0  recognise  the  orderliness  of  their 
recurrence  The  speed  or  slowness  of  his  recognition  of  such  periodic 

pait£iarCcvrtfS  Th"^?  depend  largely  011  the  Iength  of  the 
p  ticular  cycle.  The  cycle,  for  example,  of  day  and  night  is  every- 

where,  except  in  the  polar  regions,  so  short  and  hence  so  frequent  that 

tee  f  St°01f  •‘;eaSed  t0  discomP°se  themselves  seriously  as  to 

he  chance  of  its  failing  to  recur,  though  the  ancient  Egyptians,  as 

in  theVe  Seen’  dfly,Wr0Ught  enchantments  to  bring  back  to  the  east 
west  R°?teg  the,fiery  °rb  which  had  sunk  at  evening  in  the  crimson 
To  L  ™  WaS  ar  0therwlsJe  Wlth  the  annual  cycle  of  the  seasons. 
)fo«!  15  a  considerable  period,  seeing  that  the  number 

:.h  ,  y  ars  ls  ^ew  at  best.  To  the  primitive  savage,  with  his 
’  yij^nory  and  imperfect  means  oTmarking  the  flight  oftteijv-a 
n ]T>tajt~p^~2^[Si£S-l2?ohg^hatTiriSlg3TTnTCgymse  Ifls  a  cycle 

with  a 

and 

“  f  ’  In 
•utumn  when  the  withered  leaves  were  whirled  about  the  forest  by 


322 


THE  KILLING  OF  THE  TREE-SPIRIT 


CIL 


the  nipping  blast,  and  he  looked  up  at  the  bare  boughs,  could  he  feel 
sure  that  they  would  ever  be  green  again  ?  As  day  by  day  the  sun 
sank  lower  and  lower  in  the  sky,  could  he  be  certain  that  the  luminary 
would  ever  retrace  his  heavenly  road  ?  Even  the  waning  moon,  whose 
nale  sickle  rose  thinner  and  thinner  every  night  over  the  rim  of  the 
eastern  horizon,  may  have  excited  in  his  mind  a  fear  lest,  when  it  had 
wholly  vanished,  there  should  be  moons  no  more. 

These  and  a  thousand  such  misgivings  may  have  thronged  the 
fancy  and  troubled  the  peace  of  the  man  who  first  began  to  reflect  on 
the  mysteries  of  the  world  he  lived  in,  and  to  take  thought  for  a  more  ' 
distant  future  than  the  morrow.  It  was  natural,  therefore  that  with 
such  thoughts  and  fears  he  should  have  done  all  that  m  him  lay  to 
bring  back  the  faded  blossom  to  the  bough,  to  swing  the  low  sun  of 
winter  up  to  his  old  place  in  the  summer  sky,  and  to  restore  its  orbed 
fulness  to  the  silver  lamp  of  the  waning  moon.  We  may  smile  at  his 
vain  endeavours  if  we  please,  but  it  was  only  by  making  a  long  series 
of  experiments,  of  which  some  were  almost  inevitably  doomed  to 
failure  that  man  learned  from  experience  the  futility  of  some  of  his 
attempted  methods  and  the  fruitfulness  of  others.  After  all,  magicaj 
Cf?pni^PS  arp  nothing dmt-£xperiments.  which  have  failed_and_which 

merely  because,  for  reasons  which  have^pdy 
been  indicated,  the  operator  is  unaware  of  their  failur^  With  the^ 
^SroncTof  knowledge  these  ceremonies  either  cease  to  be  performed 
altogether  or  are  kept  up  from  force  of  habit  long  after  the  intention 
with  which  they  were  instituted  has  been  forgotten.  Thus  fallen  from 
their  high  estate,  no  longer  regarded  as  solemn  rites  on  the  punctual 
performance  of  which  the  welfare  and  even  the  life  of  the  community 
depend  they  sink  gradually  to  the  level  of  simple  pageants,  mum¬ 
meries  ’  and  pastimes,  till  in  the  final  stage  of  degeneration  they  are 
wholly  abandoned  by  older  people,  and,  from  having  once  been  the 
most  serious  occupation  of  the  sage,  become  at  last  the  idle  sport  of 
children  It  is  in  this  final  stage  of  decay  that  most  of  the  old  magical 
rites  of  our  European  forefathers  linger  on  at  the  present  day,  and  even 
from  this  their  last  retreat  they  are  fast  being  swept  away  by  the 
rising  tide  of  those  multitudinous  forces,  moral,  intellectual,  and  social, 
which  are  bearing  mankind  onward  to  a  new  and  unknown  goal.  We1 
may  feel  some  natural  regret  at  the  disappearance  of  quaint  customs 
and  picturesque  ceremonies,  which  have  preserved  to  an  age  often 
deemed  dull  and  prosaic  something  of  the  flavour  and  freshness  o 
the  olden  time,  some  breath  of  the  springtime  of  the  world  ;  yet  oui 
regret  will  be  lessened  when  we  remember  that  these  pretty  pageants, 
these  now  innocent  diversions,  had  their  origin  in  ignorance  and 
superstition  ;  that  if  they  are  a  record  of  human  endeavour,  they  are 
also  a  monument  of  fruitless  ingenuity,  of  wasted  labour,  and  of  bhghtec 
hopes  •  and  that  for  all  their  gay  trappings— their  flowers  then 
ribbons,  and  their  music— they  partake  far  more  of  tragedy  than  o, 

f  3,rc0 

The  interpretation  which,  following  in  the  footsteps  of  W.  Mann 


XXVIII 


THE  MAGIC  SPRING 


323 

mA  1  to  give  of  these  ceremonies  has  been  not  a 

ittle  confirmed  by  the  discovery,  made  since  this  book  was  first  written 
that  the  natives  of  Central  Australia  regularly  practise  magical  cere’ 
monies  for  the  purpose  of  awakening  the  dormant  energies  of  Lture 
at  the  approach  of  what  may  be  called  the  Australian  spring  Nowhere 
apparently  are  the  alternations  of  the  seasons  more  sudden  and  the 
contrasts  between  them  more  striking  than  in  the  deserts  of  Central 
Australia  where  at  the  end  of  a  long  period  of  drought  the  sandv  and 
stony  wilderness  over  which  the  silence  and  desolation  of  death  appeal 
to  brood,  is  suddenly  after  a  few  days  of  torrential  rain,  transformed 
n  0  a  landscape  smiling  with  verdure  and  peopled  with  teeming 
multitudes  of  insects  and  lizards,  of  frogs  and  birds.  The  marvel™  uf 
change  which  passes  over  the  face  of  nature  at  such  times  has  been 
compared  even  by  European  observers  to  the  effect  of  magic  •  no 
wonder,  then  that  the  savage  should  regard  it  as  such  in  vefy  deed 
Now  it  is  just  when  there  is  promise  of  the  approach  of  a  goodseason 
hat  the  natives  of  Central  Australia  are  wont  especially*,  perform 
those  magical  ceremomes  of  which  the  avowed  intention  is  to  multiply 
the  plants  and  animals  they  use  as  food.  These  ceremonies  therefore 
present  a  close  analogy  to  the  spring  customs  of  our  European  peasantry 
not  only  m  the  time  of  their  celebration,  but  also  in  their  aim  foi  we 

Tplanf  L  that  m  inStitUting  rit6S  desi^ned  t0  assist  revival 

p  ant  life  in  spring  our  primitive  forefathers  were  moved  not  bv 

any  sentimental  wish  to  smell  at  early  violets,  or  pluck  the  rathe 

primrose,  or  watch  yellow  daffodils  dancing  in  the  breeze  but  bv 

the  very  practical  consideration,  certainly  not  formulated  in’ abstract 

terms  that  the  life  of  man  is  inextricably  bound  up  with  that  of  plants 

and  that  if  they  were  to  perish  he  could  not  survive.  And  as  the  fa”  th 

of  the  Australian  savage  in  the  efficacy  of  his  magic  rites  is  confirmed 

'“r  »  invariably 

later  by  that  increase  of  vegetable  and  animal  life  which  it  is  their 

?b]lCt  ta  Produce<  so’we  may  suppose,  it  was  with  European  savages 
m  he  olden  time.  The  sight  of  the  fresh  green  in  brake  and  thicket 

tL  Znth  fl0WfrA  0Wmg  0n  m0SSy  banks-  of  swaI1°ws  arriving  from 

wet  k  nd+u°f  the  SUn  mountmg  daily  higher  in  the  sky,  would  be 
welcomed  by  them  as  so  many  visible  signs  that  their  enchantments 

e  indeed  taking  effect,  and  would  inspire  them  with  a  cheerful 
a11  was nwfl  with  a  world  which  they  could  thus  mould 
° m  Ihelr  Wlsbf-  0nIy  m  autumn  days,  as  summer  slowly  faded 
would  their  confidence  again  be  dashed  by  doubts  and  misgivings  at 

ymptoms  of  decay,  which  told  how  vain  were  all  their  efforts  to  stave 
off  for  ever  the  approach  of  winter  and  of  death. 


324 


THE  MYTH  OF  ADONIS 


CII. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 


THE  MYTH  OF  ADONIS 


The  spectacle  of  the  great  changes  which  annually  pass  over  e 
face  of  the  earth  has  powerfully  impressed  the  minds  of  men  m  a 
aces  and  stirred  them  to  meditate  on  the  causes  of  transformations 
so  vast  and  wonderful.  Their  curiosity  has  not  been  purely  dis¬ 
interested  ;  for  even  the  savage  cannot  fail  to  perceive  how  intimate  y 
his  own  life  is  bound  up  with  the  life  of  nature,  and  how  the  same 
processes  which  freeze  the  stream  and  strip  the  earth  of  vegetation 
menace  him  with  extinction.  At  a  certain  stage  of  development 
men  seem  to  have  imagined’ that  the  means  of  averting  the  threatened 
calamity  were  in  their  own  hands,  and  that  they  could  hasten  or 
retard  the  flight  of  the  seasons  by  magic  art.  Accordingly  they  per¬ 
formed  ceremonies  and  recited  spells  to  make  the  ram  to  fall,  the  sun 
to  shine,  animals  to  multiply,  and  the  fruits  of  the  earth  to  grow.  n 
course  of  time  the  slow  advance  of  knowledge,  which  has  dispelled 
so  many  cherished  illusions,  convinced  at  least  the  more  thoughtful 
portion  of  mankind  that  the  alternations  of  summer  and  winter,  of 
spring  and  autumn,  were  not  merely  the  result  of  their  own  magical 
rites  but  that  some  deeper  cause,  some  mightier  power,  was  at  work 
behind  the  shifting  scenes  of  nature.  They  now  pictured  to  themselves 
the  growth  and  decay  of  vegetation,  the  birth  and  death  of  living 
creatures,  as  effects  of  the  waxing  or  waning  strength  of  divine  beings 
of  gods  and  goddesses,  who  were  born  and  died,  who  married  and 

begot  children,  on  the  pattern  of  human  life. 

Thus  the  old  magical  theory  of  the  seasons  was  displaced,  or  rather 
supplemented,  by  a  religious  theory.  For  although  men  now  attributed 
the  annual  cycle  of  change  primarily  to  corresponding  changes  m  their 
deities,  they  still  thought  that  by  performing  certain  magical  rites 
they  could  aid  the  god,  who  was  the  principle  of  life,  m  his  struggle 
with  the  opposing  principle  of  death.  They  imagined  that  they  could 
recruit  his  failing  energies  and  even  raise  him  from  the  dead,  Ine; 
ceremonies  which  they  observed  for  this  purpose  were  m  substance  a 
dramatic  representation  of  the  natural  processes  which  they  wished  to 
facilitate  ;  for  it  is  a  familiar  tenet  of  magic  that  you  can  produce  any 
desired  effect  by  merely  imitating  it..  And  as  they  now  explained 
the  fluctuations  of  growth  and  decay,  of  reproduction  and  dissolution, 
by  the  marriage,  the  death,  and  the  rebirth  or  revival  of  the  gods, 
their  religious  or  rather  magical  dramas  turned  in  great  measure  on 
these  themes.  They  set  forth  the  fruitful  union  of  the  powers  oi 
fertility  the  sad  death  of  one  at  least  of  the  divine  partners,  and  his 
joyful  resurrection.  Thus  a  religious  theory  was  blended  with  a 
magical  practice.  The  combination  is  familiar  in  history.  Indeed, 
few  religions  have  ever  succeeded  in  wholly  extiicating  themse  ve~ 
from  the  old  trammels  of  magic.  The  inconsistency  of  acting  on  two 


XXIX 


THE  MYTH  OF  ADONIS  325 

opposite  principles,  however  it  may  vex  the  soul  of  the  philosopher, 
raiel^  troubles  the  common  man  *  indeed  he  is  seldom  even  aware 
of  it.  .  His  affair  is  to  act,  not  to  analyse  the  motives  of  his  action.  If 
mankind  had  always  been  logical  and  wise,  history  would  not  be  a  long 
chronicle  of  folly  and  crime. 

Of  the  changes  which  the  seasons  bring  with  them,  the  most  striking 
within  the  temperate  zone  are  those  which  affect  vegetation.  The 
influence  of  the  seasons  on  animals,  though  great,  is  not  nearlv  so 
manifest.  Hence  it  is  natural  that  in  the  magical  dramas  designed 
to  dispel  winter  and  bring  back  spring  the  emphasis  should  be  laid 
on  vegetation,  and  that  trees  and  plants  should  figure  in  them  more 
prominently  than  beasts  and  birds.  Yet  the  two  sides  of  life,  the 
vegetable  and  the  animal,  were  not  dissociated  in  the  minds  of  those 
who  observed  the  ceremonies.  Indeed  they  commonly  believed  that 
the  tie  between  the  animal  and  the  vegetable  world  was  even  closer 
than  it  really  is  ;  hence  they  often  combined  the  dramatic  representa¬ 
tion  of  reviving  plants  with  a  real  or  a  dramatic  union  of  the  sexes 
for  the  purpose  of  furthering  at  the  same  time  and  by  the  same  act 
the  multiplication  of  fruits,  of  animals,  and  of  men.  To  them  the 
principle  of  life  and  fertility,  whether  animal  or  vegetable,  was  one 
and  indivisible.  To  live  and  to  cause  to  live,  to  eat  food  and  to  beget 
children,  these  were  the  primary  wants  of  men  in  the  past,  and  they 
will  be  the  primary  wants  of  men  in  the  future  so  long  as  the  world 
lasts.  Other  things  may  be  added  to  enrich  and  beautify  human 
life,  but  unless  these  wants  are  first  satisfied,  humanity  itself  must 
cease  to  exist.  These  two  things,  therefore,  food  and  children,  were 
what  men  chiefly  sought  to  procure  by  the  performance  of  magical 
rites  for  the  regulation  of  the  seasons. 

Nowhere,  apparently,  have  these  rites  been  more  widely  and 
!  solemnly  celebrated  than  in  the  lands  which  border  the  eastern 
Mediterranean.  Under  the  names  of  Osiris,  Tammuz,  Adonis,  and 
Attis,  the  peoples  of  Egypt  and  Western  Asia  represented  the  yearly 
decay  and  revival  of  life,  especially  of  vegetable  life,  which  they 
personified  as  a  god  who  annually  died  and  rose  again  from  the  dead. 
In  name  and  detail  the  rites  varied  from  place  to  place  :  in  substance 
they  were  the  same.  The  supposed  death  and  resurrection  of  this 
oriental  deity,  a  god  of  many  names  but  of  essentially  one  nature,  is 
now  to  be  examined.  We  begin  with  Tammuz  or  Adonis. 

The  worship  of  Adonis  was  practised  by  the  Semitic  peoples  of 
Babylonia  and  Syria,  and  the  Greeks  borrowed  it  from  them  as  early 
as  the  seventh  century  before  Christ.  The  true  name  of  the  deity 
was  Tammuz  :  the  appellation  of  Adonis  is  merely  the  Semitic  A  don, 
lord,”  a  title  of  honour  by  which  his  worshippers  addressed  him.  But 
the  Greeks  through  a  misunderstanding  converted  the  title  of  honour 
mto  a  proper  name.  In  the  religious  literature  of  Babylonia  Tammuz 
appears  as  the  youthful  spouse  or  lover  of  Ishtar,  the  great  mother 
goddess,  the  embodiment  of  the  reproductive  energies  of  nature.  The 
references  to  their  connexion  with  each  other  in  myth  and  ritual  are 


THE  MYTH  OF  ADONIS 


CH. 


326 


both  fragmentary  and  obscure,  but  we  gather  from  them  that  every 
year  Tammuz  was  believed  to  die,  passing  away  from  the  cheerful  earth 
to  the  gloomy  subterranean  world,  and  that  every  year  his  divine 
mistress  journeyed  in  quest  of  him  “  to  the  land  from  which  there  is 
no  returning,  to  the  house  of  darkness,  where  dust  lies  on  door  and 
bolt.”  During  her  absence  the  passion  of  love  ceased  to  operate : 
men  and  beasts  alike  forgot  to  reproduce  their  kinds  :  all  life  was 
threatened  with  extinction.  So  intimately  bound  up  with  the  goddess 
were  the  sexual  functions  of  the  whole  animal  kingdom  that  without 
her  presence  they  could  not  be  discharged.  A  messenger  of  the  great 
god  Ea  was  accordingly  despatched  to  rescue  the  goddess  on  whom 
so  much  depended.  The  stern  queen  of  the  infernal  regions,  Allatu 
or  Eresh-Kigal  by  name,  reluctantly  allowed  Ishtar  to  be  sprinkled 
with  the  Water  of  Life  and  to  depart,  in  company  probably  with  her 
lover  Tammuz,  that  the  two  might  return  together  to  the  upper  world, 
and  that  with  their  return  all  nature  might  revive. 

Laments  for  the  departed  Tammuz  are  contained  in  several  Baby¬ 
lonian  hymns,  which  liken  him  to  plants  that  quickly  fade.  He  is 

“  A  tamarisk  that  in  the  garden  has  drunk  no  water, 

Whose  crown  in  the  field  has  brought  forth  no  blossom. 

A  willow  that  rejoiced  not  by  the  watercourse, 

A  willow  whose  roots  were  torn  up. 

A  herb  that  in  the  garden  had  drunk  no  water." 

His  death  appears  to  have  been  annually  mourned,  to  the  shrill  music 
of  flutes,  by  men  and  women  about  midsummer  in  the  month  named 
after  him,  the  month  of  Tammuz.  The  dirges  were  seemingly  chanted 
over  an  effigy  of  the  dead  god,  which  was  washed  with  pure  water, 
anointed  with  oil,  and  clad  in  a  red  robe,  while  the  fumes  of  incense 
rose  into  the  air,  as  if  to  stir  his  dormant  senses  by  their  pungent 
fragrance  and  wake  him  from  the  sleep  of  death.  In  one  of  these 
dirges,  inscribed  Lament  of  the  Flutes  for  Tammuz,  we  seem  still  to 
hear  the  voices  of  the  singers  chanting  the  sad  refrain  and  to  catch, 
like  far-away  music,  the  wailing  notes  of  the  flutes  : 


“  At  his  vanishing  away  she  lifts  up  a  lament, 

*  Oh  my  child  !  ’  at  his  vanishing  away  she  lifts  up  a  lament ; 

*  My  Damu  !  '  at  his  vanishing  away  she  lifts  up  a  lament. 

‘  My  enchanter  and  priest  !  ’  at  his  vanishing  away  she  lifts  up  a  lament , 
At  the  shining  cedar,  rooted  in  a  spacious  place, 

In  Eanna,  above  and  below,  she  lifts  up  a  lament. 

Like  the  lament  that  a  house  lifts  up  for  its  master,  lifts  she  up  a  lament. 
Like  the  lament  that  a  city  lifts  up  for  its  lord,  lifts  she  up  a  lament. 

Her  lament  is  the  lament  for  a  herb  that  grows  not  in  the  bed, 

Her  lament  is  the  lament  for  the  corn  that  grows  not  in  the  ear. 

Her  chamber  is  a  possession  that  brings  not  forth  a  possession, 

A  weary  woman,  a  weary  child,  forspent. 

Her  lament  is  for  a  great  river,  where  no  willows  grow, 

Her  lament  is  for  a  field,  where  corn  and  herbs  grow  not. 

Her  lament  is  for  a  pool,  where  fishes  grow  not. 

Her  lament  is  for  a  thicket  of  reeds,  where  no  reeds  grow. 


XXX 


ADONIS  IN  SYRIA  327 

Her  lament  is  for  woods,  where  tamarisks  grow  not. 

Her  lament  is  for  a  wilderness  where  no  cypresses  (?)  grow. 

Her  lament  is  for  the  depth  of  a  garden  of  trees,  where  honey  and  wine  grow  not. 

Her  lament  is  for  meadows,  where  no  plants  grow. 

Her  lament  is  for  a  palace,  where  length  of  life  grows  not.” 

The  tragical  story  and  the  melancholy  rites  of  Adonis  are  better 
known  to  us  fiom  the  descriptions  of  Greek  writers  than  from  the 
fragments  of  Babylonian  literature  or  the  brief  reference  of  the  prophet 
Ezekiel,  who  saw  the  women  of  Jerusalem  weeping  for  Tammuz  at 
the  north  gate  of  the  temple.  Mirrored  in  the  glass  of  Greek  mytho¬ 
logy,  the  oriental  deity  appears  as  a  comely  youth  beloved  by  Aphrodite. 
In  his  infancy  the  goddess  hid  him  in  a  chest,  which  she  gave  in  charge 
to  Persephone,  queen  of  the  nether  world.  But  when  Persephone 
opened  the  chest  and  beheld  the  beauty  of  the  babe,  she  refused  to 
give  him  back  to  Aphrodite,  though  the  goddess  of  love  went  down 
herself  to  hell  to  ransom  her  dear  one  from  the  power  of  the  grave. 
The  dispute  between  the  two  goddesses  of  love  and  death  was  settled 
by  Zeus,  who  decreed  that  Adonis  should  abide  with  Persephone  in 
the  under  world  for  one  part  of  the  year,  and  with  Aphrodite  in  the 
upper  world  for  another  part.  At  last  the  fair  youth  was  killed  in 
hunting  by  a  wild  boar,  or  by  the  jealous  Ares,  who  turned  himself 
into  the  likeness  of  a  boar  in  order  to  compass  the  death  of  his  rival. 
Bitterly  did  Aphrodite  lament  her  loved  and  lost  Adonis.  In  this 
form  of  the  myth,  the  contest  between  Aphrodite  and  Persephone 
for  the  possession  of  Adonis  clearly  reflects  the  struggle  between 
Ishtar  and  Allatu  in  the  land  of  the  dead,  while  the  decision  of  Zeus 
that  Adonis  is  to  spend  one  part  of  the  year  under  ground  and  another 
part  above  ground  is  merely  a  Greek  version  of  the  annual  disappear¬ 
ance  and  reappearance  of  Tammuz. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

ADONIS  IN  SYRIA 

The  myth  of  Adonis  was  localised  and  his  rites  celebrated  with  much 
solemnity  at  two  places  in  Western  Asia.  One  of  these  was  Byblus 
on  the  coast  of  Syria,  the  other  was  Paphos  in  Cyprus.  Both  were 
great  seats  of  the  worship  of  Aphrodite,  or  rather  of  her  Semitic 
counterpart,  Astarte  ;  and  of  both,  if  we  accept  the  legends,  Cinyras, 
the  father  of  Adonis,  was  king.  Of  the  two  cities  Byblus  was  the 
more  ancient ;  indeed  it  claimed  to  be  the  oldest  city  in  Phoenicia, 
and  to  have  been  founded  in  the  early  ages  of  the  world  by  the  great 
•god  El,  whom  Greeks  and  Romans  identified  with  Cronus  and  Saturn 
respectively.  However  that  may  have  been,  in  historical  times  it 
ranked  as  a  holy  place,  the  religious  capital  of  the  country,  the  Mecca 
or  Jerusalem  of  the  Phoenicians.  The  city  stood  on  a  height  beside 


ADONIS  IN  SYRIA 


328  ADONIS  IN  SYRIA  ch. 

the  sea,  and  contained  a  great  sanctuary  of  Astarte,  where  in  the 
midst  of  a  spacious  open  court,  surrounded  by  cloisters  and  approached 
from  below  by  staircases,  rose  a  tall  cone  or  obelisk,  the  holy  image 
of  the  goddess.  In  this  sanctuary  the  rites  of  Adonis  were  celebrated. 
Indeed  the  whole  city  was  sacred  to  him,  and  the  River  Nahr  Ibrahim, 
which  falls  into  the  sea  a  little  to  the  south  of  Byblus,  bore  in  antiquity 
the  name  of  Adonis.  This  was  the  kingdom  of  Cinyras.  From  the 
earliest  to  the  latest  times  the  city  appears  to  have  been  ruled  by 
kings,  assisted  perhaps  by  a  senate  or  council  of  elders. 

The  last  king  of  Byblus  bore  the  ancient  name  of  Cinyras,  and 
was  beheaded  by  Pompey  the  Great  for  his  tyrannous  excesses.  His 
legendary  namesake  Cinyras  is  said  to  have  founded  a  sanctuary  of 
Aphrodite,  that  is,  of  Astarte,  at  a  place  on  Mount  Lebanon,  distant 
a  day’s  journey  from  the  capital.  The  spot  was  probably  Aphaca, 
at  the  source  of  the  River  Adonis,  half-way  between  Byblus  and  Baal- 
bec  ;  for  at  Aphaca  there  was  a  famous  grove  and  sanctuary  of  Astarte 
which  Constantine  destroyed  on  account  of  the  flagitious  character 
of  the  worship.  The  site  of  the  temple  has  been  discovered  by  modern 
travellers  near  the  miserable  village  which  still  bears  the  name  of 
Afka  at  the  head  of  the  wild,  romantic,  wooded  gorge  of  the  Adonis. 
The  hamlet  stands  among  groves  of  noble  walnut-trees  on  the  brink 
of  the  lyn.  A  little  way  off  the  river  rushes  from  a  cavern  at  the  foot 
of  a  mighty  amphitheatre  of  towering  cliffs  to  plunge  in  a  series  of 
cascades  into  the  awful  depths  of  the  glen.  The  deeper  it  descends, 
the  ranker  and  denser  grows  the  vegetation,  which,  sprouting  from 
the  crannies  and  fissures  of  the  rocks,  spreads  a  green  veil  over  the 
roaring  or  murmuring  stream  in  the  tremendous  chasm  below.  There 
is  something  delicious,  almost  intoxicating,  in  the  freshness  of  these 
tumbling  waters,  in  the  sweetness  and  purity  of  the  mountain  air,  in 
the  vivid  green  of  the  vegetation.  The  temple,  of  which  some  massive 
hewn  blocks  and  a  fine  column  of  Syenite  granite  still  mark  the  site, 
occupied  a  terrace  facing  the  source  of  the  river  and  commanding  a 
magnificent  prospect.  Across  the  foam  and  the  roar  of  the  waterfalls 
you  look  up  to  the  cavern  and  away  to  the  top  of  the  sublime  precipices 
above.  So  lofty  is  the  cliff  that  the  goats  which  creep  along  its  ledges 
to  browse  on  the  bushes  appear  like  ants  to  the  spectator  hundreds 
of  feet  below.  Seaward  the  view  is  especially  impressive  wdien  the 
sun  floods  the  profound  gorge  with  golden  light,  revealing  all  the 
fantastic  buttresses  and  rounded  towers  of  its  mountain  rampart,  and 
falling  softly  on  the  varied  green  of  the  woods  which  clothe  its  depths. 
It  was  here  that,  according  to  the  legend,  Adonis  met  Aphrodite  for 
the  first  or  the  last  time,  and  here  his  mangled  body  was  buried.  A 
fairer  scene  could  hardly  be  imagined  for  a  story  of  tragic  love  and 
death.  Yet,  sequestered  as  the  valley  is  and  must  always  have  been, 
it  is  not  wholly  deserted.  A  convent  or  a  village  may  be  observed 
here  and  there  standing  out  against  the  sky  on  the  top  of  some  beetling 
crag,  or  clinging  to  the  face  of  a  nearly  perpendicular  cliff  high  above 
the  foam  and  the  din  of  the  river  ;  and  at  evening  the  lights  that 


XXXI 


ADONIS  IN  CYPRUS 


329 


twinkle  through  the  gloom  betray  the  presence  of  human  habitations 
on  slopes  which  might  seem  inaccessible  to  man.  In  antiquity  the 
whole  of  the  lovely  vale  appears  to  have  been  dedicated  to  Adonis, 
and  to  this  day  it  is  haunted  by  his  memory  ;  for  the  heights  which 
shut  it  in  are  crested  at  various  points  by  ruined  monuments  of  his 
worship,  some  of  them  overhanging  dreadful  abysses,  down  which  it 
turns  the  head  dizzy  to  look  and  see  the  eagles  wheeling  about  their 
nests  far  below.  One  such  monument  exists  at  Ghineh.  The  face 
of  a  great  rock,  above  a  roughly  hewn  recess,  is  here  carved  with 
figures  of  Adonis  and  Aphrodite.  He  is  portrayed  with  spear  in  rest, 
awaiting  the  attack  of  a  bear,  while  she  is  seated  in  an  attitude  of 
sorrow.  Her  grief-stricken  figure  may  well  be  the  mourning  Aphro¬ 
dite  of  the  Lebanon  described  by  Macrobius,  and  the  recess  in  the 
rock  is  perhaps  her  lover's  tomb.  Every  year,  in  the  belief  of  his 
worshippers,  Adonis  was  wounded  to  death  on  the  mountains,  and 
every  year  the  face  of  nature  itself  was  dyed  with  his  sacred  blood. 
So  year  by  year  the  Syrian  damsels  lamented  his  untimely  fate,  while 
the  red  anemone,  his  flower,  bloomed  among  the  cedars  of  Lebanon, 
and  the  river  ran  red  to  the  sea,  fringing  the  winding  shores  of  the 
blue  Mediterranean,  whenever  the  wind  set  inshore,  with  a  sinuous 
band  of  crimson. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

ADONIS  IN  CYPRUS 

The  island  of  Cyprus  lies  but  one  day’s  sail  from  the  coast  of  Syria. 
Indeed,  on  fine  summer  evenings  its  mountains  may  be  descried  loom¬ 
ing  low  and  dark  against  the  red  fires  of  sunset.  With  its  rich  mines 
of  copper  and  its  forests  of  firs  and  stately  cedars,  the  island  naturally 
attracted  a  commercial  and  maritime  people  like  the  Phoenicians  * 
while  the  abundance  of  its  corn,  its  wine,  and  its  oil  must  have  rendered 
it  in  their  eyes  a  Land  of  Promise  by  comparison  with  the  niggardly 
nature  of  their  own  rugged  coast,  hemmed  in  between  the  mountains 
and  the  sea.  Accordingly  they  settled  in  Cyprus  at  a -very  early  date 
and  remained  there  long  after  the  Greeks  had  also  established  them¬ 
selves  on  its  shores  ;  for  we  know  from  inscriptions  and  coins  that 
Phoenician  kings  reigned  at  Citium,  the  Chittim  of  the  Hebrews,  down 
to  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great.  Naturally  the  Semitic  colonists 
brought  their  gods  with  them  from  the  mother-land.  They  worshipped 
Baal  of  the  Lebanon,  who  may  well  have  been  Adonis,  and  at  Amathus 
on  the  south  coast  they  instituted  the  rites  of  Adonis  and  Aphrodite, 
or  rather  Astarte.  Here,  as  at  Byblus,  these  rites  resembled  the 
-Egyptian  worship  of  Osiris  so  closely  that  some  people  even  identified 
the  Adonis  of  Amathus  with  Osiris. 

But  the  great  seat  of  the  worship  of  Aphrodite  and  Adonis  in 
Cyprus  was  Paphos  on  the  south-western  side  of  the  island.  Among 


330 


ADONIS  IN  CYPRUS 


CH. 


the  petty  kingdoms  into  which  Cyprus  was  divided  from  the  earliest 
times  until  the  end  of  the  fourth  century  before  our  era  Paphos  must 
have  ranked  with  the  best.  It  is  a  land  of  hills  and  billowy  ridges, 
diversified  by  fields  and  vineyards  and  intersected  by  rivers,  which  in 
the  course  of  ages  have  carved  for  themselves  beds  of  such  tremendous 
depth  that  travelling  in  the  interior  is  difficult  and  tedious.  The  lofty 
range  of  Mount  Olympus  (the  modem  Troodos),  capped  with  snow 
the  greater  part  of  the  year,  screens  Paphos  from  the  northerly  and 
easterly  winds  and  cuts  it  off  from  the  rest  of  the  island.  On  the 
slopes  of  the  range  the  last  pine-woods  of  Cyprus  linger,  sheltering 
here  and  there  monasteries  in  scenery  not  unworthy  of  the  Apennines. 
The  old  city  of  Paphos  occupied  the  summit  of  a  hill  about  a  mile 
from  the  sea  )  the  newer  city  sprang  up  at  the  harbour  some  ten 
miles  off.  The  sanctuary  of  Aphrodite  at  Old  Paphos  (the  modem 
Kuklia)  was  one  of  the  most  celebrated  shrines  in  the  ancient  world. 
According  to  Herodotus,  it  was  founded  by  Phoenician  colonists  from 
Ascalon  ;  but  it  is  possible  that  a  native  goddess  of  fertility  was 
worshipped  on  the  spot  before  the  arrival  of  the  Phoenicians,  and  that 
the  newcomers  identified  her  with  their  own  Baalath  or  Astarte,  whom 
she  may  have  closely  resembled.  If  two  deities  were  thus  fused  in 
one,  we  may  suppose  that  they  were  both  varieties  of  that  great  goddess 
of  motherhood  and  fertility  whose  worship  appears  to  have  been  spiead 
all  r  rn~  V TT  T  'i' niTT—r-vory  ^  tjynp  ~  Tl  m  si  I  ^position  is  con¬ 

firmed  as  well  by  the  archaic  shape  of  her  image  as  by  the  licentious 
character  of  her  rites  ;  for  both  that  shape  and  those  rites  were  shared 
by  her  with  other  Asiatic  deities.  Her  image  was  simply  a  white  cone 
or  pyramid.  In  like  manner,  a  cone  was  the  emblem  of  Astarte  at 
Byblus,  of  the  native  goddess  whom  the  Greeks  called  Artemis  at 
Perga  in  Pamphylia,  and  of  the  sun-god  Heliogabalus  at  Emesa  in 
Syria.  Conical  stones,  which  apparently  served  as  idols,  have  also 
been  found  at  Golgi  in  Cyprus,  and  in  the  Phoenician  temples  of  Malta  ; 
and  cones  of  sandstone  came  to  light  at  the  shrine  of  the  “  Mistress  of 
Torquoise  ”  among  the  barren  hills  and  frowning  precipices  of  Sinai. 

In  Cyprus  it  appears  that  before  marriage  all  women  were  formerly 
obliged  by  custom  to  prostitute  themselves  to  strangers  at  the  sanctuary 
of  the  goddess/ whether  she  went  by  the  name  of  Aphrodite,  Astarte, 
or  what  not.  Similar  customs  prevailed  in  many  parts  of  Western 
Asia.  Whatever  its  motive,  the  practice  was  clearly  regarded,  not  as 
an  orgy  of  lust,  but  as  a  solemn  religious  duty  performed  in  the  service 
of  that  great  Mother  Goddess  of  Western  Asia  whose  name  varied, 
while  her  type  remained  constant,  irom  place  to  place.  Thus  at 
Babylon  every  woman,  whether  rich  or  poor,  had  once  in  her  life  to 
submit  to  the  embraces  of  a  stranger  at  the  temple  of  Mylitta,  that 
is,  of  Ishtar  or  Astarte,  and  to  dedicate  to  the  goddess  the  wages  earned 
by  this  sanctified  harlotry.  The  sacred  precinct  was  crowded  with 
women  waiting  to  observe  the  custom.  Some  of  them  had  to  wait 
there  for  years.  At  Heliopolis  or  Baalbec  in  Syria,  famous  for  the 
imposing  grandeur  of  its  ruined  temples,  the  custom  of  the  country 


XXXI  ADONIS  IN  CYPRUS 


33i 


required  that  every  maiden  should  prostitute  herself  to  a  stranger  at 
the  temple  of  Astarte,  and  matrons  as  well  as  maids  testified  their 
devotion  to  the  goddess  in  the  same  manner.  The  emperor  Constantine 
abolished  the  custom,  destroyed  the  temple,  and  built  a  church  in  its 
stead.  In  Phoenician  temples  women  prostituted  themselves  for  hire 
in  the  service  of  religion,  believing  that  by  this  conduct  they  pro¬ 
pitiated  the  goddess  and  won  her  favour.  “  It  was  a  law  of  the 
Amorites,  that  she  who  was  about  to  marry  should  sit  in  fornication 
seven  days  by  the  gate.  At  Byblus  the  people  shaved  their  heads 
in  the  annual  mourning  for  Adonis.  Women  who  refused  to  sacrifice 
their  hair  had  to  give  themselves  up  to  strangers  on  a  certain  day  of 
the  festival,  and  the  money  which  they  thus  earned  was  devoted  to  the 
goddess.  A  Greek  inscription  found  at  Tralles  in  Lydia  proves  that 
the  practice  of  religious  prostitution  survived  in  that  country  as  late 
as  the  second  century  of  our  era.  It  records  of  a  certain  woman, 
Aurelia  Aemilia  by  name,  not  only  that  she  herself  served  the  god  in 
the  capacity  of  a  harlot  at  his  express  command,  but  that  her  mother 
and  other  female  ancestors  had  done  the  same  before  her  ;  and  the 
publicity  of  the  record,  engraved  on  a  marble  column  which  supported 
a  votive  offering,  shows. that  no  stain  attached  to  such  a  life  and  such 
a  parentage.  In  Armenia  the  noblest  families  dedicated  their  daughters 
to  the  service  of  the  goddess  Anaitis  in  her  temple  at  Acilisena,  where 
the  damsels  acted  as  prostitutes  for  a  long  time  before  they  were  given 
in  marriage.  Nobody  scrupled  to  take  one  of  these  girls  to  wife  when 
her  period  of  service  was  over.  Again,  the  goddess  Ma  was  served  by 
a  multitude  of  sacred  harlots  at  Comana  in  Pontus,  and  crowds  of  men 
and  women  flocked  to  her  sanctuary  from  the  neighbouring  cities  and 
country  to  attend  the  biennial  festivals  or  to  pay  their  vows  to  the 
goddess. 

If  we  survey  the  whole  of  the  evidence  on  this  subject,  some  of 
which  has  still  to  be  laid  before  the  reader,  we  may  conclude  that  a 
great  Mother  Goddess,  the  personification  of  all  the  reproductive 
energies  of  nature,  was  worshipped  under  different  names  but  with  a 
substantial  similarity  of  myth  and  ritual  by  many  peoples  of  Western 
Asia ,  that  associated  with  her  was  a  lover,  or  rather  series  of  lovers, 
divine  yet  mortal,  with  whom  she  mated  year  by  year,  their  commerce 
being  deemed  essential  to  the  propagation  of  animals  and  plants,  each 
in  their  several  kind ;  and  further,  that  the  fabulous  union  of  the 
divine  pair  was  simulated  and,  as  it  were,  multiplied  on  earth  by  the 
real,  though  temporary,  union  of  the  human  sexes  at  the  sanctuary  of 
the  goddess  for  the  sake  of  thereby  ensuring  the  fruitfulness  of  the 
ground  and  the  increase  of  man  and  beast. 

.  At  Paphos  the  custom  of  religious  prostitution  is  said  to  have  been 
instituted  by  King  Cinyras,  and  to  have  been  practised  by  his  daughters, 
the  sisters  of  Adonis,  who,  having  incurred  the  wrath  of  Aphrodite, 
mated  with  strangers  and  ended  their  days  in  Egypt.  In  this  form  of 
the  tradition  the  wrath  of  Aphrodite  is  probably  a  feature  added  by 
a  later  authority,  who  could  only  regard  conduct  which  shocked  his 


332  ADONIS  IN  CYPRUS  CH. 

own  moral  sense  as  a  punishment  inflicted  by  the  goddess  instead  of 
as  a  sacrifice  regularly  enjoined  by  her  on  all  her  devotees.  At  all 
events  the  story  indicates  that  the  princesses  of  Paphos  had  to  coniorm 
to  the  custom  as  well  as  women  of  humble  birth. 

Among  the  stories  which  were  told  of  Cinyras,  the  ancestor  of  the 
priestly  kings  of  Paphos  and  the  father  of  Adonis,  there  are  some  that 
deserve  our  attention.  In  the  first  place,  he  is  said  to  have  begotten 
his  son  Adonis  in  incestuous  intercourse  with  his  daughter  Myrrha  at  a 
festival  of  the  corn-goddess,  at  which  women  robed  in  white  were  wont 
to  offer  corn-wreaths  as  first-fruits  of  the  harvest  and  to  observe  strict 
chastity  for  nine  days.  Similar  cases  of  incest  with  a  daughter  are 
reported  of  many  ancient  kings.  It  seems  unlikely  that  such  reports 
are  without  foundation,  and  perhaps  equally  improbable  that  they 
refer  to  mere  fortuitous  outbursts  of  unnatural  lust.  We  may  suspect 
that  they  are  based  on  a  practice  actually  observed  for  a  definite  reason 
in  certain  special  circumstances.  Now  in  countries  where  the  royal 
blood  was  traced  through  women  only,  and  where  consequently  the 
king  held  office  merely  in  virtue  of  his  marriage  with  an  hereditary 
princess,  who  was  the  real  sovereign,  it  appears  to  have  often  happened 
that  a  prince  married  his  own  sister,  the  princess  royal,  in  order  to 
obtain  with  her  hand  the  crown  which  otherwise  would  have  gone  to 
another  man,  perhaps  to  a  stranger.  May  not  the  same  rule  of  descent 
have  furnished  a  motive  for  incest  with  a  daughter  ?  For  it  seems  a 
natural  corollary  from  such  a  rule  that  the  king  was  bound  to  vacate 
the  throne  on  the  death  of  his  wife,  the  queen,  since  he  occupied  it 
only  by  virtue  of  his  marriage  with  her.  When  that  marriage  termin¬ 
ated,  his  right  to  the  throne  terminated  with  it  and  passed  at  once  to 
his  daughter’s  husband.  Hence  if  the  king  desired  to  reign  after  his 
wife’s  death,  the  only  way  in  which  he  could  legitimately  continue  to 
do  so  was  by  marrying  his  daughter,  and  thus  prolonging  through  her 
the  title  which  had  formerly  been  his  through  her  mother. 

Cinyras  is  said  to  have  been  famed  for  his  exquisite  beauty  and  to 
have  been  wooed  by  Aphrodite  herself.  Thus  it  would  appear,  as 
scholars  have  already  observed,  that  Cinyras  was  in  a  sense  a  duplicate 
of  his  handsome  son  Adonis,  to  whom  the  inflammable  goddess  also 
lost  her  heart.  Further,  these  stories  of  the  love  of  Aphrodite  for 
two  members  of  the  royal  house  of  Paphos  can  hardly  be  dissociate 
from  the  corresponding  legend  told  of  Pygmalion,  a  Phoenician  king 
of  Cyprus,  who  is  said  to  have  fallen  in  love  with  an  image  of  Aphrodite 
and  taken  it  to  his  bed.  When  we  consider  that  Pygmalion  was  the 
father-in-law  of  Cinyras,  that  the  son  of  Cinyras  was  Adonis,  and  that 
all  three,  in  successive  generations,  are  said  to  have  been  concerned 
in  a  love-intrigue  with  Aphrodite,  we  can  hardly  help  concluding  that 
the  early  Phoenician  kings  of  Paphos,  or  their  sons,  regularly  claimed 
to  be  not  merely  the  priests  of  the  goddess  but  also  her  lovers,  in  other 
words,  that  in  their  official  capacity  they  personated  Adonis.  At  a 
events  Adonis  is  said  to  have  reigned  in  Cyprus,  and  it  appears  to  be 
certain  that  the  title  of  Adonis  was  regularly  borne  by  the  sons  of  all 


XXXI  ADONIS  IN  CYPRUS  333 

the  Phoenician  kings  of  the  island.  It  is  true  that  the  title  strictly 
signified  no  more  than  “  lord  ”  ;  yet  the  legends  which  connect  these 
Cyprian  princes  with  the  goddess  of  love  make  it  probable  that  they 
claimed  the  divine  nature  as  well  as  the  human  dignity  of  Adonis. 
The  story  of  Pygmalion  points  to  a  ceremony  of  a  sacred  marriage 
in  which  the  king  wedded  the  image  of  Aphrodite,  or  rather  of  Astarte. 
If  that  was  so,  the  tale  was  in  a  sense  true,  not  of  a  single  man  only, 
but  of  a  whole  series  of  men,  and  it  would  be  all  the  more  likely  to  be 
told  of  Pygmalion,  if  that  was  a  common  name  of  Semitic  kings  in 
general,  and  of  Cyprian  kings  in  particular.  Pygmalion,  at  all  events, 
is  known  as  the  name  of  the  famous  king  of  Tyre  from  whom  his  sister 
Dido  fled  ;  and  a  king  of  Citium  and  Idalium  in  Cyprus,  who  reigned 
in  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great,  was  also  called  Pygmalion,  or 
rather  Pumiyathon,  the  Phoenician  name  which  the  Greeks  corrupted 
into  Pygmalion.  Further,  it  deserves  to  be  noted  that  the  names 
Pygmalion  and  Astarte  occur  together  in  a  Punic  inscription  on  a 
gold  medallion  which  was  found  in  a  grave  at  Carthage  ;  the  characters 
of  the  inscription  are  of  the  earliest  type.  As  the  custom  of  religious 
prostitution  at  Paphos  is  said  to  have  been  founded  by  King  Cinyras 
and  observed  by  his  daughters,  we  may  surmise  that  the  kings  of 
Paphos  played  the  part  of  the  divine  bridegroom  in  a  less  innocent 
rite  than  the  form  of  marriage  with  a  statue  ;  in  fact,  that  at  certain 
festivals  each  of  them  had  to  mate  with  one  or  more  of  the  sacred 
harlots  of  the  temple,  who  played  Astarte  to  his  Adonis.  If  that  was 
so,  there  is  more  truth  than  has  commonly  been  supposed  in  the 
reproach  cast  by  the  Christian  fathers  that  the  Aphrodite  worshipped 
by  Cinyras  was  a  common  whore.  The  fruit  of  their  union  would 
rank  as  sons  and  daughters  of  the  deity,  and  would  in  time  become 
the  parents  of  gods  and  goddesses,  like  their  fathers  and  mothers 
before  them.  _  In  this  manner  Paphos,  and  perhaps  all  sanctuaries  of 
the  great  Asiatic  goddess  where  sacred  prostitution  was  practised, 
might  be  well  stocked  with  human  deities,  the  offspring  of  the  divine 
king  by  his  wives,  concubines,  and  temple  harlots.  Any  one  of  these 
might  probably  succeed  his  father  on  the  throne  or  be  sacrificed  in  his 
stead  whenever  stress  of  war  or  other  grave  junctures  called,  as  they 
sometimes  did,  for  the  death  of  a  royal  victim.  Such  a  tax,  levied 
occasionally  on  the  king’s  numerous  progeny  for  the  good  of  the 
country,  would  neither  extinguish  the  divine  stock  nor  break  the 
father’s  heart,  who  divided  his  paternal  affection  among  so  many. 
At  all  events,  if,  as  there  seems  reason  to  believe,  Semitic  kings  were 
often  regarded  at  the  same  time  as  hereditary  deities,  it  is  easy  to 
understand  the  frequency  of  Semitic  personal  names  which  imply 
that  the  bearers  of  them  were  the  sons  or  daughters,  the  brothers  or 
Asters,  the  fathers  or  mothers  of  a  god,  and  we  need  not  resort  to  the 
shifts  employed  by  some  scholars  to  evade  the  plain  sense  of  the 
words.  This  interpretation  is  confirmed  by  a  parallel  Egyptian  usage  ; 
for  in  Egypt,  where  the  kings  were  worshipped  as  divine,  the  queen 
was  called  “  the  wife  of  the  god  ”  or  "  the  mother  of  the  god,”  and 


334 


ADONIS  IN  CYPRUS 


CH. 


the  title  “  father  of  the  god  "  was  borne  not  only  by  the  king's  real 
father  but  also  by  his  father-in-law.  Similarly,  perhaps,  among  the 
Semites  any  man  who  sent  his  daughter  to  swell  the  royal  harem  may 
have  been  allowed  to  call  himself  “  the  father  of  the  god." 

If  we  may  judge  by  his  name,  the  Semitic  king  who  bore  the  name 
of  Cinyras  was,  like  King  David,  a  harper  ;  for  the  name  of  Cinyras 
is  clearly  connected  with  the  Greek  cinyra,  “  a  lyre,"  which  in  its  turn 
comes  from  the  Semitic  kinnor,  “  a  lyre,”  the  very  word  applied  to  the 
instrument  on  which  David  played  before  Saul.  We  shall  probably 
not  err  in  assuming  that  at  Paphos  as  at  Jerusalem  the  music  of  the 
lyre  or  harp  was  not  a  mere  pastime  designed  to  while  away  an  idle 
hour,  but  formed  part  of  the  service  of  religion,  the  moving  influence 
of  its  melodies  being  perhaps  set  down,  like  the  effect  of  wine,  to  the 
direct  inspiration  of  a  deity.  Certainly  at  Jerusalem  the  regular 
clergy  of  the  temple  prophesied  to  the  music  of  harps,  of  psalteries, 
and  of  cymbals  ;  and  it  appears  that  the  irregular  clergy  also,  as  we 
may  call  the  prophets,  depended  on  some  such  stimulus  for  inducing 
the  ecstatic  state  which  they  took  for  immediate  converse  with  the 
divinity.  Thus  we  read  of  a  band  of  prophets  coming  down  from  a 
high  place  with  a  psaltery,  a  timbrel,  a  pipe,  and  a  harp  before  them, 
and  prophesying  as  they  went.  Again,  when  the  united  forces  of 
Judah  and  Ephraim  were  traversing  the  wilderness  of  Moab  in  pursuit 
of  the  enemy,  they  could  find  no  water  for  three  days,  and  were  like 
to  die  of  thirst,  they  and  the  beasts  of  burden.  In  this  emergency 
the  prophet  Elisha,  who  was  with  the  army,  called  for  a  minstrel  and 
bade  him  play.  Under  the  influence  of  the  music  he  ordered  the 
soldiers  to  dig  trenches  in  the  sandy  bed  of  the  waterless  waddy  through 
which  lay  the  line  of  march.  They  did  so,  and  next  morning  the 
trenches  were  full  of  the  water  that  had  drained  down  into  them 
underground  from  the  desolate,  forbidding  mountains  on  either  hand. 
The  prophet’s  success  in  striking  water  in  the  wilderness  resembles  the 
reported  success  of  modern  dowsers,  though  his  mode  of  procedure  was 
different.  Incidentally  he  rendered  another  service  to  his  countrymen. 
For  the  skulking  Moabites  from  their  lairs  among  the  rocks  saw  the 
red  sun  of  the  desert  reflected  in  the  water,  and  taking  it  for  the  blood, 
or  perhaps  rather  for  an  omen  of  the  blood,  of  their  enemies,  they 
plucked  up  heart  to  attack  the  camp  and  were  defeated  with  great 
slaughter. 

Again,  just  as  the  cloud  of  melancholy  which  from  time  to  time 
darkened  the  moody  mind  of  Saul  was  viewed  as  an  evil  spirit  from 
the  Lord  vexing  him,  so  on  the  other  hand  the  solemn  strains  of  the 
harp,  which  soothed  and  composed  his  troubled  thoughts,  may  well 
have  seemed  to  the  hag-ridden  king  the  very  voice  of  God  or  of  his 
good  angel  whispering  peace.  Even  in  our  own  day  a  great  religious 
writer,  himself  deeply  sensitive  to  the  witchery  of  music,  has  said  that 
musical  notes,  with  all  their  power  to  fire  the  blood  and  melt  the 
heart,  cannot  be  mere  empty  sounds  and  nothing  more  ;  no,  they  have 
escaped  from  some  higher  sphere,  they  are  outpourings  of  eternal 


XXXII 


THE  RITUAL  OF  ADONIS 


335 


harmony,  the  voice  of  angels,  the  Magnificat  of  saints.  It  is  thus 
that  the  rude  imaginings  of  primitive  man  are  transfigured  and  his 
feeble  lispings  echoed  with  a  rolling  reverberation  in  the  musical  prose 
of  Newman.  Indeed  the  influence  of  music  on  the  development  of 
religion  is  a  subject  which  would  repay  a  sympathetic  study.  For 
we  cannot  doubt  that  this,  the  most  intimate  and  affecting  of  all  the 
arts,  has  done  much  to  create  as  well  as  to  express  the  religious 
emotions,  thus _  modifying  more  or  less  deeply  the  fabric  of  belief  to 
which  at  first  sight  it  seems  only  to  minister.  The  musician  has  done 
his  part  as  well  as  the  prophet  and  the  thinker  in  the  making  of  religion. 
Every  faith  has  its  appropriate  music,  and  the  difference  between  the 
creeds  might  almost  be  expressed  in  musical  notation.  The  interval, 
foi  example,  which  divides  the  wild  revels  of  Cybele  from  the  stately 
ritual  of  the  Catholic  Church  is  measured  by  the  gulf  which  severs  the 
dissonant  clash  of  cymbals  and  tambourines  from  the  grave  harmonies 
of  Palestrina  and  Handel.  A  different  spirit  breathes  in  the  difference 
of  the  music. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

THE  RITUAL  OF  ADONIS 

At  the  festivals  of  Adonis,  which  were  held  in  Western  Asia  and  in 
Greek  lands,  the  death  of  the  god  was  annually  mourned,  with  a  bitter 
wailing,  chiefly  by  women  ;  images  of  him,  dressed  to  resemble  corpses, 
were  carried  out  as  to  burial  and  then  thrown  into  the  sea  or  into 
springs  ;  and  in  some  places  his  revival  was  celebrated  on  the  following 
day.  But  at  different  places  the  ceremonies  varied  somewhat  in  the 
manner  and  apparently  also  in  the  season  of  their  celebration.  At 
Alexandria  images  of  Aphrodite  and  Adonis  were  displayed  on  two 
couches  ;  beside  them  were  set  ripe  fruits  of  all  kinds,  cakes,  plants 
growing  in  flower-pots,  and  green  bowers  twined  with  anise.  The 
marriage  of  the  lovers  was  celebrated  one  day,  and  on  the  morrow 
women  attired  as  mourners,  with  streaming  hair  and  bared  breasts, 
bore  the  image  of  the  dead  Adonis  to  the  sea-shore  and  committed  it 
to  the  waves.  Yet  they  sorrowed  not  without  hope,  for  they  sang 
that  the  lost  one  would  come  back  again.  The  date  at  which  this 
Alexandrian  ceremony  was  observed  is  not  expressly  stated  ;  but 
from  the  mention  of  the  ripe  fruits  it  has  been  inferred  that  it  took 
place  in  late  summer.  In  the  great  Phoenician  sanctuary  of  Astarte 
at  Byblus  the  death  of  Adonis  was  annually  mourned,  to  the  shrill 
wailing  notes  of  the  flute,  with  weeping,  lamentation,  and  beating  of 
the  breast ;  but  next  day  he  was  believed  to  come  to  life  again  and 
ascend  up  to  heaven  in  the  presence  of  his  worshippers.  The  dis¬ 
consolate  believers,  left  behind  on  earth,  shaved  their  heads  as  the 
Egyptians  did  on  the  death  of  the  divine  bull  Apis  ;  women  who 
could  not  bring  themselves  to  sacrifice  their  beautiful  tresses  had  to 


CH. 


336  THE  RITUAL  OF  ADONIS 

give  themselves  up  to  strangers  on  a  certain  day  of  the  festival,  and 

to  dedicate  to  Astarte  the  wages  of  their  shame. 

This  Phoenician  festival  appears  to  have  been  a  vernal  one,  lor  its 
date  was  determined  by  the  discoloration  of  the  River  Adonis,  and 
this  has  been  observed  by  modern  travellers  to  occur  in  spring.  At 
that  season  the  red  earth  washed  down  from  the  mountains  by  the 
rain  tinges  the  water  of  the  river,  and  even  the  sea,  for  a  great  way 
with  a  blood-red  hue,  and  the  crimson  stain  was  believed  to  be  the 
blood  of  Adonis,  annually  wounded  to  death  by  the  boar  on  Mount 
Lebanon.  Again,  the  scarlet  anemone  is  said  to  have  sprung  from  the 
blood  of  Adonis,  or  to  have  been  stained  by  it ;  and  as  the  anemone 
blooms  in  Syria  about  Easter,  this  may  be  thought  to  show  that  the 
festival  of  Adonis,  or  at  least  one  of  his  festivals,  was  held  m  spring. 
The  name  of  the  flower  is  probably  derived  from  Naaman  (  darling  ), 
which  seems  to  have  been  an  epithet  of  Adonis.  The  Arabs  still  call 
the  anemone  “  wounds  of  the  Naaman.”  The  red  rose  also  was  said 
to  owe  its  hue  to  the  same  sad  occasion  ;  for  Aphrodite,  hastening  i 
to  her  wounded  lover,  trod  on  a  bush  of  white  roses  ;  the  cruel  thorns 
tore  her  tender  flesh,  and  her  sacred  blood  dyed  the  white  roses  for 
ever  red.  It  would  be  idle,  perhaps,  to  lay  much  weight  on  evidence 
drawn  from  the  calendar  of  flowers,  and  in  particular  to  press  an 
argument  so  fragile  as  the  bloom  of  the  rose.  Yet  so  far  as  it  counts 
at  all,  the  tale  which  links  the  damask  rose  with  the  death  of  Adonis 
points  to  a  summer  rather  than  to  a  spring  celebration  of  his  passion. 

In  Attica,  certainly,  the  festival  fell  at  the  height  of  summer.  For 
the  fleet  which  Athens  fitted  out  against  Syracuse,  and  by  the  destruc¬ 
tion  of  which  her  power  was  permanently  crippled,  sailed  at  mid 
summer,  and  by  an  ominous  coincidence  the  sombre  rites  of  Adonis 
were  being  celebrated  at  the  very  time.  As  the  troops  marched 
down  to  the  harbour  to  embark,  the  streets  through  which  they  passed 
were  lined  with  cofflns  and  corpse-like  effigies,  and  the  air  was  rent 
with  the  noise  of  women  wailing  for  the  dead  Adonis.  The  circum¬ 
stance  cast  a  gloom  over  the  sailing  of  the  most  splendid  armament 
that  Athens  ever  sent  to  sea.  Many  ages  afterwards,  when  the 
Emperor  Julian  made  his  first  entry  into  Antioch,  he  found  in  like 
manner  the  gay,  the  luxurious  capital  of  the  East  plunged  in  mimic 
grief  for  the  annual  death  of  Adonis  ;  and  if  he  had  any  presentiment 
of  coming  evil,  the  voices  of  lamentation  which  struck  upon  his  ear 

must  have  seemed  to  sound  his  knell. 

The  resemblance  of  these  ceremonies  to  the  Indian  and  European 
ceremonies  which  I  have  described  elsewhere  is  obvious.  In  par¬ 
ticular,  apart  from  the  somewhat  doubtful  date  of  its  celebration, 
the  Alexandrian  ceremony  is  almost  identical  with  the  Indian.  In 
both  of  them  the  marriage  of  two  divine  beings,  whose  affinity  with 
vegetation  seems  indicated  by  the  fresh  plants  with  which  they  are 
surrounded,  is  celebrated  in' effigy,  and  the  effigies  are _  afterwards 
mourned  over  and  thrown  into  the  water.  From  the  similarity  ol 
these  customs  to  each  other  and  to  the  spring  and  midsummer  customs 


:  XXXn  .  THE  RITUAL  OF  ADONIS  337 

adopte^^? 

rr;“  rH!~  S !~™ 

comes  out  at  once  in  the  common  storf  of  hT™  kth  H  VCgetatl°" 
to  have  been  born  from  a  myrrh-tree  the  Wk  o  whfoh  F* 

AcZ  rf  ten"10nths’  ^^ation,  allowed  the  lovely  infant  to  come  forth’ 

:“^r^zs,r^£s'S'=v^ 

at  the  corresponding  Babylonian  rites,  j„„  „  it 

2ef  taH£rt,  “*  Suaen  of  Heaven,  X  2,  To 

bs?£p'  FiitS.  K  »,£ 

rest  of  it  m  the  upper  world,  is  explained  most  simply  and  naturallv 

%^z<£fiXivzr&rzMm- 

'round  the  other  half  rA  •  ,  h  !f  *  year  and  reappears  above 
:h.y  is  non,  whteh 

ection  as  the  disappearance  and  reappearance  of  vegetation  in  autumn 
n  thTsun's  animal  tlrsflSZ"  Si  Sm^rate^ndrtom5 

reakencd  m  winter,  but  dead  he  could  not  be  thought  to  be  •  his 
ally  reappearance  contradicts  the  supposition.  Within  the  Arct  o 
arcle,  where  the  sun  annually  disappears  for  a  continuous  period 
hich  varies  from  twenty-four  hours  to  six  months  according  to  he 
ititude,  his  yearly  death  and  resurrection  would  certainly  be 
bvious  idea ;  but  no  one  except  the  unfortunate  astronomer  Bailfo 
as  maintained  that  the  Adonis  worship  came  from  the  Arctic  reSom 
the  other  hand,  the  annual  death  and  revival  of  vegetation  is  a 
nception  which  readily  presents  itself  to  men  in  Ivfry  stage  0f 
vagery  and  civilisation  ;  and  the  vastness  of  the  scalehn  which 

iSlTT  deC/y  and  regeneration  takes  place,  together  with 
ans  intimate  dependence  on  it  for  subsistence,  combine  to  render 

ie  tempe°mt™onesS1VItannUal  ‘T'T*  in  nature>  at  least  within 
»  Zt  T  1  T  WOnder  that  a  phenomenon  so  important 

ven  risegto  sfrrdh  ““A**31  should,’  by  suggesting  similar  ideas,  have 
tv  hS?it0  r  ntes  m  many  lands.  We  may  therefore  arrant 

h r;.f  XLxixr 01  r  “  ”«s  t 

factS  of  nature  and  W1th  the  analogy  of  similar  rites  in 


THE  RITUAL  OF  ADONIS 


CH. 


other  lands.  Moreover,  the  explanation  is  countenanced  by  a  con¬ 
siderable  body  of  opinion  amongst  the  ancients  themselves,  who 
again  and  again  interpreted  the  dying  and  reviving  god  as  the  reaped 

and  sprouting  grain.  .  .  _  , 

The  character  of  Tammuz  or  Adonis  as  a  corn-spirit  comes  out 

plainly  in  an  account  of  his  festival  given  by  an  Arabic  writer  of  the 
tenth  century.  In  describing  the  rites  and  sacrifices  observed  at  the 
different  seasons  of  the  year  by  the  heathen  Syrians  of  Harran  he 
says  :  "  Tammuz  (July).  In  the  middle  of  this  month  is  the  festival 
of  el-Bugat,  that  is,  of  the  weeping  women,  and^this  is  the  ia-uz 
festival  which  is  celebrated  in  honour  of  the  god  Ta-uz.  The  women 
bewail  him,  because  his  lord  slew  him  so  cruelly,  ground  his  bones  m 
a  mill,  and  then  scattered  them  to  the  wind.  The  women  (during  this 
festival)  eat  nothing  which  has  been  ground  in  a  mill,  but  limit  t.  eir 
diet  to  steeped  wheat,  sweet  vetches,  dates,  raisins,  and  the  like. 
Ta-uz,  who  is  no  other  than  Tammuz,  is  here  like  Burns  s  Join 

Barleycorn : 

“  They  wasted  o’er  a  scorching  flame  But  a  miller  us’d  him  worst  of  all,  „ 
The  marrow  of  his  hones  ;  For  he  crush  d  him  between  two  stones. 


This  concentration,  so  to  say,  of  the  nature  of  Adonis  upon  the 
cereal  crops  is  characteristic  of  the  stage  of  culture  reached  by  his 
worshippers  in  historical  times.  They  had  left  the  nomadic  life  of 
the  wandering  hunter  and  herdsman  far  behind  them  ;  for  ages  they 
had  been  settled  on  the  land,  and  had  depended  for  their  subsistence 
mainly  on  the  products  of  tillage.  The  berries  and  roots  of  the  wilder¬ 
ness,  the  grass  of  the  pastures,  which  had  been  matters  of  vital  im¬ 
portance  to  their  ruder  forefathers,  were  now  of  little  moment  to 
them  *  more  and  more  their  thoughts  and  energies  were  engrossed 
by  the  staple  of  their  life,  the  corn  ;  more  and  more  accordingly  the 
propitiation  of  the  deities  of  fertility  in  general  and  of  the  corn-spirit 
in  particular  tended  to  become  the  central  feature  of  their  religion. 
The  aim  they  set  before  themselves  in  celebrating  the  rites  was 
thoroughly  practical.  It  was  no  vague  poetical  sentiment  which 
prompted  them  to  hail  with  joy  the  rebirth  of  vegetation  and  to 
mourn  its  decline.  Hunger,  felt  or  feared,  was  the  mainspring  of  the 

worship  of  Adonis.  , 

It  has  been  suggested  by  Father  Lagrange  that  the  mourning  lor 

Adonis  was  essentially  a  harvest  rite  designed  to  propitiate  the  corn- 
god  who  was  then  either  perishing  under  the  sickles  of  the  reapers 
or  being  trodden  to  death  under  the  hoofs  of  the  oxen  on  the  threshing- 
floor  While  the  men  slew  him,  the  women  wept  crocodile  tears  at 
home  to  appease  his  natural  indignation  by  a  show  of  grief  for  his 
death.  The  theory  fits  in  well  with  the  dates  of  the  festivals,  which 
fell  in  spring  or  summer  ;  for  spring  and  summer,  not  autumn  are 
the  seasons  of  the  barley  and  wheat  harvests  in  the  lands  whicn 
worshipped  Adonis.  Further,  the  hypothesis  is  confirmed  by  the 
practice  of  the  Egyptian  reapers,  who  lamented,  calling  upon  isis, 


XXXII 


THE  RITUAL  OF  ADONIS 


339 


when  they  cut  the  first  corn  ;  and  it  is  recommended  by  the  analogous 

customs  of  many  hunting  tribes,  who  testify  great  respect  for  the 
animals  which  they  kill  and  eat.  J  S  P  or  tne 

Thus  interpreted  the  death  of  Adonis  is  not  the  natural  decay 
of  vegetation  m  general  under  the  summer  heat  or  the  winter  coM 

m1Sfi  m  V\°  destructj°n  of  the  corn  by  man,  who  cuts  it  down  on 
e  eld  stamps  it  to  pieces  on  the  threshing-floor,  and  grinds  it  to 
powder  m  the  mill.  That  this  was  indeed  die  principal  Tspect  n 
which  Adonis  presented  himself  in  later  times  to  the  agricultural 
peoples  of  the  Levant,  may  be  admitted;  but  whether  from  the 
beginning  he  had  been  the  corn  and  nothing  but  the  corn,  may  be 
doubted  At  an  earlier  period  he  may  have  been  to  the  herdsman 
a  ove  all,  the  tender  herbage  which  sprouts  after  rain,  offering  rich 

Pa!  a6  u  Vhe  kan  hungry  cattle'  Earlier  stiu  he  may  have 

vieHtothe  s  Splnt,°f  t,he  nu*s  ,and  berries  which  the  autumn  woods 
y  d  to  the  savage  hunter  and  his  squaw.  And  just  as  the  husband¬ 
man  must  propitiate  the  spirit  of  the  corn  which  he  consumes  so  the 
herdsman  must  appease  the  spirit  of  the  grass  and  leaves  which  his 
cattle  munch,  and  the  hunter  must  soothe  the  spirit  of  the  roots 
which  he  digs  and  of  the  fruits  which  he  gathers  from  the  bough. 

a  cases  the  propitiation  of  the  injured  and  angry  sprite  would 
naturally  comprise  elaborate  excuses  and  apologies,  accompanied  by 
ud  lamentations  at  his  decease  whenever,  through  some  deplorable 
accident  or  necessity,  he  happened  to  be  murdered  as  well  as  robbed 
Only  we  must  bear  m  mind  that  the  savage  hunter  and  herdsman  of 
hose  early  days  had  probably  not  yet  attained  to  the  abstract  idea  of 

"oTthfmat'airu116  ;  +  ai,nd  aCCOrd“^'  80  far  as  Adonis  existed 
■or  them  at  a  1,  he  must  have  been  the  Aim  or  lord  of  each  individual 

IWtu  P  ant  n6r  than  a  Personlficati°n  °f  vegetable  life  as  a  whole, 
hus  there  would  be  as  many  Adonises  as  there  were  trees  and  shrubs 

nd  each  of  them  might  expect  to  receive  satisfaction  for  any  damage 

one  to  his  person  or  property.  And  year  by  year,  when  the  trefs 

vere  deciduous,  every  Adonis  would  seem  to  bleed  to  death  with  the 

I  spring63  °f  aUtUmn  and  t0  C°me  t0  Hfe  again  With  the  fresh  green 

r,mTI'ere  1S  S°me  reason  to  think  that  in  early  times  Adonis  was 
metimes  personated  by  a  living  man  who  died  a  violent  death  in 

Wh+WCter  °f  thf,  god'  .Further,  there  is  evidence  which  goes  to 

th?n  am°ng  the  agncultural  Peoples  of  the  Eastern  Mediter- 
nean,  the  corn-spirit,  by  whatever  name  he  was  known,  was  often 

-presented,  year  by  year,  by  human  victims  slain  on  the  harvest- 

lirli-  “  Wj  S  S0I  11  SeemS  llkely  that  the  Propitiation  of  the  corn¬ 
er  ,wouldtend  to  fuse  to  some  extent  with  the  worship  of  the  dead, 
r  the  spirits  of  these  victims  might  be  thought  to  return  to  life  in 

»ntharS+'Iu1Ch  they  hafd  fattened  with  their  Wood,  and  to  die  a  second 
:Z  at  “e  reaPlnS  of  the  corn.  Now  the  ghosts  of  those  who  have 
-  shed  by  violence  are  surly  and  apt  to  wreak  their  vengeance  on 
r  slayers  whenever  an  opportunity  offers.  Hence  the  attempt 


340 


THE  RITUAL  OF  ADONIS  ch. 

to  appease  the  souls  of  the  slaughtered  victims  would  naturally  blend, 
at  least  in  the  popular  conception,  with  the  attempt  to  pacify  the 
slain  corn-spirit.  And  as  the  dead  came  back  in  the  sprouting  coin, 
so  they  might  be  thought  to  return  in  the  spring  flowers,  waked  from 
their  long  sleep  by  the  soft  vernal  airs.  They  had  been  laid  to  their 
rest  under  the  sod.  What  more  natural  than  to  imagine  that  the 
violets  and  the  hyacinths,  the  roses  and  the  anemones,  sprang  from 
their  dust,  were  empurpled  or  incarnadined  by  their  blood,  and  con¬ 
tained  some  portion  of  their  spirit  ? 

“  I  sometimes  think  that  never  blows  so  red 
The  Rose  as  where  some  buried  Caesar  bled 
That  every  Hyacinth  the  Garden  wears 
Dropt  in  her  Lap  from  some  once  lovely  Head. 

“And  this  reviving  Herb  whose  tender  Green  , 

Fledges  the  River-Lip  on  which  we  lean — 

Ah,  lean  upon  it  lightly,  for  who  knows 
From  what  once  lovely  Lip  it  springs  unseen  ? 

In  the  summer  after  the  battle  of  Landen,  the  most  sanguinary 
battle  of  the  seventeenth  century  in  Europe,  the  earth,  saturated 
with  the  blood  of  twenty  thousand  slain,  broke  forth  into  millions  of 
poppies,  and  the  traveller  who  passed  that  vast  sheet  of  scarlet  might 
well  fancy  that  the  earth  had  indeed  given  up  her  dead.  At  Athens 
the  great  Commemoration  of  the  Dead  fell  in  spring  about  the  middle 
of  March,  when  the  early  flowers  are  in  bloom.  Then  the  dead  were 
believed  to  rise  from  their  graves  and  go  about  the  streets,  vainly 
•  endeavouring  to  enter  the  temples  and  dwellings,  which  were  barred 
against  these  perturbed  spirits  with  ropes,  buckthorn,  and  pitch. 
The  name  of  the  festival,  according  to  the  most  obvious  and  natural 
interpretation,  means  the  Festival  of  Flowers,  and  the  title  would 
fit  well  with  the  substance  of  the  ceremonies  if  at  that  season  the 
poor  ghosts  were  indeed  thought  to  creep  from  the  narrow  house  with 
the  opening  flowers.  There  may  therefore  be  a  measure  of  truth  in 
the  theory  of  Renan,  who  saw  in  the  Adonis  worship  a  dreamy  volup¬ 
tuous  cult  of  death,  conceived  not  as  the  King  of  Terrors,  but  as  an 
insidious  enchanter  who  lures  his  victims  to  himself  and  lulls  them 
into  an  eternal  sleep.  The  infinite  charm  of  nature  in  the  Lebanon, 
he  thought,  lends  itself  to  religious  emotions  of  this  sensuous,  visionary 
sort,  hovering  vaguely  between  pain  and  pleasure,  between  slumber 
and' tears.  It  would  doubtless  be  a  mistake  to  attribute  to  Syrian 
peasants  the  worship  of  a  conception  so  purely  abstract  as  that  of 
death  in  general.  Yet  it  may  be  true  that  in  their  simple .  minds 
the  thought  of  the  reviving  spirit  of  vegetation  was  blent  with  the 
very  concrete  notion  of  the  ghosts  of  the  dead,  who  come  to  life  again 
in  spring  days  with  the  early  flowers,  with  the  tender  green  of  the 
corn  and  the  many-tinted  blossoms  of  the  trees.  Thus  their  v;Y« 
of  the  death  and  resurrection  of  nature  would  be  coloured  L  y  the 
views  of  the  death  and  resurrection  of  man,  by  their  personal  sorrow 


J 


XXXIII  THE  GARDENS  OF  ADONIS  34I 

and  hopes  and  fears.  In  like  manner  we  cannot  doubt  that  Renan’s 
theory  of  Adonis  was  itself  deeply  tinged  by  passionate  memories 
memories  of  the  slumber  akin  to  death  which  sealed  his  own  eyes  on 
the  slopes  of  the  Lebanon,  memories  of  the  sister  who  sleeps  in  the 
land  of  Adonis  never  again  to  wake  with  the  anemones  and  the  roses. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

THE  GARDENS  OF  ADONIS 

Perhaps  the  best  proof  that  Adonis  was  a  deity  of  vegetation,  and 
especially  of  the  corn,  is  furnished  by  the  gardens  of  Adonis,  as’ they 
were  called.  These  were  baskets  or  pots  filled  with  earth,  in  which 
wheat,  barley,  lettuces,  fennel,  and  various  kinds  of  flowers  were  sown 
and  tended  for  eight  days,  chiefly  or  exclusively  by  women.  Fostered 
by  the  sun’s  heat,  the  plants  shot  up  rapidly,  but  having  no  root  they 
withered  as  rapidly  away,  and  at  the  end  of  eight  days  were  carried 
out  with  the  images  of  the  dead  Adonis,  and  flung  with  them  into  the 
sea  or  into  springs. 

These  gardens  of  Adonis  are  most  naturally  interpreted  as  repre¬ 
sentatives  of  Adonis  or  manifestations  of  his  power  ;  they  represented 
him,  true  to  his  original  nature,  in  vegetable  form,  while  the  images 
of  him,  with  which  they  were  carried  out  and  cast  into  the  water, 
portrayed  him  in  his  later  human  shape.  All  these  Adonis  ceremonies', 
if  I  am  right,  were  originally  intended  as  charms  to  promote  the  growth 
or  revival  of  vegetation  ;  and  the  principle  by  which  they  were  supposed 
to  produce  this  effect  was  homoeopathic  or  imitative  magic.  For 
ignorant  people  suppose  that  by  mimicking  the  effect  which  they 
desire  to  produce  they  actually  help  to  produce  it ;  thus  by  sprinkling 
water  they  make  rain,  by  lighting  a  fire  they  make  sunshine,  and  so  on. 
Similarly,  by  mimicking  the  growth  of  crops  they  hope  to  ensure  a 
good  harvest.  The  rapid  growth  of  the  wheat  and  barley  in  the 
gardens  of  Adonis  was  intended  to  make  the  corn  shoot  up  ;  and  the 
throwing  of  the  gardens  and  of  the  images  into  the  water  was  a  charm 
to  secure  a  due  supply  of  fertilising  rain.  The  same,  I  take  it,  was 
the  object  of  throwing  the  effigies  of  Death  and  the  Carnival  into  water 
n  the  corresponding  ceremonies  of  modern  Europe.  Certainly  the 
:ustom  of  drenching  with  water  a  leaf-clad  person,  who  undoubtedly 
Personifies  vegetation,  is  still  resorted  to  in  Europe  for  the  express 
Purpose  of  producing  rain.  Similarly  the  custom  of  throwing  water 
m  the  last  corn  cut  at  harvest,  or  on  the  person  who  brings  it  home 
a  custom  observed  in  Germany  and  France,  and  till  lately  in 
England  and  Scotland),  is  in  some  places  practised  with  the  avowed 
ntent  to  procure  rain  for  the  next  year’s  crops.  Thus  in  Wallachia 
md  amongst  the  Roumanians  in  Transylvania,  when  a  girl  is  bringing 
lome  a  crown  made  of  the  last  ears  of  corn  cut  at  harvest,  all  who  meet 


342 


THE  GARDENS  OF  ADONIS 


CH. 


her  hasten  to  throw  water  on  her,  and  two  farm-servants  are  placed 
at  the  door  for  the  purpose  ;  for  they  believe  that  if  this  were  not 
done  the  crops  next  year  would  perish  from  drought.  At  the  sp  g 
ploughing  in  Prussia,  when  the  ploughmen  and  sowers  returned  m  t  e 
evening  from  their  work  in  the  fields,  the  farmer’s  wife  and  the  servants 
used  to  splash  water  over  them.  The  ploughmen  and  sowers  retorted 
bv  seizing  every  one,  throwing  them  into  the  pond,  and  ducking  them 
under  the  water.  The  farmer’s  wife  might  claim  exemption  on  pay¬ 
ment  of  a  forfeit,  but  every  one  else  had  to  be  ducked.  By  observing 
this  custom  they  hoped  to  ensure  a  due  supply  of  ram  for  the  seed. 

The  opinion  that  the  gardens  of  Adonis  are  essentially  charms  to 
promote  the  growth  of  vegetation,  especially  of  the  crops,  and  t  a 
they  belong  to  the  same  class  of  customs  as  those  spring  and  mid¬ 
summer  folk-customs  of  modern  Europe  which  I  have  described  e  se- 
where,  does  not  rest  for  its  evidence  merely  on  the  intrinsic  probabi  lty 
of  the  case.  Fortunately  we  are  able  to  show  that  gardens  of  Adonis 
(if  we  may  use  the  expression  in  a  general  sense)  are  still  planted,  first, 
bv  a  primitive  race  at  their  sowing  season,  and,  second,  by  European 
peasants  at  midsummer.  Amongst  the  Oraons  and  Mundas  of  Bengal, 
when  the  time  comes  for  planting  out  the  rice  which  has  been  grown 
in  seed-beds,  a  party  of  young  people  of  both  sexes  go  to  the  forest 
and  cut  a  young  Karma-tree,  or  the  branch  of  one.  Bearing  it  m 
triumph  they  return  dancing,  singing,  and  beating  drums,  and  plant 
it  in  the  middle  of  the  village  dancing-ground.  A  sacrifice  is  offered 
to  the  tree  ;  and  next  morning  the  youth  of  both  sexes,  linked  arm-m¬ 
ar  m,  dance  in  a  great  circle  round  the  Karma-tree,  which  is  decked 
with  strips  of  coloured  cloth  and  sham  bracelets  and  necklets  of  plaited 
straw.  As  a  preparation  for  the  festival,  the  daughters  of  the  head¬ 
man  of  the  village  cultivate  blades  of  barley  in  a  peculiar  way.  e  ! 
seed  is  sown  in  moist,  sandy  soil,  mixed  with  turmeric,  and  the  blades 
sprout  and  unfold  of  a  pale-yellow  or  primrose  colour.  On  the  day  ot 
the  festival  the  girls  take  up  these  blades  and  carry  them  m  baske  s 
to  the  dancing  ground,  where,  prostrating  themselves  reverentially, , 
they  place  some  of  the  plants  before  the  Karma-tree.  Finally,  the; 
Karma-tree  is  taken  away  and  thrown  into  a  stream  or  tank  ihe 
meaning  of  planting  these  barley  blades  and  then  presenting  t  em  o 
the  Karma-tree  is  hardly  open  to  question.  Trees  are  supposed  to 
exercise  a  quickening  influence  upon  the  growth  of  crops,  and  amongst 
the  very  people  in  question — the  Mundas  or  Mundans  the  grove 
deities  are  held  responsible  for  the  crops.”  Therefore,  when  at  the 
season  for  planting  out  the  rice  the  Mundas  bring  m  a  tree  and  ti  eat 
it  with  so  much  respect,  their  object  can  only  be  to  foster  thereby  the 
growth  of  the  rice  which  is  about  to  be  planted  out ;  and  the  custom 
of  causing  barley  blades  to  sprout  rapidly  and  then  presenting  em> 
to  the  tree  must  be  intended  to  subserve  the  same  purpose,  perhaps 
by  reminding  the  tree-spirit  of  his  duty  towards  the  crops,  and  stimu¬ 
lating  his  activity  by  this  visible  example  of  rapid  vegetable  growt  l. 
The  throwing  of  the  Karma-tree  into  the  water  is  to  be  interpreted  a. 


XXXIII 


THE  GARDENS  OF  ADONIS  343 

a  rain-charm.  Whether  the  barley  blades  are  also  thrown  into  the 
water  is  not  said  ;  but  if  my  interpretation  of  the  custom  is  right, 
probably  they  are  so.  A  distinction  between  this  Bengal  custom  and 
t  e  Greek  rites  of  Adonis  is  that  in  the  former  the  tree-spirit  appears 
m  his  original  form  as  a  tree  ;  whereas  in  the  Adonis  worship  he  appears 
in  human  form,  represented  as  a  dead  man,  though  his  vegetable  nature 
is  indicated  by  the  gardens  of  Adonis,  which  are,  so  to  say,  a  secondary 
manifestation  of  his  original  power  as  a  tree-spirit. 

.  Gardens  of  Adonis  are  cultivated  also  by  the  Hindoos,  with  the 
intention  apparently  of  ensuring  the  fertility  both  of  the  earth  and  of 
mankind.  Thus  at  Oodeypoor  in  Rajputana  a  festival  is  held  in  honour 
of  Gouri,  or  Isani,  the  goddess  of  abundance.  The  rites  begin  when 
the  sun  enters  the  sign  of  the  Ram,  the  opening  of  the  Hindoo  year. 
An  image  of  the  goddess  Gouri  is  made  of  earth,  and  a  smaller  one  of 
her  husband  Iswara,  and  the  two  are  placed  together.  A  small  trench 
is  next  dug,,  barley  is.  sown  in  it,  and  the  ground  watered  and  heated 
artificially  till  the  grain  sprouts,  when  the  women  dance  round  it  hand 
in  hand,  invoking  the  blessing  of  Gouri  on  their  husbands.  After  that 
the  young  com  is  taken  up  and  distributed  by  the  women  to  the  men 
who  wear  it  in  their  turbans.  In  these  rites  the  distribution  of  the 
barley  shoots  to  the  men,  and  the  invocation  of  a  blessing  on  their 
husbands  by  the  wives,  point  clearly  to  the  desire  of  offspring  as  one 
motive  for  observing  the  custom.  The  same  motive  probably  explains 
the  use  of  gardens  of  Adonis  at  the  marriage  of  Brahmans  in  the 
Madras  Presidency..  Seeds  of  five  or  nine  sorts  are  mixed  and  sown 
in  earthen  pots,  which  are  made  specially  for  the  purpose  and  are  filled 
with  earth.  Bride  and  bridegroom  water  the  seeds  both  morning  and 
evening  for  four  days  ;  and  on  the  fifth  day  the  seedlings  are  thrown, 
like  the  real  gardens  of  Adonis,  into  a  tank  or  river. 

In  Sardinia  the  gardens  of  Adonis  are  still  planted  in  connexion 
with  the  great  Midsummer  festival  which  bears  the  name  of  St.  John. 
At  the  end  of  March  or  on  the  first  of  April  a  young  man  of  the  village 
presents  himself  to  a  girl,  and  asks  her  to  be  his  comare  (gossip  or 
sweetheart),  offering  to  be  her  compare.  The  invitation  is  considered 
as  an  honour  by  the  girl’s  family,  and  is  gladly  accepted.  At  the  end 
of  May  the  girl  makes  a  pot  of  the  bark  of  the  cork-tree,  fills  it  with 
earth,  and  sows  a  handful  of  wheat  and  barley  in  it.  The  pot 'being 
placed  in  the  sun  and  often  watered,  the  corn  sprouts  rapidly  and  has 
a  good  head  by  Midsummer  Eve  (St.  John’s  Eve,  the  twenty-third  of 
June).  The  pot  is  then  called  Erme  or  Nenneri.  On  St.  John’s  Day 
the  young  man  and  the  girl,  dressed  in  their  best,  accompanied  by  a 
ong  retinue  and  preceded  by  children  gambolling  and  frolicking,  move 
m  procession  to  a  church  outside  the  village.  Here  they  break  the 
pot  by  throwing  it  against  the  door  of  the  church.  Then  they  sit 
own  in  a  ring  on.  the  grass  and  eat  eggs  and  herbs  to  the  music  of 
flutes.  Wine  is  mixed  in  a  cup  and  passed  round,  each  one  drinking 
as  it  ,passes.  Then  they  join  hands  and  sing  “Sweethearts  of  St. 
John  ( Compare  e  comare  di  San  Giovanni )  over  and  over  again,  the 


THE  GARDENS  OF  ADONIS 


CH. 


344 


flutes  playing  the  while.  When  they  tire  of  singing  they  stand  up 
and  dance  gaily  in  a  ring  till  evening.  This  is  the  general  Sardinian 
custom.  As  practised  at  Ozieri  it  has  some  special  features.  In  May 
the  pots  are  made  of  cork-bark  and  planted  with  corn,  as  already 
described.  Then  on  the  Eve  of  St.  John  the  window-sills  are  draped 
with  rich  cloths,  on  which  the  pots  are  placed,  adorned  with  crimson 
and  blue  silk  and  ribbons  of  various  colours.  On  each  of  the  pots  they 
used  formerly  to  place  a  statuette  or  cloth  doll  dressed  as  a  woman, 
or  a  Priapus-like  figure  made  of  paste  ;  but  this  custom,  rigorously 
forbidden  by  the  Church,  has  fallen  into  disuse.  The  village  swains 
go  about  in  a  troop  to  look  at  the  pots  and  their  decorations  and  to 
wait  for  the  girls,  who  assemble  on  the  public  square  to  celebrate  the 
festival.  Here  a  great  bonfire  is  kindled,  round  which  they  dance 
and  make  merry.  Those  who  wish  to  be  “  Sweethearts  of  St.  John  ” 
act  as  follows.  The  young  man  stands  on  one  side  of  the  bonfire  and 
the  girl  on  the  other,  and  they,  in  a  manner,  join  hands  by  each  grasp¬ 
ing  one  end  of  a  long  stick,  which  they  pass  three  times  backwards  and 
forwards  across  the  fire,  thus  thrusting  their  hands  thrice  rapidly  into 
the  flames.  This  seals  their  relationship  to  each  other.  Dancing  and 
music  go  on  till  late  at  night.  The  correspondence  of  these  Sardinian 
pots  of  grain  to  the  gardens  of  Adonis  seems  complete,  and  the  images  : 
formerly  placed  in  them  answer  to  the  images  of  Adonis  which  accom¬ 


panied  his  gardens. 

Customs  of  the  same  sort  are  observed  at  the  same  season  in  Sicily. 
Pairs  of  boys  and  girls  become  gossips  of  St.  John  on  St.  John’s  Day  c 
by  drawing  each  a  hair  from  his  or  her  head  and  performing  various 
ceremonies  over  them.  Thus  they  tie  the  hairs  together » and  throw 
them  up  in  the  air,  or  exchange  them  over  a  potsherd,  which  they 
afterwards  break  in  two,  preserving  each  a  fragment  with  pious  care. 
The  tie  formed  in  the  latter  way  is  supposed  to  last  for  life.  In  some 
parts  of  Sicily  the  gossips  of  St.  John  present  each  other  with  plates 
of  sprouting  corn,  lentils,  and  canary  seed,  which  have  been  planted 
forty  days  before  the  festival.  The  one  who  receives  the  plate  pulls 
a  stalk  of  the  young  plants,  binds  it  with  a  ribbon,  and  preserves  it 
among  his  or  her  greatest  treasures,  restoring  the  platter  to  the  giver. 
At  Catania  the  gossips  exchange  pots  of  basil  and  great  cucumbers ; 
the  girls  tend  the  basil,  and  the  thicker  it  grows  the  more  it  is  prized. 

In  these  midsummer  customs  of  Sardinia  and  Sicily  it  is  possible 
that,  as  Mr.  R.  Wiinsch  supposes,  St.  John  has  replaced  Adonis.  We 
have  seen  that  the  rites  of  Tammuz  or  Adonis  were  commonly  cele¬ 
brated  about  midsummer  ;  according  to  Jerome,  their  date  was  June. 

In  Sicily  gardens  of  Adonis  are  still  sown  in  spring  as  well  as  in 
summer,  from  which  we  may  perhaps  infer  that  Sicily  as  well  as  Syria 
celebrated  of  old  a  vernal  festival  of  the  dead  and  risen  god.  At  the 
approach  of  Easter,  Sicilian  women  sow  wheat,  lentils,  and  canary- 
seed  in  plates,  which  they  keep  in  the  dark  and  water  every  two  days. 
The  plants  soon  shoot  up  ;  the  stalks  are  tied  together  with  red  ribbons, 
and  the  plates  containing  them  are  placed  on  the  sepulchres  which, 


XXXIII 


THE  GARDENS  OF  ADONIS  345 

with  the  effigies  of  the  dead  Christ,  are  made  up  in  Catholic  and  Greek 
churches  on  Good  Friday,  just  as  the  gardens  of  Adonis  were  placed 
on  the  grave  of  the  dead  Adonis.  The  practice  is  not  confined  to 
Sicdy,  for  it  is  observed  also  at  Cosenza  in  Calabria,  and  perhaps  in 
other  places.  The  whole  custom— sepulchres  as  well  as  plates  of 
sprouting  grain  may  be  nothing  but  a  continuation,  under  a  different 
name,  of  the  worship  of  Adonis. 

Nor  are  these  Sicilian  and  Calabrian  customs  the  only  Easter 
ceremonies  which  resemble  the  rites  of  Adonis.  “  During  the  whole 
of  Good  Friday  a  waxen  effigy  of  the  dead  Christ  is  exposed  to  view 
m  the  middle  of  the  Greek  churches  and  is  covered  with  fervent  kisses 
by  the  thronging  crowd,  while  the  whole  church  rings  with  melancholv 
monotonous  diiges.  Late  in  the  evening,  when  it  has  grown  quite 
dark,  this  waxen  image  is  carried  by  the  priests  into  the  street  on  a 
bier  adorned  with  lemons,  roses,  jessamine,  and  other  flowers,  and 
there  begins  a  grand  procession  of -the  multitude,  who  move  in  serried 
ranks,  with  slow  and  solemn  step,  through  the  whole  town  Every 
man  carries  his  taper  and  breaks  out  into  doleful  lamentation.  At  all 
the  houses  which  the  procession  passes  there  are  seated  women  with 
censers  to  fumigate  the  marching  host.  Thus  the  community  solemnly 
buries  its  Christ  as  if  he  had  just  died.  At  last  the  waxen  image  is 
again  deposited  in  the  church,  and  the  same  lugubrious  chants  echo 

?-n6W-  TllfSe  lamentations,  accompanied  by  a  strict  fast,  continue 
till  midnight  on  Saturday.  As  the  clock  strikes  twelve,  the  bishop 
appears  and  announces  the  glad  tidings  that  ‘  Christ  is  risen,’  to  which 
the  crowd  replies,  ‘  He  is  risen  indeed,’  and  at  once  the  whole  city 
bursts  into  an  uproar  of  joy,  which  finds  vent  in  shrieks  and  shouts 
in  the  endless  discharge  of  carronades  and  muskets,  and  the  explosion 
of  fire- works  of  every  sort.  In  the  very  same  hour  people  plunge  from 

the  extremity  of  the  fast  into  the  enjoyment  of  the  Easter  lamb  and 
neat  wine.” 

In  like  manner  the  Catholic  Church  has  been  accustomed  to  brin0- 
before  its  followers  in  a  visible  form  the  death  and  resurrection  of  the 
Redeemer.  Such  sacred  dramas  are  well  fitted  to  impress  the  lively 
imagination  and  to  stir  the  warm  feelings  of  a  susceptible  southern 
race,  to  whom  the  pomp  and  pageantry  of  Catholicism  are  more 
congenial  than  to  the  colder  temperament  of  the  Teutonic  peoples 

When  we  reflect  how  often  the  Church  has  skilfully  contrived  to 
plant  the  seeds  of  the  new  faith  on  the  old  stock  of  paganism,  we  may 
surmise  that  the  Easter  celebration  of  the  dead  and  risen  Christ  was 
grafted  upon  a  similar  celebration  of  the  dead  and  risen  Adonis  which 
as  we  have  seen  reason  to  believe,  was  celebrated  in  Syria  at  the  same 
reason.  The  type,  created  by  Greek  artists,  of  the  sorrowful  goddess 
with  her  dying  lover  in  her  arms,  resembles  and  may  have  been  the 
node!  of  the  Pieta  of  Christian  art,  the  Virgin  with  the  dead  body  of 
ler  divine  Son  in  her  lap,  of  which  the  most  celebrated  example  is  the 
me  by  Michael  Angelo  in  St.  Peter’s.  That  noble  group,  in  which  the 
mng  sorrow  of  the  mother  contrasts  so  wonderfully  with  the  languor 


346  THE  GARDENS  OF  ADONIS  ch. 

of  death  in  the  son,  is  one  of  the  finest  compositions  in  marble.  Ancient 
Greek  art  has  bequeathed  to  us  few  works  so  beautiful,  and  none  so 

pathetic. 

In  this  connexion  a  well-known  statement  of  Jerome  may  not  be 
without  significance.  He  tells  us  that  Bethlehem,  the  tiaditionary 
birthplace  of  the  Lord,  was  shaded  by  a  grove  of  that  still  older  Syrian 
Lord,  Adonis,  and  that  where  the  infant  Jesus  had  wept,  the  lover  of 
Venus  was  bewailed.  Though  he  does  not  expiessly  say  so,  Jerome 
seems  to  have  thought  that  the  grove  of  Adonis  had  been  planted  by 
the  heathen  after  the  birth  of  Christ  for  the  purpose  of  defiling  the 
sacred  spot.  In  this  he  may  have  been  mistaken.  If  Adonis  was 
indeed,  as  I  have  argued,  the  spirit  of  the  corn,  a  moie  suitable  name 
for  his  dwelling-place  could  hardly  be  found  than  Bethlehem,  the 
Llouse  of  Bread,”  and  he  may  well  have  been  worshipped  there  at  his 
House  of  Bread  long  ages  before  the  birth  of  Him  who  said,  “lam  the 
bread  of  life.”  Even  on  the  hypothesis  that  Adonis  followed  rather 
than  preceded  Christ  at  Bethlehem,  the  choice  of  his  sad  figure  to  - 
divert  the  allegiance  of  Christians  from  their  Loid  cannot  but  stiike 
us  as  eminently  appropriate  when  we  remember  the  similarity  of  the 
rites  which  commemorated  the  death  and  resurrection  of  the  two. 
One  of  the  earliest  seats  of  the  worship  of  the  new  god  was  Antioch, 
and  at  Antioch,  as  we  have  seen,  the  death  of  the  old  god  was  annually 
celebrated  with  great  solemnity.  A  circumstance  which  attended  the 
entrance  of  Julian  into  the  city  at  the  time  of  the  Adonis  festival  j 
may  perhaps  throw  some  light  on  the  date  of  its  celebration.  When  ) 
the  emperor  drew  near  to  the  city  he  was  received  with  public  prayers 
as  if  he  had  been  a  god,  and  he  marvelled  at  the  voices  of  a  great  1 
multitude  who  cried  that  the  Star  of  Salvation  had  dawned  upon  them 
in  the  East.  This  may  doubtless  have  been  no  more  than  a  fulsome 
compliment  paid  by  an  obsequious  Oriental  crowd  to  the  Roman 
emperor.  But  it  is  also  possible  that  the  rising  of  a  bright  star  regularly 
gave  the  signal  for  the  festival,  and  that  as  chance  would  have  it  the 
star  emerged  above  the  rim  of  the  eastern  horizon  at  the  very  moment 
of  the  emperor’s  approach.  The  coincidence,  if  it  happened,  could 
hardly  fail  to  strike  the  imagination  of  a  superstitious  and  excited  1 
multitude,  who  might  thereupon  hail  the  great  man  as  the  deity  whose 
coming  was  announced  by  the  sign  in  the  heavens.  Or  the  emperor 
may  have  mistaken  for  a  greeting  to  himself  the  shouts  which  were  • 
addressed  to  the  star.  Now  Astarte,  the  divine  mistress  of  Adonis, 
was  identified  with  the  planet  Venus,  and  her  changes  from  a  morning 
to  an  evening  star  were  carefully  noted  by  the  Babylonian  astronomers, 
who  drew  omens  from  her  alternate  appearance  and  disappearance. 
Hence  we  may  conjecture  that  the  festival  of  Adonis  was  regularly 
timed  to  coincide  with  the  appearance  of  Venus  as  the  Morning  or 
Evening  Star.  But  the  star  which  the  people  of  Antioch  saluted  at 
the  festival  was  seen  in  the  East ;  therefore,  if  it  was  indeed  Venus, 
it  can  only  have  been  the  Morning  Star.  At  Aphaca  in  Syria,  where 
there  was  a  famous  temple  of  Astarte,  the  signal  for  the  celebration 


XXXIV 


THE  MYTH  AND  RITUAL  OF  ATTIS  347 

of  the  rites  was  apparently  given  by  the  flashing  of  a  meteor,  which 
on  a  ceitain  day  fell  like  a  star  from  the  top  of  Mount  Lebanon  into 
the  river  Adonis.  The  meteor  was  thought  to  be  Astarte  herself,  and 
its  flight  thiough  the  air  might  naturally  be  interpreted  as  the  descent 
of  the  amorous  goddess  to  the  arms  of  her  lover.  At  Antioch  and 
elsewhere  the  appearance  of  the  Morning  Star  on  the  day  of  the  festival 
may  in  like  manner  have  been  hailed  as  the  coming  of  the  goddess  of 
love  to  wake  her  dead  leman  from  his  earthy  bed.  If  that  were  so, 
we  may  surmise  that  it  was  the  Morning  Star  which  guided  the  wise 
men  of  the  East  to  Bethlehem,  the  hallowed  spot  which  heard  in  the 

language  of  Jerome,  the  weeping  of  the  infant  Christ  and  the  ’lament 
for  Adonis. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

THE  MYTH  AND  RITUAL  OF  ATTIS 

Another  of  those  gods  whose  supposed  death  and  resurrection  struck 
such  deep  roots  into  the  faith  and  ritual  of  Western  Asia  is  Attis  He 
was  to  Phrygia  what  Adonis  was  to  Syria.  Like  Adonis,  he  appears 
to  have  been  a  god  of  vegetation,  and  his  death  and  resurrection  were 
annually  mourned  and  rejoiced  over  at  a  festival  in  spring.  The 
legends  and  rites  of  the  two  gods  were  so  much  alike  that  the  ancients 
themselves  sometimes  identified  them.  Attis  was  said  to  have  been 
a  fair  young  shepherd  or  herdsman  beloved  by  Cybele,  the  Mother  of 
the  Gods,  a  great  Asiatic  goddess  of  fertility,  who  had  her  chief  home 
m  Phrygia.  Some  held  that  Attis  was  her  son.  His  birth,  like  that 
of  many  other  heroes,  is  said  to  have  been  miraculous.  His  mother, 
Nana,  was  a  virgin,  who  conceived  by  putting  a  ripe  almond  or  a 
pomegranate  in  her  bosom.  Indeed  in  the  Phrygian  cosmogony  an 
almond  figured  as  the  father  of  all  things,  perhaps  because  its  delicate 
lilac  blossom  is  one  of  the  first  heralds  of  the  spring,  appearing  on  the 
bare  boughs  before  the  leaves  have  opened.  Spch  nf 

mothers  are  relics  of  an  age  of  childish  ignorance  when  men  hacT  not 

sexes  as  the"  true  cause  oTbff-^ 

spring.  ^  I  wo  dlllcienl  accounts  of  tlie  death  of  AttL  wprp  mn-gm-f- 
AccoMfig  to  the  one  he  was  killed  by  a  boar,  like  Adonis.  According 
to  the  other  he  unmanned  himself  under  a  pine-tree,  and  bled  to  death 
on  the  spot.  The  latter  is  said  to  have  been  the  local  story  told  by  the 
people  of  Pessinus,  a  great  seat  of  the  worship  of  Cybele,  and  the  whole 
egend  of  which  the  stoiy  forms  a  part  is  stamped  with  a  character  of 
rudeness  and  savagery  that  speaks  strongly  for  its  antiquity.  Both 
tales  might  claim  the  support  of  custom,  or  rather  both  were  probably 
invented  to  explain  certain  customs  observed  by  the  worshippers. 
The  story  of  the  self-mutilation  of  Attis  is  clearly  an  attempt  to  account 
for  the  self-mutilation  of  his  priests,  who  regularly  castrated  them¬ 
selves  on  entering  the  service  of  the  goddess.  The  story  of  his  death 


348  THE  MYTH  AND  RITUAL  OF  ATT  IS  ch. 

by  the  boar  may  have  been  told  to  explain  why  his  worshippers, 
especially  the  people  of  Pessinus,  abstained  from  eating  swine.  In 
like  manner  the  worshippers  of  Adonis  abstained  from  pork,  because 
a  boar  had  killed  their  god.  After  his  death  Attis  is  said  to  have  been 
changed  into  a  pine-tree. 

The  worship  of  the  Phrygian  Mother  of  the  Gods  was  adopted  by 
the  Romans  in  204  b.c.  towards  the  close  of  their  long  struggle  with 
Hannibal.  For  their  drooping  spirits  had  been  opportunely  cheered  by 
a  prophecy,  alleged  to  be  drawn  from  that  convenient  farrago  of 
nonsense,  the  Sibylline  Books,  that  the  foreign  invader  would  be 
driven  from  Italy  if  the  great  Oriental  goddess  were  brought  to  Rome. 
Accordingly  ambassadors  were  despatched  to  her  sacred  city  Pessinus 
in  Phrygia.  The  small  black  stone  which  embodied  the  mighty 
divinity  was  entrusted  to  them  and  conveyed  to  Rome,  where  it 
was  received  with  great  respect  and  installed  in  the  temple  of  Victory 
on  the  Palatine  Hill.  It  was  the  middle  of  April  when  the  goddess 
arrived,  and  she  went  to  work  at  once.  For  the  harvest  that  year 
was  such  as  had  not  been  seen  for  many  a  long  day,  and  in  the  very  j 
next  year  Hannibal  and  his  veterans  embarked  for  Africa.  .  As  he  ; 
looked  his  last  on  the  coast  of  Italy,  fading  behind  him  in  the  distance 
he  could  not  foresee  that  Europe,  which  had  repelled  the  arms,  would 
yet  yield  to  the  gods,  of  the  Orient.  The  vanguard  of  the  conquerors 
had  already  encamped  in  the  heart  of  Italy  before  the  rearguard  of 
the  beaten  army  fell  sullenly  back  from  its  shores. 

We  may  conjecture,  though  we  are  not  told^that  the  Mother  of 
the  Gods  brought  with  her  the  worship  of  her  youthful  lover  or  son 
to  her  new  home  in  the  West.  Certainly  the  Romans  were  familiar 
with  the  Galli,  the  emasculated  priests  of  Attis,  before  the  close  of 
the  Republic.  These  unsexed  beings,  in  their  Oriental  costume,  with 
little  images  suspended  on  their  breasts,  appear  to  have  been  a  familiar 
sight  in  the  streets  of  Rome,  which  they  traversed  in  procession, 
carrying  the  image  of  the  goddess  and  chanting  their  hymns  to  the 
music  of  cymbals  and  tambourines,  flutes  and  horns,  while  the  people, 
impressed  by  the  fantastic  show  and  moved  by  the  wild  strains,  flung 
alms  to  them  in  abundance,  and  buried  the  image  and  its  bearers  under 
showers  of  roses.  A  further  step  was  taken  by  the  Emperor  Claudius 
when  he  incorporated  the  Phrygian  worship  of  the  sacred  tree,  and  with 
it  probably  the  orgiastic  rites  of  Attis,  in  the  established  religion  ol 
Rome.  The  great  spring  festival  of  Cybele  and  Attis  is  best  known 
to  us  in  the  form  in  which  it  was  celebrated  at  Rome  ;  but  as  we 
are  informed  that  the  Roman  ceremonies  were  also  Phrygian,  we  may 
assume  that  they  differed  hardly,  if  at  all,  from  their  Asiatic  original. 
The  order  of  the  festival  seems  to  have  been  as  follows. 

On  the  twenty-second  day  of  March,  a  pine-tree  was  cut  in  the 
woods  and  brought  into  the  sanctuary  of  Cybele,  where  it  was  treated 
as  a  great  divinity.  The  duty  of  carrying  the  sacred  tree  was  entrusted 
to  a  guild  of  Tree-bearers.  The  trunk  was  swathed  like  a  corpse  with 
woollen  bands  and  decked  with  wreaths  of  violets,  for  violets  were  said 


XXXIV 


THE  MYTH  AND  RITUAL  OF  ATTIS  349 

!  ti°  sPrunS  from  blood  of  Attis,  as  roses  and  anemones  from 
the  blood  of  Adonis  ;  and  the  effigy  of  a  young  man,  doubtless  Attis 
himself,,  was  tied  to  the  middle  of  the  stem.  On  the  second  day  of 
the  festival,  the  twenty-third  of  March,  the  chief  ceremony  seems  to 
have  been  a  blowing  of  trumpets.  The  third  day,  the  twenty-fourth 
of  March,  was  known  as  the  Day  of  Blood  :  the  Archigallus  or  high- 
pnest  drew  blood  from  his  arms  and  presented  it  as  an  offering  Nor 
was  he  alone  in  making  this  bloody  sacrifice.  Stirred  by  the  wild 
barbaric  music  of  clashing  cymbals,  rumbling  drums,  droning  horns 
and  screaming  flutes,  the  inferior  clergy  whirled  about  in  the  dance 
with  waggling  heads  and  streaming  hair,  until,  rapt  into  a  frenzy  of 
excitement  and  insensible  to  pain,  they  gashed  their  bodies  with 
potsherds  or  slashed  them  with  knives  in  order  to  bespatter  the  altar 
and  the  sacred  tree  with  their  flowing  blood.  The  ghastly  rite  probably 
formed  part  of  the  mourning  for  Attis  and  may  have  been  intended 
to  strengthen  him  for  the  resurrection.  The  Australian  aborigines 
cut  themselves  in  like  manner  over  the  graves  of  their  friends  for  the 
purpose,  perhaps,  of  enabling  them  to  be  born  again.  Further,  we 
may  conjecture,  though  we  are  not  expressly  told,  that  it  was  on  the 
same  Day  of  Blood  and  for  the  same  purpose  that  the  novices  sacrificed 
their  virility.  Wrought  up  to  the  highest  pitch  of  religious  excitement 
they  dashed  the  severed  portions  of  themselves  against  the  image 
of  the  cruel  goddess.  These  broken  instruments  of  fertility  were 
afterwards  reverently  wrapt  up  and  buried  in  the  earth  or  in  sub¬ 
terranean  chambers  sacred  to  Cybele,  where,  like  the  offering  of  blood, 
they  may  have  been  deemed  instrumental  in  recalling  Attis  to  life 
and  hastening  the  general  resurrection  of  nature,  which  was  then 
bursting  into  leaf  and  blossom  in  the  vernal  sunshine.  Some  confirma¬ 
tion  of  this  conjecture  is  furnished  by  the  savage  story  that  the  mother 
0  Attis  conceived  by  putting  in  her  bosom  a  pomegranate  sprung 

from  the  severed  genitals  of  a  man-monster  named  Agdestis  a  sort 
of  double  of  Attis. 

If  there  is  any  truth  in  this  conjectural  explanation  of  the  custom 
we  can  readily  understand  why  other  Asiatic  goddesses  of  fertility 
were  served  m  like  manner  by  eunuch  priests.  These  feminine  deities 
required  to  receive  from  their  male  ministers,  who  personated  the 
divine  lovers,  the  means  of  discharging  their  beneficent  functions  • 
they  had  themselves  to  be  impregnated  by  the  life-giving  energy  before 

I  ™ey  could  transmit  it  to  the  world.  Goddesses  thus  ministered  to  by 
eunuch  priests  were  the  great  Artemis  of  Ephesus  and  the  great 
bynan  Astarte  of  Hierapolis,  whose  sanctuary,  frequented  by  swarms 
of  pilgrims  and  enriched  by  the  offerings  of  Assyria  and  Babylonia, 
of  Arabia  and  Phoenicia,  was  perhaps  in  the  days  of  its  glory  the  most 
popular  m  the  East.  Now  the  unsexed  priests  of  this  Syrian  goddess 
resembled  those  of  Cybele  so  closely  that  some  people  took  them  to 
e  the  same.  And  the  mode  in  which  they  dedicated  themselves  to 
the  religious  life  was  similar.  The  greatest  festival  of  the  year  at 
Hierapolis  fell  at  the  beginning  of  spring,  when  multitudes  thronged 


350  THE  MYTH  AND  RITUAL  OF  ATT  IS  ch. 

to  the  sanctuary  from  Syria  and  the  regions  round  about.  While  the 
flutes  played,  the  drums  beat,  and  the  eunuch  priests  slashed  them¬ 
selves  with  knives,  the  religious  excitement  gradually  spread  like  a 
wave  among  the  crowd  of  onlookers,  and  many  a  one  did  that  which 
he  little  thought  to  do  when  he  came  as  a  holiday  spectator  to  the 
festival.  For  man  after  man,  his  veins  throbbing  with  the  music,  his 
eyes  fascinated  by  the  sight  of  the  streaming  blood,  flung  his  garments 
from  him,  leaped  forth  with  a  shout,  and  seizing  one  of  the  swords 
which  stood  ready  for  the  purpose,  castrated  himself  on  the  spot. 
Then  he  ran  through  the  city,  holding  the  bloody  pieces  in  his  hand, 
till  he  threw  them  into  one  of  the  houses  which  he  passed  in  his  mad 
career.  The  household  thus  honoured  had  to  furnish  him  with  a 
suit  of  female  attire  and  female  ornaments,  which  he  wore  for  the 
rest  of  his  life.  When  the  tumult  of  emotion  had  subsided,  and  the 
man  had  come  to  himself  again,  the  irrevocable  sacrifice  must  often 
have  been  followed  by  passionate  sorrow  and  lifelong  regret.  This 
revulsion  of  natural  human  feeling  after  the  frenzies  of  a  fanatical 
religion  is  powerfully  depicted  by  Catullus  in  a  celebrated  poem. 

The  parallel  of  these  Syrian  devotees  confirms  the  view  that  in 
the  similar  worship  of  Cybele  the  sacrifice  of  virility  took  place  on 
the  Day  of  Blood  at  the  vernal  rites  of  the  goddess,  when  the  violets, 
supposed  to  spring  from  the  red  drops  of  her  wounded  lover,  were  in 
bloom  among  the  pines.  Indeed  the  story  that  Attis  unmanned 
himself  under  a  pine-tree  was  clearly  devised  to  explain  why  his  priests 
did  the  same  beside  the  sacred  violet-wreathed  tree  at  his  festival. 

At  all  events,  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  the  DayT>f  Blood  witnessed 
the  mourning  for  Attis  over  an  effigy  of  him  which  was  afterwards 
buried.  The  image  thus  laid  in  the  sepulchre  was  probably  the  same 
which  had  hung  upon  the  tree.  Throughout  the  period  of  mourning 
the  worshippers  fasted  from  bread,  nominally  because  Cybele  had  done 
so  in  her  grief  for  the  death  of  Attis,  but  really  perhaps  for  the  same 
reason  which  induced  the  women  of  Harran  to  abstain  from  eating 
anything  ground  in  a  mill  while  they  wept  for  Tammuz.  To  partake 
of  bread  or  flour  at  such  a  season  might  have  been  deemed  a  wanton 
profanation  of  the  bruised  and  broken  body  of  the  god.  Or  the  fast 
may  possibly  have  been  a  preparation  for  a  sacramental  meal. 

But  when  night  had  fallen,  the  sorrow  of  the  worshippers  was 
turned  to  joy.  For  suddenly  a  light  shone  in  the  darkness  :  the  tomb 
was  opened  :  the  god  had  risen  from  the  dead  ;  and  as  the  priest 
touched  the  lips  of  the  weeping  mourners  with  balm,  he  softly  whispered 
in  their  ears  the  glad  tidings  of  salvation.  The  resurrection  of  the 
god  was  hailed  by  his  disciples  as  a  promise  that  they  too  would  issue  i 
triumphant  from  the  corruption  of  the  grave.  On  the  morrow,  the 
twenty-fifth  day  of  March,  which  was  reckoned  the  vernal  equinox, 
the  divine  resurrection  was  celebrated  with  a  wild  outburst  of  glee. 

At  Rome,  and  probabfy  elsewhere,  the  celebration  took  the  form  of 
a  carnival.  It  was  the  Festival  of  Joy  ( Hilaria ).  A  universal  licence 
prevailed.  Every  man  might  say  and  do  what  he  pleased.  People 


XXXIV 


THE  MYTH  AND  RITUAL  OF  ATTIS  351 

went  about  the  streets  in  disguise.  No  dignity  was  too  high  or  too 
sacred  for  the  humblest  citizen  to  assume  with  impunity.  In  the 
reign  of  Commodus  a  band  of  conspirators  thought  to  take  advantage 
of  the  masquerade  by  dressing  in  the  uniform  of  the  Imperial  Guard, 
and  so,  mingling  with  the  crowd  of  merrymakers,  to  get  within 
stabbing  distance  of  the  emperor.  But  the  plot  miscarried.  Even 
the  stern  Alexander  Severus  used  to  relax  so  far  on  the  joyous  day 
as  to  admit  a  pheasant  to  his  frugal  board.  The  next  day,  the  twenty- 
sixth  of  March,  was  given  to  repose,  which  must  have  been  much 
needed  after  the  varied  excitements  and  fatigues  of  the  preceding 
days.  Finally,  the  Roman  festival  closed  on  the  twenty-seventh  of 
March  with  a  procession  to  the  brook  Almo.  The  silver  image  of 
the  goddess,  with  its  face  of  j  agged  black  stone,  sat  in  a  waggon  drawn 
by  oxen.  Preceded  by  the  nobles  walking  barefoot,  it  moved  slowly, 
to  the  loud  music  of  pipes  and  tambourines,  out  by  the  Porta  Capena, 
and  so  down  to  the  banks  of  the  Almo,  which  flows  into  the  Tiber 
just  below  the  walls  of  Rome.  There  the  high-priest,  robed  in  purple, 
washed  the  waggon,  the  image,  and  the  other  sacred  objects  in  the 
water  of  the  stream.  On  returning  from  their  bath,  the  wain  and  the 
oxen  were  strewn  with  fresh  spring  flowers.  All  was  mirth  and 
gaiety.  No  one  thought  of  the  blood  that  had  flowed  so  lately.  Even 
the  eunuch  priests  forgot  their  wounds. 

Such,  then,  appears  to  have  been  the  annual  solemnisation  of  tlT^ — 
death  and  resurrection  of  Attis  in  spring.  But  besides  these  public 
rites,  his  worship  is  known  to  have  comprised  certain  secret  or  mystic 
ceremonies,  which  probably  aimed  at  bringing  the  worshipper,  and 
especially  the  novice,  into  closer  communication  with  his  god.  Our 
information  as  to  the  nature  of  these  mysteries  and  the  date  of  their 
celebration  is  unfortunately  very  scanty,  but  they  seem  to  have 
included  a  sacramental  meal  and  a  baptism  of  blood.  In  the  sacra¬ 
ment  the  novice  became  a  partaker  of  the  mysteries  by  eating  out 
of  a  drum  and  drinking  out  of  a  cymbal,  two  instruments  of  music 
which  figured  prominently  in  the  thrilling  orchestra  of  Attis.  The  / 
fast  which  accompanied  the  mourning  for  the  dead  god  may  perhaps 
have  been  designed  to  prepare  the  body  of  the  communicant  for  the 
reception  of  the  blessed  sacrament  by  purging  it  of  all  that  could  defile 
by  contact  the  sacred  elements.  In  the  baptism  the  devotee,  crowned 
with  gold  and  wreathed  with  fillets,  descended  into  a  pit,  the  mouth 
of  which  was  covered  with  a  wooden  grating.  A  bull,  adorned  with 
garlands  of  flowers,  its  forehead  glittering  with  gold  leaf,  was  then 
driven  on  to  the  grating  and  there  stabbed  to  death  with  a  consecrated 
spear.  Its  hot  reeking  blood  poured  in  torrents  through  the  apertures, 
and  was  received  with  devout  eagerness  by  the  worshipper  on  every 
part  of  his  person  and  garments,  till  he  emerged  from  the  pit,  drenched, 
dripping,  and  scarlet  from  head  to  foot,  to  receive  the  homage,  nay 
the  adoration,  of  his  fellows  as  one  who  had  been  born  again  to  eternal 
life  and  had  washed  away  his  sins  in  the  blood  of  the  bull.  For  some 
time  afterwards  the  fiction  of  a  new  birth  was  kept  up  by  dieting  him 


352  ATT  IS  AS  A  GOD  OF  VEGETATION  ch. 

on  milk  like  a  new-born  babe.  The  regeneration  of  the  worshipper 
took  place  at  the  same  time  as  the  regeneration  of  his  god,  namely 
at  the  vernal  equinox.  At  Rome  the  new  birth  and  the  remission  i 
of  sins  by  the  shedding  of  bull’s  blood  appear  to  have  been  carried 
out  above  all  at  the  sanctuary  of  the  Phrygian  goddess  on  the  Vatican  i 
Hill,  at  or  near  the  spot  where  the  great  basilica  of  St.  Peter’s  now 
stands  ;  for  many  inscriptions  relating  to  the  rites  were  found  when 
the  church  was  being  enlarged  in  1608  or  1609.  From  the  Vatican  as 
a  centre  this  barbarous  system  of  superstition  seems  to  have  spread 
to  other  parts  of  the  Roman  empire.  Inscriptions  found  in  Gaul  and 
Germany  prove  that  provincial  sanctuaries  modelled  their  ritual  on 
that  of  the  Vatican.  From  the  same  source  we  learn  that  the  testicles 
as  well  as  the  blood  of  the  bull  played  an  important  part  in  the 
ceremonies.  Probably  they  were  regarded  as  a  powerful  charm  to 
promote  fertility  and  hasten  the  new  birth. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

ATTIS  AS  A  GOD  OF  VEGETATION 

The  original  character  of  Attis  as  a  tree-spirit  is  brought  out  plainly 
by  the  part  which  the  pine-tree  plays  in  his  legend,  his  ritual,  and 
his  monuments.  The  story  that  he  was  a  human  being  transformed 
into  a  pine-tree  is  only  one  of  those  transparent  attempts  at  rationalis¬ 
ing  old  beliefs  which  meet  us  so  frequently  in  mythology.  The  bringing 
in  of  the  pine-tree  from  the  woods,  decked  with  violets  and  woollen 
bands,  is  like  bringing  in  the  May-tree  or  Summer-tree  in  modern 
folk-custom  ;  and  the  effigy  which  was  attached  to  the  pine-tree 
was  only  a  duplicate  representative  of  the  tree-spirit  Attis.  After 
being  fastened  to  the  tree,  the  effigy  was  kept  for  a  year  and  then 
burned.  The  same  thing  appears  to  have  been  sometimes  done  with 
the  Maypole  ;  and  in  like  manner  the  effigy  of  the  corn-spirit,  made 
at  harvest,  is  often  preserved  till  it  is  replaced  by  a  new  effigy  at  next 
year’s  harvest.  The  original  intention  of  such  customs  was  no  doubt 
to  maintain  the  spirit  of  vegetation  in  life  throughout  the  year.  Why 
the  Phrygians  should  have  worshipped  the  pine  above  other  trees  we 
can  only  guess.  Perhaps  the  sight  of  its  changeless,  though  sombre, 
green  cresting  the  ridges  of  the  high  hills  above  the  fading  splendour 
of  the  autumn  woods  in  the  valleys  may  have  seemed  to  their  eyes 
to  mark  it  out  as  the  seat  of  a  diviner  life,  of  something  exempt  from 
the  sad  vicissitudes  of  the  seasons,  constant  and  eternal  as  the  sky 
which  stooped  to  meet  it.  For  the  same  reason,  perhaps,  ivy  was 
sacred  to  Attis  ;  at  all  events,  we  read  that  his  eunuch  priests  were 
tattooed  with  a  pattern  of  ivy  leaves.  Another  reason  for  the  sanctity 
of  the  pine  may  have  been  its  usefulness.  The  cones  of  the  stone-pine 
contain  edible  nut-like  seeds,  which  have  been  used  as  food  since 


XXXVI  HUMAN  REPRESENTATIVES  OF  ATTIS  353 

antiquity,  and  are  still  eaten,  for  example,  by  the  poorer  classes  in 

partly  acco0untVfor  tl"™6  WaS,brewed  from  these  seeds,  and  this  may 
partly  account  for  the  orgiastic  nature  of  the  rites  of  Cybele  which 

the  ancients  compared  to  those  of  Dionysus.  Further,  pine-cones 

were  regarded  as  symbols  or  rather  instruments  of  fertility  Hence 

at  the  festival  of  the  Thesmophoria  they  were  thrown,  along  with 

oTDemete  fm-XntS  "  fecundity-  into  the  sacredlaute 

of  women  *  PUrp°S6  °f  qUlckeninS  the  ground  and  the  wombs 

Like  tree-spirits  m  general,  Attis  was  apparently  thought  to  wield 
power  over  the  fruits  of  the  earth  or  even  to  be  identical  wfth  the  com 
One  of  his  epithets  was  very  fruitful  ”  :  he  was  addressed  as  the 
reaped  green  (or  yellow)  ear  of  corn  ”  ;  and  the  story  of  his  sufferings 
death,  and  resurrection  was  interpreted  as  the  ripe  grain  wounded  bv 
the  reaper,  buried  in  the  granary,  and  coming  to  life  again  when  it  is 

rtTl m-  s!ou"d-  A  statue  of  hlm  ln  the  Lateran  Museum  at  Rome 
arly  indicates  his  relation  to  the  fruits  of  the  earth,  and  particularly 

0  the  corn ;  for  it  represents  him  with  a  bunch  of  ears  of  corn  and 
fruit  m  his  hand,  and  a  wreath  of  pine-cones,  pomegranates  and 
Dther  fruits  on  his  head,  while  from  the  top  of  his  Phrygian  cap  ears 

m  CArnpXiSpr°Utu"gu  °n  a  St0ne  urn’  which  contained  the  ashes  of 
1  M  1-«1US  °r  hlSh-Pnest  of  Attis,  the  same  idea  is  expressed  in  a 
Jightly  different  way.  The  top  of  the  urn  is  adorned  with  ears  of 
.orn  carved  m  relief,  and  it  is  surmounted  by  the  figure  of  a  cock 
vhose  tail  consists  of  ears  of  corn.  Cybele  in  like  manner  was  con- 

he’earth  3  for ^hf  °f  XXl  Wh°  make  °r  mar  the  fruits  o£ 

He  earth  ,  for  the  people  of  Augustodunum  (Autun)  in  Gaul  used  to 

'ardsXhdX  abaUt  Wagg0n  f°r  the  g°od  of  the  fields  and  vine- 
’  e  they  danced  and  sang  before  it,  and  we  have  seen  that  in 

flLar  TS  fine ^harvest  was  attributed  to  the  recent  arrival 
f  the  Great  Mother.  The  bathing  of  the  image  of  the  goddess  in  a 

XoSeTor  fhTcrops”  a  ram'charm  to  ensure  an  abundant  supply 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

HUMAN  REPRESENTATIVES  OF  ATTIS 

ROM  inscriptions  it  appears  that  both  at  Pessinus  and  Rome  the 
gh-pnest  of  Cybele  regularly  bore  the  name  of  Attis.  It  is  therefore 

gendaryblAtt°n]ef X  Kf  ?la^d  th®  part  °f  his  namesake,  the 

avnfRi  if'j1  the  annuai  festival.  We  have  seen  that  011  the 

uLu  Blo<?d  he  drew  bl°°d  from  his  arms,  and  this  may  have  been  an 
■  tation  of  the  self-mflicted  death  of  Attis  under  the  pine-tree.  It 

■ntPrl  TriStent  Wlth  thls  suPPosition  that  Attis  was  also  repre- 

i  wllh  M  eSr  cere“onles  bT  an  effigy  ;  for  instances  can  be  shown 
which  the  divine  being  is  first  represented  by  a  living  person  and 


354 


HUMAN  REPRESENTATIVES  OF  ATTIS 


CH. 


afterwards  by  an  effigy,  which  is  then  burned  or  otherwise  destroyed 
Perhaps  we  may  go  a  step  farther  and  conjecture  that  this  mimic 
killing^  of  the  priest,  accompanied  by  a  real  effusion  of  his  blood,  was 
in  Phrygia,  as  it  has  been  elsewhere,  a  substitute  for  a  human  sacrifice 

which  in  earlier  times  was  actually  offered.  ,  . 

A  reminiscence  of  the  manner  in  which  these  old  representatives 

of  the  deity  were  put  to  death  is  perhaps  preserved  in  the  famous  | 
stoiv  of  Marsyas.  He  was  said  to  be  a  Phrygian  satyr  or  Silenus, 
according  to  others  a  shepherd  or  herdsman,  who  played  sweetly  on 
the  flute  A  friend  of  Cybele,  he  roamed  the  country  with  the  dis¬ 
consolate  goddess  to  soothe  her  grief  for  the  death  of  Attis.  The 
composition  of  the  Mother’s  Air,  a  tune  played  on  the  flute  in  honour 
of  the  Great  Mother  Goddess,  was  attributed  to  him  by _the  people 
of  Celaenae  in  Phrygia.  Vain  of  his  skill,  he  challenged  Apollo  to 
a  mS  contest,  he  to  play  on  the  flute  and  Apollo  on  the  lyre 
Being  vanquished,  Marsyas  was  tied  up  to  a  pine-tree  and  flayed  or 
cut  limb  from  limb  either  by  the  victorious  Apollo  or  by  a  Scythian 
slave.  His  skin  was  shown  at  Celaenae  m  historical  times.  It  hu  g 
at  the  foot  of  the  citadel  in  a  cave  from  which  the  river  Marsyas  rushed 
with  an  impetuous  and  noisy  tide  to  join  the  Maeander.  So  t 
Adonis  bursts  full-born  from  the  precipices  of  the  Lebanon  so  the, 
blue  river  of  Ibreez  leaps  in  a  crystal  jet  from  the  red  locks  of  the, 
Taurus  •  so  the  stream,  which  now  rumbles  deep  underground,  used 
to  gleam  for  a  moment  on  its  passage  from  darkness  to  darkness  m 
the  dim  light  of  the  Corycian  cave.  In  all  these  copious  fountains 
with  their  glad  promise  of  fertility  and  life,  men  of  old  saw  the  han 
of  God  and  worshipped  him  beside  the  rushing  river  with  the  mu 
of  its  tumbling  waters  in  their  ears.  At  Celaenae  if  we  can  tru 
tradition,  the  piper  Marsyas,  hanging  in  his  cave,  had  a  soul  for  har-, 
mony  even  in  death  ;  for  it  is  said  that  at  the  sound  of  his  nativ  : 
Phrygian  melodies  the  skin  of  the  dead  satyr  used  to  thrill,  but  that 
if  the  musician  struck  up  an  air  in  praise  of  Apollo  it  remained  deal- 

^In  this  Phrygian  satyr,  shepherd,  or  herdsman  who  enjoyed  flu 
friendship  of  Cybele,  practised  the  music  so  characteristic  of  her  rites 
and  diedP  a  violent  death  on  her  sacred  tree,  the  pine  may  we  no 
detect  a  close  resemblance  to  Attis,  the  favourite  shepherd  or  herds, 
man  of  the  goddess,  who  is  himself  described  as  a  piper,  is  said  to  haw 
perished  under  a  pine-tree,  and  was  annually  represented  by  an  effig. 
hung,  like  Marsyas,  upon  a  pine?  We  may  conjecture ■  that  J 
davs  the  priest  who  bore  the  name  and  played  the  part  of  Attis 
thJ  spring  festival  of  Cybele  was  regularly  hanged  or  otherwise  slar 
upon  the  sacred  tree,  and  that  this  barbarous  custom  was  afterward 
mitigated  into  the  form  in  which  it  is  known  to  us  in  later  time, 
when  the  priest  merely  drew  blood  from  his  body  under  the  tree  an 
attached  an  effigy  instead  of  himself  to  its  trunk.  In  the  holy  grov 
at  Upsala  men  and  animals  were  sacrificed  by  being  hanged  upon  ; 
sacred  trees.  The  human  victims  dedicated  to  Odm  were  regular 


XXXVI 


HUMAN  REPRESENTATIVES  OF  ATTIS 


355 


i-ifiwrt  E!™S~-r 

"  {.  know  that  1  hun8  on  the  windy  tree 
ror  nine  whole  nights, 

Wounded  with  the  spear,  dedicated  to  Odin 
Myself  to  myself.” 

SSXttSSB  Z  s£o  S‘Xz!Z"ds-  -f  r~* 

spirits  for  the  coming  season.  The  victim  was  led  to  a  vreot  w\ 
the  forest ;  there  he  was  tied  with  his  back  to  the  tree  g  tree  ln 
stretched  high  above  his  head  in  the  attitude  i  and  11S  arms 

3S*  £  S?  •  “  “o 

yy  a  ghoul  Attahe/bTth^f ' “t  Wh°Se  ^  WaS  being  co"s™ed 

*  xnsaitt  sr jk 

lanld  Ono  'r  /  ^  6?  aCC°frdinSly  she  we"t  by  the  name  of  the 

von ’at  Ephesus  the  moTf  &  ^  may  perhaPs  be  detected 

f  a  wr,™  U  ’  ,  ?  *  famous  of  her  sanctuaries,  in  the  legend 

and  WaS  thereupon  dressed  by°the 

f  uf  t  c  goddess  m  her  own  divine  garb  and  called  bv  the  name 

meFt  I6'  ,Slmllarly’  at  Melite  in  Phthia,  a  story  was  told  of  a  riri 

erelv  T?  +hal^ed  herSeIf’  but  who  aPPears  to  have  bfen 

"  found  bu1?  an  trteml%  F°r  after  her  death  her  body  could  not 
lave  of  A  f  •  ma£e  °f  her  was  discovered  standing  beside  the 
i-  |ar  „Vl^r^emis'  and  the  Pe°ple  bestowed  on  it  the  title  of  Hecaerve 
Far-shooter,  one  of  the  regular  epithets  of  the  goddess  EveJ 


3j6  ORIENTAL  RELIGIONS  IN  THE  WEST 


CH. 


vear  the  virgins  sacrificed  a  young  goat  to  the  image  by  hanging  it, 
because  Aspafis  was  said  to  have  hanged  herself.  The  sacrifice  may 
have  been  a  substitute  for  hanging  an  image  or  a  human  repie- 
sentative  of  Artemis.  Again,  in  Rhodes  the  fair  Helen  was  wor¬ 
ship  v  under  the  title  of  Helen  of  the  Tree,  because  the  queen  of 
the  island  had  caused  her  handmaids,  disguised  as  Furies,  to  string 
her  up  to  a  bough.  That  the  Asiatic  Greeks  sacrificed  animals  in 
this  fashion  is  proved  by  coins  of  Ilium,  which  represent  an  ox  or 
cow  hanging  on  a  tree  and  stabbed  with  a  knife  by  a  man,  who  sits 
among  the  branches  or  on  the  animal’s  back.  At  Hierapdis  aiso  the 
victims  were  hung  on  trees  before  they  were  burnt  With  these 
Greek  and  Scandinavian  parallels  before  us  we  can  hardly  dismiss 
as  wholly  improbable  the  conjecture  that  in  Phrygia  a  man-god  may  ] 
have  hung  year  by  year  on  the  sacred  but  fatal  tree. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 


ORIENTAL  RELIGIONS  IN  THE  WEST 


The  worship  of  the  Great  Mother  of  the  Gods  and  her  lover  or  son  was 
very  popular  under  the  Roman  Empire.  Inscriptions  prove  that  the 
two  received  divine  honours,  separately  or  conjointly,  not  only  m  Italy, 
and  especially  at  Rome,  but  also  in  the  provinces,  particularly  in  Africa 
Spain,  Portugal,  France,  Germany,  and  Bulgaria.  Their  worship 
survived  the  establishment  of  Christianity  by  Constantine ;  for  Sym- 
machus  records  the  recurrence  of  the  festival  of  the  Great  Mother,  an 
in  the  days  of  Augustine  her  effeminate  priests  still  paraded  the  streets 
and  squares  of  Carthage  with  whitened  faces,  scented  hair,  and  mincing 
gait  while,  like  the  mendicant  friars  of  the  Middle  Ages,  they  bagged 
alms  from  the  passers-by.  In  Greece,  on  the  other  hand,  the  bloody 
orgies  of  the  Asiatic  goddess  and  her  consort  appear  to  have  found  little- 
favour.  The  barbarous  and  cruel  character  of  the  worship,  with  its 
frantic  excesses,  was  doubtless  repugnant  to  the  good  taste  anc 
humanity  of  the  Greeks,  who  seem  to  have  preferred  the  kindred  bul 
gentler  rites  of  Adonis.  Yet  the  same  features  which  shocked  anc 
repelled  the  Greeks  may  have  positively  attracted  the  less  refinec 
Romans  and  barbarians  of  the  West.  The  ecstatic  frenzies,  whic 
were  mistaken  for  divine  inspiration,  the  mangling  of  the  body,  t  > 
theory  of  a  new  birth  and  the  remission  of  sms  through  the  sheddmi 
of  blood,  have  all  their  origin  in  savagery,  and  they  naturally  appea  ec 
to  peoples  in  whom  the  savage  instincts  were  still  strong.  I  heir  tru 
character  was  indeed  often  disguised  under  a  decent  veil  of  allegonca 
or  philosophical  interpretation,  which  probably  sufficed  to  impose  upo. 
the  rapt  and  enthusiastic  worshippers,  reconciling  even  the  mor 
cultivated  of  them  to  things  which  otherwise  must  have  filled  tne 

with  horror  and  disgust.  .  .  f  j 

The  religion  of  the  Great  Mother,  with  its  curious  blending  of  cru 


XXXVII  ORIENTAL  RELIGIONS  IN  THE  WEST 


357 


savagery  with  spiritual  aspirations,  was  only  one  of  a  multitude  of 
srnnlar  Oriental  faiths  which  in  the  later  days  of  paganism  spread  over 
the  Roman  Empire  and  by  saturating  the  European  peoples  with  alien 
ideals  of  life  gradually  undermined  the  whole  fabric  of  ancient  civilisa- 
tl0Tn*  and  Roman  society  was  built  on  the  conception  of  the 

subordination  of  the  individual  to  the  community,  of  the  citizen  to  the 
state  ;  it  set  the  safety  of  the  commonwealth,  as  the  supreme  aim  of 
conduct,  above  the  safety  of  the  individual  whether  in  this  world  or  in 
a  world  to  come.  Trained  from  infancy  in  this  unselfish  ideal,  the 
citizens  devoted  their  lives  to  the  public  service  and  were  ready  to 
ay  them  down  for  the  common  good  ;  or  if  they  shrank  from  the 
supreme  sacrifice,  it  never  occurred  to  them  that  they  acted  otherwise 
man  basely  m  preferring  their  personal  existence  to  the  interests  of 
heir  country.  Aliihj^wa^changed  by  the  spread  of  Oriental  religions 
1VW  inculcated  the  conununion  ojthe  soul  with  God  and  its  eternal 
>a. X  a t h  hvingLiZ^^ 

.  wjpfr-t.he  prosper!  f  57  and  even,  the  e.xi  stence-oidhestate  sank  into 
nsi^uficance,_Xhe  inevitable  result  of  this  selfish  and  immoral 
loctnne  was  to  withdraw  the  devotee  more  and  more  from  the  public 
ervice,  to  concentrate  his  thoughts  on  his  own  spiritual  emotions,  and 
0  breed  m  him  a  contempt  for  the  present  life  which  he  regarded 
aerely  as  a  probation  for  a  better  and  an  eternal.  The  saint  and  the 
ecluse,  disdainful  of  earth  and  rapt  in  ecstatic  contemplation  of  heaven 
ecame  in  popular  opinion  the  highest  ideal  of  humanity,  displacing 
he  old  ideal  of  the  patriot  and  hero  who,  forgetful  of  self,  lives  and  is 
cady  to  die  for  the  good  of  his  country.  The  earthly  city  seemed 
'oor  and  contemptible  to  men  whose  eyes  beheld  the  City  of  God 
prrung  iri  the  clouds  of  heaven.  Thus  the  centre  of  gravity,  so  to~say 
ms  shifted  from  the  present  to  a  future  life,  and  however  much  the 
pier  world  may  have  gained,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  one 
,s  heavdy  by  the  change.  A  general  disintegration  of  the  body 
olitic  set  m.  The  ties  of  the  state  and  the  family  were  loosened  • 
ie  structure  of  society  tended  to  resolve  itself  into  its  individual 
ements  and  thereby  to  relapse  into  barbarism  ;  for  civilisation  is 
1  y  possible  through  the  active  co-operation  of  the  citizens  and  them 
Ulmgness  to  subordinate  their  private  interests  to  the  common  good, 
■en  refused  to  defend  their  country  and  even  to  continue  their  kind! 

;l  taelr  anxjety  to  save  their  own  souls  and  the  souls  of  others,  they 
yre  content  to  leave  the  material  world,  which  they  identified  with 
i  e  principle  of  evil,  to  perish  around  them.  This  obsession  lasted  for 
<;  thousand  years. .  The  revival  of  Roman  law,  of  the  Aristotelian 
jinosophy,  of  ancient  art  and  literature  at  the  close  of  the  Middle 
?es,  marked  the  return  of  Europe  to  native  ideals  of  life  and  conduct 
t-saner,  manlier  views  of  the  worlds  The  long  halt  in  the  march  of 
n  isatiun  was  over.-  The  tide  of  Oriental  invasion  had  turned  at 
lvt-  It  is  ebbing  still. 

Among  the  gods  of  eastern  origin  who  in  the  decline  of  the  ancient 
>nd  competed  against  each  other  for  the  allegiance  of  the  West  was 


358  ORIENTAL  RELIGIONS  IN  THE  WEST  CH. 

the  old  Persian  deity  Mithra.  The  immense  popularity  of  his  worship 
is  attested  by  the  monuments  illustrative  of  it  which  have  been  found 
scattered  in  profusion  all  over  the  Roman  Empire.  In  respect  both 
of  doctrines  and  of  rites  the  cult  of  Mithra  appears  to  have  presented 
many  points  of  resemblance  not  only  to  the  religion  of  the  Mother  of 
the  Gods  but  also  to  Christianity.  The  similarity  struck  the  Christian 
doctors  themselves  and  was  explained  by  them  as  a  work  of  the  devil, 
who  sought  to  seduce  the  souls  of  men  from  the  true  faith  by  a  false 
and  insidious  imitation  of  it.  So  to  the  Spanish  conquerors  of  Mexico 
and  Peru  many  of  the  native  heathen  rites  appeared  to  be  diabolical 
counterfeits  of  the  Christian  sacraments.  With  more  probability  the 
modern  student  of  comparative  religion  traces  such  resemblances  to 
the  similar  and  independent  workings  of  the  mind  of  man  in  his  sincere, 
if  crude,  attempts  to  fathom  the  secret  of  the  universe,  and  to  adjust 
his  little  life  to  its  awful  mysteries.  However  that  may  be,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  Mithraic  religion  proved  a  formidable  rival  to 
Christianity,  combining  as  it  did  a  solemn  ritual  with  aspirations  after 
moral  purity  and  a  hope  of  immortality.  Indeed  the  issue  of  the 
conflict  between  the  two  faiths  appears  for  a  time  to  have  hung  in  the 
balance.  An  instructive  relic  of  the  long  struggle  is  preserved  in  our 
festival  of  Christmas,  which  the  Church  seems  to  have  borrowed 
directly  from  ItTHeathen  rival.  In  the  Julian  calendar  the  twenty- 
fifth  of  December  was  reckoned  the  wmter  solstice,  and  it  was  regarded 
as  the  Nativity  of  the  Sun,  because  thTdayTegills  to  lengthen  and  the 
power  of  the  sun  to  increase  from  that  turning-point  of  the  year ..  The 
ritual  of  the  nativity,  as  it  appears  to  have  been  celebrated  in  Syria  and 
Egypt,  was  remarkable.  The  celebrants  retired  into  certain  inner 
shrines,  from  wdiich  at  midnight  they  issued  with  a  loud  cry,  The 
Virgin  has  brought  forth  !  The  light  is  waxing  !  ”  The  Egyptians 
even  represented  the  new-born  sun  by  the  image  of  an  infant  which  on 
his  birthday,  the  winter  solstice,  they  brought  forth  and  exhibited  to 
his  worshippers.  No  doubt  the  Virgin  who  thus  conceived  and  bore 
a  sgiuQiiJLe^w^  ¥reat  Oriental  goddess 

whom  the  Semites  called  the  Heavenly  Virgin  or  simply  the  Heavenly 
Goddess  ;  in  Sei^cJandssEe  was  a  form  of  Astarte.  Now  Mithra  was 
regularly  identified  by  his  worshippers  with  the  Sun,  the  Unconquered 
Sun,  as  they  called  him  ;  hence  his  nativity  also  fell  on  the  twenty-fifth 
of  December.  The  Gospels  say  nothing  as  to  the  day  of  Christ’s  birth 
and  accordingly  the  early  Church  did  not  celebrate  it.  In  time,  how¬ 
ever,  the  Christians  of  Egypt  came  to  regard  the  sixth  of  January  a< 
the  date  of  the  Nativity,  and  the  custom  of  commemorating  the  birtl 
of  the  Saviour  on  that  day  gradually  spread  until  by  the  fourth  centur} 
it  was  universally  established  in  the  East.  But  at  the  end  of  the  thirc 
or  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century  the  Western  Church,  which  hac 
never  recognised  the  sixth  of  January  as  the  day  of  the  Nativity 
adopted  the  twenty-fifth  of  December  as  the  true  date,  and  in  time  it 
decision  was  accepted  also  by  the  Eastern  Church.  At  Antioch  1 1< 
change  was  not  introduced  till  about  the  year  375  a.d. 


XXXVII 


ORIENTAL  RELIGIONS  IN  THE  WEST 


359 


What  considerations  led  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  to  institute 
the  festival  of  Christmas  ?  The  motives  for  the  innovation  are  stated 
with  great  frankness  by  a  Syrian  writer,  himself  a  Christian.  “  The 
reason/’  he  tells  us,  “  why  the  fathers  transferred  the  celebration  of  the 
sixth  of  January  to  the  twenty-fifth  of  December  was  this.  It  was 
a  custom  of  the  heathen  to  celebrate  on  the  same  twenty-fifth  of 
December  the  birthday  of  the  Sun,  at  which  they  kindled  lights  in 
token  of  festivity.  In  tk^~soTemnities  and'TeiTnlti^ 
alsoTook  part  .^jAccordinglywIiehThe  doctors  of  YheTihurc^ perceived 
that  the  Christians  had  a  leaning  to  this  festival,  they  took  counsel  and 
resolved  that  the  true  Nativity  should  be  solemnised  on  that  day  and 
the  festival  of  the  Epiphany  on  the  sixth  of  January.  Accordingly, 
along  with  this  custom,  the  practice  has  prevailed  of  kindling  fires  till 
the  sixth.”  The  heathen  origin  of  Christmas  is  plainly  hinted  at,  if 
not  tacitly  admitted,  by  Augustine  when  he  exhorts  his  Christian 
brethren  not  to  celebrate  that  solemn  day  like  the  heathen  on  account 
of  the  sun,  but  on  account  of  him  who  made  the  sun.  In  like  manner 
Leo  the  Great  rebuked  the  pestilent  belief  that  Christmas  was  solemnised 
because  of  the  birth  of  the  new  sun,  as  it  was  called,  and  not  because  of 
the  nativity  of  Christ. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  Christian  Church  chose  to  celebrate  the 
birthday  of  its  Founder  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  December  in  order  to 
transfer  the  devotion  of  the  heathen  from  the  Sun  to  him  who  was 
called  the  Sun  pf  Bightfryi1g‘np<:Q  If  that  was  so,  there  can  be  no 
intrinsic  improbability  in  the  conjecture  that  motives  of  the  same 
sort  may  have  led  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  to  assimilate  the  Easter 
festival  of  the  death  and  resurrection  of  their  Lord  to  the  festival 
of  the  death  and  resurrection  of  another  Asiatic  god  which  fell  at  the 
same  season.  Now  the  Easter  rites  still  observed  in  Greece,  Sicily, 

.  and  southern  Italy  bear  in  some  respects  a  striking  resemblance  to 
the  rites  of  Adonis,  and  I  have  suggested  that  the  Church  may  have 
consciously  adapted  the  new  festival  to  its  heathen  predecessor  for 
the  sake  of  winning  souls  to  Christ.  But  this  adaptation  probably 
took  place  in  the  Greek-speaking  rather  than  in  the  Latin-speaking 
parts  of  the  ancient  world  ;  for  the  worship  of  Adonis,  while  it  flourished 
among  the  Greeks,  appears  to  have  made  little  impression  on  Rome 
and  the  West.  Certainly  it  never  formed  part  of  the  official  Roman 
religion.  The  place  which  it  might  have  taken  in  the  affections  of 
the  vulgar  was  already  occupied  by  the  similar  but  more  barbarous 
worship  of  Attis  and  the  Great  Mother.  Now  the  death  and  resurrec- 
tioQ^f  Attis  were  officially  celebrated  at  Rome  on  the  twenty-fourth 
and  twmfcy4i£tli_of  Marcn,  The  lafteE being  regarded  as  the  spring 
equinox,  and  therefore.  asHhjeZmost^appropnate  Tlav  for  the  revival 
of  a-gnd  of^vegetation  who  had  been  dead  or^Ie^pmg^tlirbughout  the 
winter.  BrdTifccordmg" to  an  ancient  and  widespread  tradition  Christ 
suffered  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  March,  and  accordingly  some  Christians 
regularly  celebrated  the  Crucifixion  on  that  day  without  any  regard 
to  the  state  of  the  moon.  This  custom  was  certainly  observed  in 


360  ORIENTAL  RELIGIONS  IN  THE  WEST  ch. 

' — Rftrygia,  Cappadocia,  and  Gaul,  and  there  seem  to  be  grounds  for 
thinking  that  at  one  time  it  was  followed  also  in  Rome.  Thus  the 
tradition  which  placed  the  death  of  Christ  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  March 
was  ancient  and  deeply  rooted.  It  is  all  the  more  remarkable  because 
astronomical  considerations  prove  that  it  can  have  had  no  historical 
foundation.  The  inference  appears  to  be  inevitable  that  the  passion 
of  Christ  must  have  been  arbitrarily  referred  to  that  date  in  order  to 

VJiarmonise  with  an  older  festival  of  the  spring  equinox.  This  is  the 
view  of  the  learned  ecclesiastical  historian  Mgr.  Duchesne,  who  points 
out  that  the  death  of  the  Saviour  was  thus  made  to  fall  upon  the  very 
day  on  which,  according  to  a  widespread  belief,  the  world  had  been 
created.  But  the  resurrection  of  Attis,  who  combined  in  himself 
the  characters  of  the  divine  Father  and  the  divine  Son,  was  officially 
celebrated  at  Rome  on  the  same  day.  When  we  remember  that  the 
festival  of  St.  George  in  April  has  replaced  the  ancient  pagan  festival 
of  the  Parilia  ;  that  the  festival  of  St.  John  the  Baptist  in  June  has 
succeeded  to  a  heathen  Midsummer  festival  of  water  ;  that  the  festival 
of  the  Assumption  of  the  Virgin  in  August  has  ousted  the  festival 
of  Diana  ;  that  the  feast  of  All  Souls  in  November  is  a  continuation 
of  an  old  heathen  feast  of  the  dead  ;  and  that  the  Nativity  of  Christ 
himself  was  assigned  to  the  winter  solstice  in  December  because  that 
day  was  deemed  the  Nativity  of  the  Sun  ;  we  can  hardly  be  thought 
rash  or  unreasonable  in  conjecturing  that  the  other  cardinal  festival 
of  the  Christian  church — the  solemnisation  of  Easter — may  have 
been  in  like  manner,  and  from  like  motives  of  edification,  adapted 
to  a  similar  celebration  of  the  Phrygian  god  Attis  at  the  vernal 
equinox. 

At  least  it  is  a  remarkable  coincidence,  if  it  is  nothing  more,  that 
the  Christian  and  the  heathen  festivals  of  the  divine  death  and  re¬ 
surrection  should  have  been  solemnised  at  the  same  season  and  in 
the  same  places.  For  the  places  which  celebrated  the  death  of  Christ 
at  the  spring  equinox  were  Phrygia,  Gaul,  and  apparently  Rome, 
that  is,  the  very  regions  in  which  the  worship  of  Attis  either  originated 
or  struck  deepest  root.  It  is  difficult  to  regard  the  coincidence  as  : 
purely  accidental.  If  the  vernal  equinox,  the  season  at  which  in 
the  temperate  regions  the  whole  face  of  nature  testifies  to  a  fresh 
outburst  of  vital  energy,  had  been  viewed  from  of  old  as  the  time  when 
the  world  was  annually  created  afresh  in  the  resurrection  of  a  god, 
nothing  could  be  more  natural  than  to  place  the  resurrection  of  the 
new  deity  at  the  same  cardinal  point  of  the  year.  Only  it  isjy  he 
observed  that  if  the  death  of  Christ  was  dated  on  thy  tWenTyJifth  of 
M!TT(?f!T^*£P¥ggg^  to'  Christian  tradition,  must  have 

happened  on  the  twenty^sgyen4h---a£-JMar€h^  whicLris  just,  two  days 
Dteiyfiiia^ddl^'vernal  equinox  of  the  Julian  calendar  and  thejysurrec- 
tion  l^TTfepkrcEnient' of  two  days  in  the~adjustment 

of  Christian  to  heathen  celebrations  occurs  in  the  festivals  of  St.  George 
and  the  Assumption  of  the  Virgin.  However,  another  Christian 
tradition,  followed  by  Lactantius  and  perhaps  by  the  practice  of  the 


xxxvii  ORIENTAL  RELIGIONS  IN  THE  WEST  361 

Church  m  Gaul,  placed  the  death  of  Christ  on  the  twenty-third  and 
his  resurrection  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  March.  If  that  was  so  his 
resurrection  coincided  exactly  with  the.  resurrection  of  Attis. 

n  point  of  fact  it  appears  from  the 'testimony  of  an  anonymous 
Christian,  who  wrote  111  the  fourth  century  of  our  era,  that  Christians 
and  pagans  alike  were  struck  by  the  remarkable  coincidence  between 
the  death  and  resurrection  of  their  respective  deities,  and  that  the 
coincidence  formed  a  theme  of  bitter  controversy  between  the  adherents 

°fri-I1Val  rell&101?s'  pagans  contending  that  the  resurrection 
0  ✓  arist  was  a  spurious  imitation  of  the  resurrection  of  Attis,  and  the 
Christians  asserting  with  equal  warmth  that  the  resurrection  of  Attis 
was  a  diabolical  counterfeit  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ.  In  these 
unseemly  bickerings  the  heathen  took  what  to  a  superficial  observer 
might  seem  strong  ground  by  arguing  that  their  god  was  the  older 
and  therefore  presumably  the  original,  not  the  counterfeit,  since  as  a 
,  general  rule  an  original  is  older  than  its  copy.  This  feeble  argument 
the  Christians  easily  rebutted.  They  admitted,  indeed,  that  in  point 
of  time  Christ  was  the  junior  deity,  but  they  triumphantly  demon¬ 
strated  his  real  seniority  by  falling  back  on  the  subtlety  of  Satan  who 
on  so  important  an  occasion  had  surpassed  himself  by  inverting  the 
usual  order  of  nature.  s 

Taken  altogether,  the  coincidences  of  the  Christian  with  the  heathen 
estivals  are  too  close  and  too  numerous  to  be  accidental.  Thev 
mark  the  compromise  which  the  Church  in  the  hour  of  its  triumph 
was  compelled  to  make  with  its  vanquished  yet  still  dangerous  rivals. 
The  inflexible  Protestantism  of  the  primitive  missionaries,  with  their 
hery  denunciations  of  heathendom,  had  been  exchanged  for  the  supple 
policy,  the  easy  tolerance,  the  comprehensive  charity  of  shrewd  ecclesi¬ 
astics,  who  clearly  perceived  that  if  Christianity  was  to  conquer  the 
world  it  could  do  so  only  by  relaxing  the  too  rigid  principles  of  its 
ounder,  by  widening  a  little  the  narrow  gate  which  leads  to  salvation 
In  this  respect  an  instructive  parallel  might  be  drawn  between  the 
history  of  Christianity  and  the  history  of  Buddhism.  Both  systems 
were  m  their  origin  essentially  ethical  reforms  born  of  the  generous 
ar  our,  the  lofty  aspirations,  the  tender  compassion  of  their  noble 
bounders  two  of  those  beautiful  spirits  who  appear  at  rare  intervals 

earth  like  beings  come  from  a  better  world  to  support  and  guide 
our  weak  and  erring  nature.  Both  preached  moral  virtue  as  the  means 
of  accomplishing  what  they  regarded  as  the  supreme  object  of  life 
the  eternal  salvation  of  the  individual  soul,  though  by  a  curious 
antithesis  the  one  sought  that  salvation  in  a  blissful  eternity  the 
other  in  a  final  release  from  suffering,  in  annihilation.  But  the  austere 

nnlt  f ' °  +fan,CtltZ  Wh!ch  they  inculcated  were  too  deeply  opposed  not 
nly  to.  the  frailties  but  to  the  natural  instincts  of  humanity  ever  to 

e  carried  out  in  practice  by  more  than  a  small  number  of  disciples 
who  consistently  renounced  the  ties  of  the  family  and  the  state  in 
order  to  work  out  their  own  salvation  in  the  still  seclusion  of  the 
c  oister.  If  such  faiths  were  to  be  nominally  accepted  by  whole 


362  THE  MYTH  OF  OSIRIS  ch. 

nations  or  even  by  the  world,  it  was  essential  that  they  should  first 
be  modified  or  transformed  so  as  to  accord  in  some  measure  with  the 
prejudices,  the  passions,  the  superstitions  of  the  vulgar.  This  process 
of  accommodation  was  carried  out  in  after  ages  by  followers  who, 
made  of  less  ethereal  stuff  than  their  masters,  were  for  that  reason 
the  better  fitted  to  mediate  between  them  and  the  common  herd. 
Thus  as  time  went  on,  the  two  religions,  in  exact  proportion  to  their 
growing  popularity,  absorbed  more  and  more  of  those  baser  elements 
which  they  had  been  instituted  for  the  very  purpose  of  suppressing. 
Such  spiritual  decadences  are  inevitable.  The  world  cannot  live 
at  the  level  of  its  great  men.  Yet  it  would  be  unfair  to  the  generality 
of  our  kind  to  ascribe  wholly  to  their  intellectual  and  moral  weakness 
the  gradual  divergence  of  Buddhism  and  Christianity  from  their 
primitive  patterns.  For  it  should  never  be  forgotten  that  by  their 
glorification  of  poverty  and  celibacy  both  these  religions  struck  straight 
at  the  root  not  merely  of  civil  society  but  of  human  existence.  The 
blow  was  parried  by  the  wisdom  or  the  folly  of  the  vast  majority  of 
mankind,  who  refused  to  purchase  a  chance  of  saving  their  souls  with 
the  certainty  of  extinguishing  the  species. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

THE  MYTH  OF  OSIRIS 

In  ancient  Egypt  the  god  whose  death  and  resurrection  were  annually 
celebrated  with  alternate  sorrow  and  joy  was  Osiris,  the  most  popular 
of  all  Egyptian  deities  ;  and  there  are  good  grounds  for  classing  him 
in  one  of  his  aspects  with  Adonis  and  Attis  as  a  personification  of  the 
great  yearly  vicissitudes  of  nature,  especially  of  the  corn..  But  the 
immense  vogue  which  he  enjoyed  for  many  ages  induced  his  devoted 
worshippers  to  heap  upon  him  the  attributes  and  powers  of  many 
other  gods  ;  so  that  it  is  not  always  easy  to  strip  him,  so  to  say,  of 
his  borrowed  plumes  and  to  restore  them  to  their  proper  owners. 

The  story  of  Osiris  is  told  in  a  connected  form  only  by  Plutarch, 
whose  narrative  has  been  confirmed  and  to  some  extent  amplified  in 
modern  times  by  the  evidence  of  the  monuments. 

Osiris  was  the  offspring  of  an  intrigue  between  the  earth-god  Seb 
(Keb  or  Geb,  as  the  name  is  sometimes  transliterated)  and  the  sky- 
goddess  Nut.  The  Greeks  identified  his  parents  with  their  own 
deities  Cronus  and  Rhea.  When  the  sun-god  Ra  perceived  that  his 
wife  Nut  had  been  unfaithful  to  him,  he  declared  with  a  curse  that  she 
should  be  delivered  of  the  child  in  no  month  and  no  year.  But  the 
goddess  had  another  lover,  the  god  Thoth  or  Hermes,  as  the  Greeks 
called  him,  and  he  playing  at  draughts  with  the  moon  won  from  her 
a  seventy-second  part  of  every  day,  and  having  compounded  five 
whole  days  out  of  these  parts  he  added  them  to  the  Egyptian  year 


XXXVIII 


THE  MYTH  OF  OSIRIS  363 

of  three  hundred  and  sixty  days.  This  was  the  mythical  origin  of 
the  five  supplementary  days  which  the  Egyptians  annually  inserted 
at  the  end  of  every  year  in  order  to  establish  a  harmony  between  lunar 
and  solar  time.  On  these  five  days,  regarded  as  outside  the  year  of 
twelve  months,  the  curse  of  the  sun-god  did  not  rest,  and  accordingly 
Osiris  was  born  on  the  first  of  them.  At  his  nativity  a  voice  rang 
out  proclaiming  that  the  Lord  of  All  had  come  into  the  world.  Some 
say  that  a  certain  Pamyles  heard  a  voice  from  the  temple  at  Thebes 
bidding  him  announce  with  a  shout  that  a  great  king,  the  beneficent 
Osiris,  was  born.  But  Osiris  was  not  the  only  child  of  his  mother. 
On  the  second  of  the  supplementary  days  she  gave  birth  to  the  elder 
Horus,  on  the  third  to  the  god  Set,  whom  the  Greeks  called  Typhon, 
on  the  fourth  to  the  goddess  Isis,  and  on  the  fifth  to  the  goddess 
Nephthys.  Afterwards  Set  married  his  sister  Nephthys,  and  Osiris 
married  his  sister  Isis. 

Reigning  as  a  king  on  earth,  Osiris  reclaimed  the  Egyptians  from 
savagery,,  gave  them  laws,  and  taught  them  to  worship  the  gods. 
Before  his  time  the  Egyptians  had  been  cannibals.  But  Isis,  the 
sister  and  wife  of  Osiris,  discovered  wheat  and  barley  growing  wild, 
and  Osiris  introduced  the  cultivation  of  these  grains  amongst  his 
people,  who  forthwith  abandoned  cannibalism  and  took  kindly  to 
a  corn  diet.  Moreover,  Osiris  is  said  to  have  been  the  first  to  gather 
fruit  from  trees,  to  train  the  vine  to  poles,  and  to  tread  the  grapes. 
Eager  to  communicate  these  beneficent  discoveries  to  all  mankind, 
he  committed  the  whole  government  of  Egypt  to  his  wife  Isis,  and 
travelled  over  the  world,  diffusing  the  blessings  of  civilisation  and 
agriculture  wherever  he  went.  In  countries  where  a  harsh  climate 
or  niggardly  soil  forbade  the  cultivation  of  the  vine,  he  taught  the 
inhabitants  to  console  themselves  for  the  want  of  wine  by  brewing 
beer  from  barley.  Loaded  with  the  wealth  that  had  been  showered 
upon  him  by  grateful  nations,  he  returned  to  Egypt,  and  on  account 
of  the  benefits  he  had  conferred  on  mankind  he  was  unanimously 
hailed  and  worshipped  as  a  deity.  But  his  brother  Set  (whom  the 
Greeks  called  Typhon)  with  seventy-two  others  plotted  against  him. 
Having  taken  the  measure  of  his  good  brother’s  body  by  stealth, 
the  bad  brother  Typhon  fashioned  and  highly  decorated  a  coffer  of 
the  same  size,  and  once  when  they  were  all  drinking  and  making  merry 
he  brought  in  the  coffer  and  jestingly  promised  to  give  it  to  the  one 
whom  it  should  fit  exactly.  Well,  they  all  tried  one  after  the  other, 
but  it  fitted  none  of  them.  Last  of  all  Osiris  stepped  into  it  and  lay 
down.  On  that  the  conspirators  ran  and  slammed  the  lid  down  on 
him,  nailed  it  fast,  soldered  it  with  molten  lead,  and  flung  the  coffer 
into  the  Nile.  This  happened  on  the  seventeenth  day  of  the  month 
Athyr,  when  the  sun  is  in  the  sign  of  the  Scorpion,  and  in  the  eight- 
and-twentieth  year  of  the  reign  or  the  life  of  Osiris.  When  Isis  heard 
of  it  she  sheared  off  a  lock  of  her  hair,  put  on  mourning  attire,  and 
wandered  disconsolately  up  and  down,  seeking  the  body. 

By  the  advice  of  the  god  of  wisdom  she  took  refuge  in  the  papyrus 


364  THE  MYTH  OF  OSIRIS  ch. 

swamps  of  the  Delta.  Seven  scorpions  accompanied  her  in  her 
flight.  One  evening  when  she  was  weary  she  came  to  the  house  of  a 
woman,  who,  alarmed  at  the  sight  of  the  scorpions,  shut  the  door  in 
her  face.  Then  one  of  the  scorpions  crept  under  the  door  and  stung 
the  child  of  the  woman  that  he  died.  But  when  Isis  heard  the  mother  s 
lamentation,  her  heart  was  touched,  and  she  laid  her  hands  on  the  child 
and  uttered  her  powerful  spells  ;  so  the  poison  was  driven  out  of  the 
child  and  he  lived.  Afterwards  Isis  herself  gave  birth  to  a  son  in 
the  swamps.  She  had  conceived  him  while  she  fluttered  in  the  form 
of  a  hawk  over  the  corpse  of  her  dead  husband.  The  infant  was  the 
younger  Horns,  who  in  his  youth  bore  the  name  of  Harpociates,  that 
is,  the  child  Horus.  Him  Buto,  the  goddess  of  the  north,  hid  from  the 
wrath  of  his  wicked  uncle  Set.  Yet  she  could  not  guard  him  from  all 
mishap  ;  for  one  day  when  Isis  came  to  her  little  son’s  hiding-place 
she  found  him  stretched  lifeless  and  rigid  on  the  ground  :  a  scorpion 
had  stung  him.  Then  Isis  prayed  to  the  sun-god  Ra  for  help.  The 
god  hearkened  to  her  and  staid  his  bark  in  the  sky,  and  sent  down 
Thoth  to  teach  her  the  spell  by  which  she  might  restore  her  son  to 
life.  She  uttered  the  words  of  power,  and  straightway  the  poison 
flowed  from  the  body  of  Horus,  air  passed  into  him,  and  he  lived. 
Then  Thoth  ascended  up  into  the  sky  and  took  his  place  once  more 
in  the  bark  of  the  sun,  and  the  bright  pomp  passed  onward  jubilant. 

Meantime  the  coffer  containing  the  body  of  Osiris  had  floated 
down  the  river  and  away  out  to  sea,  till  at  last  it  drifted  ashore  at 
Byblus,  on  the  coast  of  Syria.  Here  a  fine  erica- tree  shot  up  suddenly 
and  enclosed  the  chest  in  its  trunk.  The  king  of  the  country,  admiring 
the  growth  of  the  tree,  had  it  cut  down  and  made  into  a  pillar  of  his 
house  ;  but  he  did  not  know  that  the  coffer  with  the  dead  Osiris  was 
in  it.  *  Word  of  this  came  to  Isis  and  she  journeyed  to  Byblus,  and 
sat  down  by  the  well,  in  humble  guise,  her  face  wet  with  tears, 
none  would  she  speak  till  the  king  s  handmaidens  came,  and  them  she 
greeted  kindly,  and  braided  their  hair,  and  breathed  on  them  from 
her  own  divine  body  a  wondrous  perfume.  But  when  the  queen  beheld 
the  braids  of  her  handmaidens’  hair  and  smelt  the  sweet  smell  that 
emanated  from  them,  she  sent  for  the  stranger  woman  and  took  her 
into  her  house  and  made  her  the  nurse  of  her  child.  But  Isis  gave 
the  babe  her  finger  instead  of  her  breast  to  suck,  and  at  night  she 
began  to  burn  all  that  was  mortal  of  him  away,  while  she  herself 
in  the  likeness  of  a  swallow  fluttered  round  the  pillar  that  contained 
her  dead  brother,  twittering  mournfully.  But  the  queen  spied  what 
she  was  doing  and  shrieked  out  when  she  saw  her  child  in  flames, 
and  thereby  she  hindered  him  from  becoming  immortal.  Then  the 
goddess  revealed  herself  and  begged  for  the  pillar  of  the  roof,  and 
they  gave  it  her,  and  she  cut  the  coffer  out  of  it,  and  fell  upon  it 
and  embraced  it  and  lamented  so  loud  that  the  younger  of  the  king’s 
children  died  of  fright  on  the  spot.  But  the  trunk  of  the  tree  she 
wrapped  in  fine  linen,  and  poured  ointment  on  it,  and  gave  it  to  the 
king  and  queen,  and  the  wood  stands  in  a  temple  of  Isis  and  is 


XXXVIII 


THE  MYTH  OF  OSIRIS  365 

worshipped  by  the  people  of  Byblus  to  this  day.  And  Isis  put  the 
coffer  m  a  boat  and  took  the  eldest  of  the  king’s  children  with  her 
and  sailed  away.  As  soon  as  they  were  alone,  she  opened  the  chest 
and  lay  mg  her  face  on  the  face  of  her  brother  she  kissed  him  and 
wept.  But  the  child  came  behind  her  softly  and  saw  what  she  was 
about,  and  she  turned  and  looked  at  him  in  anger,  and  the  child  could 
not  bear  her  look  and  died;  but  some  say  that  it  was  not  so,  but 
that  he  fell  into  the  sea  and  was  drowned.  It  is  he  whom  the  Egyptians 
smg  of  at  their  banquets  under  the  name  of  Maneros. 

But  Isis  put  the  coffer  by  and  went  to  see  her  son  Horus  at  the  citv 
.°  /llt0’1ai1K  Typhon  found  the  coffer  as  he  was  hunting  a  boar  one  night 
by  the  light  of  a  full  moon.  And  he  knew  the  body,  and  rent  it  into 
fourteen  pieces,  and  scattered  them  abroad.  But  Isis  sailed  up  and  down 
the  marshes  in  a  shallop  made  of  papyrus,  looking  for  the  pieces  ;  and 
that  is  why  when  people  sail  in  shallops  made  of  papyrus,  the  crocodiles 
do  not  hurt  them,  for  they  fear  or  respect  the  goddess.  And  that  is 
the  reason  too,  why  there  are  many  graves  of  Osiris  in  Egypt,  for  she 
uried  each  limb  as  she  found  it.  But  others  will  have  it  that  she 
buried  an  image  of  him  in  every  city,  pretending  it  was  his  body,  in 
order  that  Osins  might  be  worshipped  in  many  places,  and  that  if 
lyphon  searched  for  the  real  grave  he  might  not  be  able  to  find  it. 
However,  the  genital  member  of  Osiris  had  been  eaten  by  the  fishes 
so  Isis  made  an  image  of  it  instead,  and  the  image  is  used  by  the 
Egyptians  at  their  festivals  to  this  day.  “  Isis,”  writes  the  historian 
Diodorus  Siculus,  recovered  all  the  parts  of  the  body  except  the 
genitals  ,  and  because  she  wished  that  her  husband’s  grave  should  be 
unknown  and  honoured  by  all  who  dwell  in  the  land  of  Egypt  she 
resorted  to  the  following  device.  She  moulded  human  images  out 
o±  wax  and  spices,  corresponding  to  the  stature  of  Osiris,  round  each 
one  of  the  parts  of  his  body.  Then  she  called  in  the  priests  according 
to  their  families  and  took  an  oath  of  them  all  that  they  would  reveal 
to  no  man  the  trust  she  was  about  to  repose  in  them.  So  to  each 
ot  them  privately  she  said  that  to  them  alone  she  entrusted  the  burial 
ol  the  body,  and  reminding  them  of  the  benefits  they  had  received 
she  exhorted  them  to  bury  the  body  in  their  own  land  and  to  honour 
Usiris  as  a  god.  She  also  besought  them  to  dedicate  one  of  the  animals 
ol  their  country,  whichever  they  chose,  and  to  honour  it  in  life  as 
they  had  formerly  honoured  Osiris,  and  when  it  died  to  grant  it 
obsequies  like  his.  And  because  she  would  encourage  the  priests  in 
eir  own  interest  to  bestow  the  aforesaid  honours,  she  gave  them  a 
third  part  of  the  land  to  be  used  by  them  in  the  service  and  worship 
ol  the  gods.  Accordingly  it  is  said  that  the  priests,  mindful  of  the 
benefits  of  Osins,  desirous  of  gratifying  the  queen,  and  moved  by  the 
prospect  of  gam,  carried  out  all  the  injunctions  of  Isis.  Wherefore  to 
this  day  each  of  the  priests  imagines  that  Osiris  is  buried  in  his  country, 
and  they  honour  the  beasts  that  were  consecrated  in  the  beginning, 
and  when  the  animals  die  the  priests  renew  at  their  burial  the  mourning 
lor  Osins.  But  the  sacred  bulls,  the  one  called  Apis  and  the  other 


CH. 


366  THE  MYTH  OF  OSIRIS 

Mnevis  were  dedicated  to  Osiris,  and  it  was  ordained  that  they  should 
be  worshipped  as  gods  in  common  by  all  the  Egyptians,  since  these 
animals  above  all  others  had  helped  the  discoverers  of  corn  m  sowing 
the  seed  and  procuring  the  universal  benefits  of  agriculture. 

Such  is  the  myth  or  legend  of  Osiris,  as  told  by  Greek  writers 
and  eked  out  by  ~  more  or  less  fragmentary  notices  or  allusions  m 
native  Egyptian  literature.  A  long  inscription  in  the  temple  at 
Denderah  has  preserved  a  list  of  the  god’s  graves,  and  other  texts 
mention  the  parts  of  his  body  which  were  treasured  as  holy  relics 
in  each  of  the  sanctuaries.  Thus  his  heart  was  at  Athribis,  his  backbone 
at  Busiris,  his  neck  at  Letopolis,  and  his  head  at  Memphis..  As  often 
happens  in  such  cases,  some  of  his  divine  limbs  were  miraculously 
multiplied.  His  head,  for  example,  was  at  Abydos  as  well  as  at 
Memphis,  and  his  legs,  which  were  remarkably  numerous,  would 
have  sufficed  for  several  ordinary  mortals.  In  this  respect,  however, 
Osiris  was  nothing  to  St.  Denys,  of  whom  no  less  than  seven  heads, 
all  equally  genuine,  are  extant.  . 

According  to  native  Egyptian  accounts,  which  supplement  that 
of  Plutarch,  when  Isis  had  found  the  corpse,  of  her  husband  Osiris, 
she  and  her  sister  Nephthys  sat  down  beside  it  and  uttered  a. lament 
which  in  after  ages  became  the  type  of  all  Egyptian  lamentations  for 
the  dead.  “  Come  to  thy  house,”  they  wailed,  “  Come  to  thy  house. 

O  god  On  !  come  to  thy  house,  thou  who  hast  no  foes.  O.  fair  youth, 
come  to  thy  house,  that  thou  mayest  see  me.  I  am  thy  sister,  whom 
thou  lovest ;  thou  shalt  not  part  from  me.  O  fair  boy,  come  to  thy 
house.  ...  I  see  thee  not,  yet  doth  my  heart  yearn  after  thee  and 
mine  eyes  desire  thee.  Come  to  her  who  loves  thee,  who  loves  thee, 
Unnefer,  thou  blessed  one  !  Come  to  thy  sister,  come  to  thy  wife, 
to  thy  wife,  thou  whose  heart  stands  still.  Come  to  thy  housewife. 

I  am  thy  sister  by  the  same  mother,  thou  shalt  not  be  far  from  me. 
Gods  and  men  have  turned  their  faces  towards  thee  and  weep  for 
thee  together.  ...  I  call  after  thee  and  weep,  so  that  my  cry  is  i 
heard  to  heaven,  but  thou  hearest  not  my  voice  ;  yet  am  I  thy  sister, 
whom  thou  didst  love  on  earth  ;  thou  didst  love  none  but  me,  my 
brother  !  my  brother  !  ”  This  lament  for  the  fair  youth  cut  off  m 
his  prime  reminds  us  of  the  laments  for  Adonis.  The  title  of  Unnefer 
or  “  the  Good  Being”  bestowed  on  him  marks  the  beneficence  which 
tradition  universally  ascribed  to  Osiris ;  it  was  at  once  his  commonest 

title  and  one  of  his  names  as  king. 

The  lamentations  of  the  two  sad  sisters  were  not  m  vain.  In 
pity  for  her  sorrow  the  sun-god  Ra  sent  down  from  heaven  the  jackal¬ 
headed  god  Anubis,  who,  with  the  aid  of  Isis  and  Nephthys,  of  Thoth 
and  Horus,  pieced  together  the  broken  body  of  the  murdered  god, 
swathed  it  in  linen  bandages,  and  observed  all  the  other  rites  which 
the  Egyptians  were  wont  to  perform  over  the  bodies  of  the  departed. 
Then  Isis  fanned  the  cold  clay  with  her  wings  :  Osiris  revived,  and 
thenceforth  reigned  as  king  over  the  dead  in  the  other  world.  There 
he  bore  the  titles  of  Lord  of  the  Underworld,  Lord  of  Eternity,  Ruler 


XXXVIII 


THE  MYTH  OF  OSIRIS  367 

of  the  Dead.  There,  too,  in  the  great  Hall  of  the  Two  Truths,  assisted 
by  forty-two  assessors,  one  from  each  of  the  principal  districts  of 
Egypt,  he  presided  as  judge  at  the  trial  of  the  souls  of  the  departed 
who  made  their  solemn  confession  before  him,  and,  their  heart  having 
been  weighed  in  the  balance  of  justice,  received  the  reward  of  virtue 
m  a  life  eternal  or  the  appropriate  punishment  of  their  sins. 

'  ,  In  resurrection  of  Osiris  the  Egyptians  saw  the  pledge  of  a 
life  everlasting  for  themselves  beyond  the  grave.  They  believed  that 
every  man  would  live  eternally  in  the  other  world  if  only  his  surviving 
friends  did  for  his  body  what  the  gods  had  done  for  the  body  of  Osiris. 
Hence  the  ceremonies  observed  by  the  Egyptians  over  the  human 
dead  were  an  exact  copy  of  those  which  Anubis,  Horus,  and  the  rest 
had  performed  over  the  dead  god.  “At  every  burial  there  was 
enacted  a  representation  of  the  divine  mystery  which  had  been  per¬ 
formed  of  old  over  Osiris,  when  his  son,  his  sisters,  his  friends  were 
gathered  round  his  mangled  remains  and  succeeded  by  their  spells 
and  manipulations  in  converting  his  broken  body  into  the  first  mummy 
which  they  afterwards  reanimated  and  furnished  with  the  means  of 
entering  on  a  new  individual  life  beyond  the  grave.  The  mummy  of 
the  deceased  was  Osiris  ;  the  professional  female  mourners  were  his 
two  sisters  Isis  and  Nephthys  ;  Anubis,  Horus,  all  the  gods  of  the 
Osman  legend  gathered  about  the  corpse.' ’  In  this  way  every  dead 
Egyptian  was  identified  with  Osiris  and  bore  his  name.  From  the 
Middle  Kingdom  onwards  it  was  the  regular  practice  to  address  the 
deceased  as  “  Osiris  So-and-So,"  as  if  he  were  the  god  himself  and  to 
add  the  standing  epithet  “  true  of  speech,"  because  true  speech  was 
characteristic  of  Osiris.  The  thousands  of  inscribed  and  pictured 
tombs  that  have  been  opened  in  the  valley  of  the  Nile  prove  that 
the  mystery  of  the  resurrection  was  performed  for  the  benefit  of  every 
dead  Egyptian  ;  as  Osiris  died  and  rose  again  from  the  dead,  so  all 
men  hoped  to  arise  like  him  from  death  to  life  eternal. 

Thus  accoiding  to  what  seems  to  have  been  the  general  native 
tradition  Osiris  was  a  good  and  beloved  king  of  Egypt,  who  suffered 
a  violent  death  but  rose  from  the  dead  and  was  henceforth  worshipped 
as  a  deity.  In  harmony  with  this  tradition  he  was  regularly  repre¬ 
sented  by  sculptors  and  painters  in  human  and  regal  form  as  a  dead 
king,  swathed  in  the  wrappings  of  a  mummy,  but  wearing  on  his  head 
a  kingly  crown  and  grasping  in  one  of  his  hands,  which  were  left  free 
from  the  bandages,  a  kingly  sceptre.  Two  cities  above  all  others  were 
associated  with  his  myth  or  memory.  One  of  them  was  Busiris  in 
Lower  Egypt,  which  claimed  to  possess  his  backbone  ;  the  other  was 
Abydos  in  Upper  Egypt,  which  gloried  in  the  possession  of  his  head. 
Encircled  by  the  nimbus  of  the  dead  yet  living  god,  Abydos,  originally 
an  obscure  place,  became  from  the  end  of  the  Old  Kingdom  the  holiest 
spot  in  Egypt ;  his  tomb  there  would  seem  to  have  been  to  the 
Egyptians  what  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  at  Jerusalem  is  to 
Christians.  It  was  the  wish  of  every  pious  man  that  his  dead  body 
should  rest  in  hallowed  earth  near  the  grave  of  the  glorified  Osiris. 


CH. 


368  THE  RITUAL  OF  OSIRIS 

Few  indeed  were  rich  enough  to  enjoy  this  inestimable  privilege ; 
for,  apart  from  the  cost  of  a  tomb  in  the  sacred  city,  the  mere  transport 
of  mummies  from  great  distances  was  both  difficult  and  expensive. 
Yet  so  eager  were  many  to  absorb  in  death  the  blessed  influence  which 
radiated  from  the  holy  sepulchre  that  they  caused  their  surviving 
friends  to  convey  their  mortal  remains  to  Abydos,  there  to  tarry  for  a 
short  time,  and  then  to  be  brought  back  by  liver  and  intened  in  the 
tombs  which  had  been  made  ready  for  them  in  their  native  land. 
Others  had  cenotaphs  built  or  memorial  tablets  erected  for  themselves 
near  the  tomb  of  their  dead  and  risen  Loid,  that  they  might  share 
with  him  the  bliss  of  a  joyful  resurrection. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

THE  RITUAL  OF  OSIRIS 

§  1.  The  Popular  Rites.— A  useful  clue  to  the  original  nature  of  a 
o-od  or  goddess  is  often  furnished  by  the  season  at  which  his  or  her 
festival  is  celebrated.  Thus,  if  the  festival  falls  at  the  new  or  the  full 
moon,  there  is  a  certain  presumption  that  the  deity  thus  honoured 
either  is  the  moon  or  at  least  has  lunar  affinities.  If  the  festival  is  held 
at  the  winter  or  summer  solstice,  we  naturally  surmise  that  the  god  ^ 
is  the  sun,  or  at  all  events  that  he  stands  in  some  close  relation  to  that 
luminary.  Again,  if  the  festival  coincides  with  the  time  of  sowing  or 
harvest,  we  are  inclined  to  infer  that  the  divinity  is  an  embodiment 
of  the  earth  or  of  the  corn.  These  presumptions  or  inferences,  taken 
by  themselves,  are  by  no  means  conclusive  ;  but  if  they  happen  to  be 
confirmed  by  other  indications,  the  evidence  may  be  regarded  as  fairly 

strong.  .  1 

Unfortunately,  in  dealing  with  the  Egyptian  gods  we  are  m  a  great 

measure  precluded  from  making  use  of  this  clue.  The  reason  is  not 
that  the  dates  of  the  festivals  are  always  unknown,  but  that  they 
shifted  from  year  to  year,  until  after  a  long  interval  they  had  revolved 
through  the  whole  course  of  the  seasons.  This  gradual  revolution  of 
the  festal  Egyptian  cycle  resulted  from  the  employment  of  a  calendar 
year  which  neither  corresponded  exactly  to  the  solar  year  nor  was 
periodically  corrected  by  intercalation. 

If  the  Egyptian  farmer  of  the  olden  time  could  get  no  help,  except 
at  the  rarest  intervals,  from  the  official  or  sacerdotal  calendar,  he 
must  have  been  compelled  to  observe  for  himself  those  natural  signals 
which  marked  the  times  for  the  various  operations  of  husbandry.  In 
all  ages  of  which  we  possess  any  records  the  Egyptians  have  been  an 
agricultural  people,  dependent  for  their  subsistence  on  the  growth 
of  the  corn.  The  cereals  which  they  cultivated  were  wheat,  barley, 
and  apparently  sorghum  ( Holcus  sorghum ,  Linnaeus),  the  door  a  of  the 
modern  fellaheen.  Then  as  now  the  whole  country,  with  the  exception 


XXXIX 


THE  POPULAR  RITES 


369 


of  a  /n!lge  0n  the  coast  of  the  Mediterranean,  was  almost  rainless  and 
owed  its  immense  fertility  entirely  to  the  annual  inundation  of  the 
Nile  which  regulated  by  an  elaborate  system  of  dams  and  canals 
was  distributed  over  the  fields,  renewing  the  soil  year  by  year  with 
a  fresh  deposit  of  mud  washed  down  from  the  great  equatorial  lakes 
and  the  mountains  of  Abyssinia.  Hence  the  rise  of  the  ..river  has 
always  been  watched  by  the  inhabitants  with  the  utmost  anxiety  ; 
for  if  it  either  falls  short  of  or  exceeds  a  certain  height,  dearth  and 
:amme  are  the  inevitable  consequences.  The  water  begins  to  rise 
>arly  m  June,  but  it  is  not  until  the  latter  half  of  July  that  it  swells  to 

1  mfhX  tld1e’  Brl  the  end  of  September  the  inundation  is  at  its 
greatest  height.  The  country  is  now  submerged,  and  presents  the 

ippearance  of  a  sea  of  turbid  water,  from  which  the  towns  and  villages 
milt  on  higher  ground,  rise  like  islands.  For  about  a  month  the  flood 
emains  nearly  stationary,  then  sinks  more  and  more  rapidly  till  bv 
or  January  the  river  has  returned  to  its  ordinary  bed. 
Vith  the  approach  of  summer  the  level  of  the  water  continues  to  fall, 
n  the  early  days  of  June  the  Nile  is  reduced  to  half  its  ordinary 
readth  ;  and  Egypt,  scorched  by  the  sun,  blasted  by  the  wind  that 
as  blown  from  the  Sahara  for  many  days,  seems  a  mere  continuation 
i  the  deseit.  The  trees  are  choked  with  a  thick  layer  of  grey  dust. 

L  mw  meagre  patches  of  vegetables,  watered  with  difficulty,  struggle 
amfully  for  existence  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  the  villages, 
ome  appearance  of  verdure  lingers  beside  the  canals  and  in  the 
ollows  from  which  the  moisture  has  not  wholly  evaporated.  The 
lam  appears  to  pant  m  the  pitiless  sunshine,  bare,  dusty,  ash-coloured 
acked  and  seamed  as  far  as  the  eye  can  see  with  a  network  of  fissures' 
rom  the  middle  of  April  till  the  middle  of  June  the  land  of  Egypt  is 
|ut  half  alive,  waiting  for  the  new  Nile. 

For  countless  ages  this  cycle  of  natural  events  has  determined  the 
jinual  labours  of  the  Egyptian  husbandman.  The  first  work  of  the 
■jricultural  3/ear  is  the  cutting  of  the  dams  which  have  hitherto  pre- 
mted  the  swollen  river  from  flooding  the  canals  and  the  fields  This 

■  axd,  ^  Pent-uP  waters  released  on  their  beneficent  mission 
i  the  first  half  of  August.  In  November,  when  the  inundation  has 
‘.sided,  wheat,  barley,  and  sorghum  are  sown.  The  time  of  harvest 
>ries  with  the  district,  falling  about  a  month  later  in  the  north  than 
?  the.south-  In  Upper  or  Southern  Egypt  barley  is  reaped  at  the 
1  ginning  of  March,  wheat  at  the  beginning  of  April,  and  sorghum 
fout  the  end  of  that  month. 

It  is  natural  to  suppose  that  the  various  events  of  the  agricultural 
:ar  were  celebrated  by  the  Egyptian  farmer  with  some  simple  religious 
fes  designed  to  secure  the  blessing  of  the  gods  upon  his  labours 
•lese  rustic  ceremonies  he  would  continue  to  perform  year  after  year 
l  ae  same  season,  while  the  solemn  festivals  of  the  priests  continued 

s  lit,  with  the  shifting  calendar,  from  summer  through  spring  to 
nter  and  so  backward  through  autumn  to  summer.  The  rites  of 
e  husbandman  were  stable  because  they  rested  on  direct  observation 


370 


THE  RITUAL  OF  OSIRIS  ch. 

of  nature  :  the  rites  of  the  priest  were  unstable  because  they  were 
based  on  a  false  calculation.  Yet  many  of  the  priestly  festivals  may 
have  been  nothing  but  the  old  rural  festivals  disguised  m  the  course 
of  ages  by  the  pomp  of  sacerdotalism  and  severed,  by  the  enor  ot  the 
calendar,  from  their  roots  in  the  natural  cycle  of  the  seasons. 

These  conjectures  are  confirmed  by  the  little  we  know  both  of  the 
popular  and  of  the  official  Egyptian  religion.  Thus  we  are  told  that 
the  Egyptians  held  a  festival  of  Isis  at  the  time  when  the  Nile  began 
to  rise.  They  believed  that  the  goddess  was  then  mourning  for  the 
lost  Osiris,  and  that  the  tears  which  dropped  from  her  eyes  swelled  the 
impetuous  tide  of  the  river.  Now  if  Osiris  was  in  one  of  his  aspects 
a  god  of  the  corn,  nothing  could  be  more  natural  than  that  he  should 
be  mourned  at  midsummer.  For  by  that  time  the  harvest  was  past, 
the  fields  were  bare,  the  river  ran  low,  life  seemed  to  be  suspended, 
the  corn-god  was  dead.  At  such  a  moment  people  who  saw  the  handi¬ 
work  of  divine  beings  in  all  the  operations  of  nature  might  well  trace 
the  swelling  of  the  sacred  stream  to  the  tears  shed  by  the  goddess  at 
the  death  of  the  beneficent  corn-god  her  husband. 

And  the  sign  of  the  rising  waters  on  earth  was  accompanied  by  a 
sign  in  heaven.  For  in  the  early  days  of  Egyptian  history,  some  three 
or  four  thousand  years  before  the  beginning  of  our  era,  the  splendid 
star  of  Sirius,  the  brightest  of  all  the  fixed  stars,  appeared  at  dawn 
in  the  east  just  before  sunrise  about  the  time  of  the  summer  solstice, 
when  the  Nile  begins  to  rise.  The  Egyptians  called  it  Sothis  ana 
regarded  it  as  the  star  of  Isis,  just  as  the  Babylonians  deemed  the  plane 
Venus  the  star  of  Astarte.  To  both  peoples  apparently  the  brilliani 
luminary  in  the  morning  sky  seemed  the  goddess  of  life  and  love  come 
to  mourn  her  departed  lover  or  spouse  and  to  wake  him  from  the  dead 
Hence  the  rising  of  Sirius  marked  the  beginning  of  the  sacred  Egyptiai 
year,  and  was  regularly  celebrated  by  a  festival  which  did  not  shift  wit 

the  shifting  official  year.  .  f 

The  cutting  of  the  dams  and  the  admission  of  the  water  into  tn< 

canals  and  fields  is  a  great  event  in  the  Egyptian  year.  At  Cairo  th. 
operation  generally  takes  place  between  the  sixth  and  the  sixteentl 
of  August,  and  till  lately  was  attended  by  ceremonies  which  deserv 
to  be  noticed,  because  they  were  probably  handed  down  from  antiquity 
An  ancient  canal,  known  by  the  name  of  the  Khali j,  formerly  passe< 
through  the  native  town  of  Cairo.  Near  its  entrance  the  canal  wa 
crossed  by  a  dam  of  earth,  very  broad  at  the  bottom  and  diminishin 
in  breadth  upwards,  which  used  to  be  constructed  before  or  soo 
after  the  Nile  began  to  rise.  In  front  of  the  dam,  on  the  side  of  th 
river,  was  reared  a  truncated  cone  of  earth  called  the  arooseh  o 
“  bride,”  on  the  top  of  which  a  little  maize  or  millet  was  generali 
sown.  This  “  bride  ”  was  commonly  washed  down  by  the  rising  tic 
a  week  or  a  fortnight  before  the  cutting  of  the  dam.  Tradition  rur 
that  the  old  custom  was  to  deck  a  young  virgin  in  gay  apparel  an 
throw  her  into  the  river  as  a  sacrifice  to  obtain  a  plentiful  inundation 
Whether  that  was  so  or  not,  the  intention  of  the  practice  appears 


XXXIX 


THE  POPULAR  RITES  3?1 

have  been  to  marry  the  river,  conceived  as  a  male  power,  to  his  bride 
the  cornland,  which  was  so  soon  to  be  fertilised  by  his  water.  The 
ceremony  was  therefore  a  charm  to  ensure  the  growth  of  the  crops. 
In  modern  times  money  used  to  be  thrown  into  the  canal  on  this 
occasion,  and  the  populace  dived  into  the  water  after  it.  This  practice 
also  would  seem  to  have  been  ancient,  for  Seneca  tells  us  that  at  a 
place  called  the  Veins  of  the  Nile,  not  far  from  Philae,  the  priests 
used  to  cast  money  and  offerings  of  gold  into  the  river  at  a  festival 
which  apparently  took  place  at  the  rising  of  the  water. 

The  next  great  operation  of  the  agricultural  year  in  Egypt  is  the 
sowing  of  the  seed  in  November,  when  the  water  of  the  inundation 
ihas  retreated  from  the  fields.  With  the  Egyptians,  as  with  many 
peoples  of  antiquity,  the  committing  of  the  seed  to  the  earth  assumed 
the  character  of  a  solemn  and  mournful  rite.  On  this  subject  I  will 
let  Plutarch  speak  for  himself.  “  What/'  he  asks,  “  are  we  to  make 
of  the  gloomy,  joyless,  and  mournful  sacrifices,  if  it  is  wrong  either 
to  omit  the  established  rites  or  to  confuse  and  disturb  our  conceptions 
of  the  gods  by  absurd  suspicions  ?  For  the  Greeks  also  perform 
many  rites  which  resemble  those  of  the  Egyptians  and  are  observed 
about  the  same  time.  Thus  at  the  festival  of  the  Thesmophoria  in 
Athens  women  sit  on  the  ground  and  fast.  And  the  Boeotians  open 
the  vaults  of  the  Sorrowful  One,  naming  that  festival  sorrowful  because 
Demeter  is  sorrowing  for  the  descent  of  the  Maiden.  The  month  is 
the  month  of  sowing  about  the  setting  of  the  Pleiades.  The  Egyptians 
call  if  Athyi ,  the  Athenians  Pyanepsion,  the  Boeotians  the  month  of 
tDemeter.  .  .  .  For  it  was  that  time  of  year  when  they  saw  some  of 
the  fruits  vanishing  and  failing  from  the  trees,  while  they  sowed 
others  grudgingly  and  with  difficulty,  scraping  the  earth  with  their 
hands  and  huddling  it  up  again,  on  the  uncertain  chance  that  what 
they  deposited  in  the  ground  would  ever  ripen  and  come  to  maturity. 

Thus  they  did  in  many  respects  like  those  who  bury  and  mourn  their 
dead.” 

[  The  Egyptian  harvest,  as  we  have  seen,  falls  not  in  autumn  but 
in  spring,  in  the  months  of  March,  April,  and  May.  To  the  husband¬ 
man  the  time  of  harvest,  at  least  in  a  good  year,  must  necessarily  be 
a  season  of  joy  :  in  bringing  home  his  sheaves  he  is  requited  for  his 
long  and  anxious  labours.  Yet  if  the  old  Egyptian  farmer  felt  a 
secret  joy  at  reaping  and  garnering  the  grain,  it  was  essential  that  he 
should  conceal  the  natural  emotion  under  an  air  of  profound  dejection. 
For  was  he  not  severing  the  body  of  the  corn-god  with  his  sickle  and 
trampling  it  to  pieces  under  the  hoofs  of  his  cattle  on  the  threshing- 
foor  ? .  Accordingly  we  are  told  that  it  was  an  ancient  custom  of  the 
Egyptian  corn-reapers  to  beat  their  breasts  and  lament  over  the  first 
sheaf  cut,  while  at  the  same  time  they  called  upon  Isis.  The  invoca¬ 
tion  seems  to  have  taken  the  form  of  a  melancholy  chant,  to  which 
-he  Greeks  gave  the  name  of  Maneros.  Similar  plaintive  strains 
vere  chanted  by  corn-reapers  in  Phoenicia  and  other  parts  of  Western 
A.sia.  Probably  all  these  doleful  ditties  were  lamentations  for  the 


372 


THE  RITUAL  OF  OSIRIS  ch. 

corn-god  killed  by  the  sickles  of  the  reapers.  In  Egypt  the  slain 
deity  was  Osiris,  and  the  name  Maneros,  applied  to  the  dirge,  appears 
to  be  derived  from  certain  words  meaning  “  Come  to  thy  house,” 
which  often  occur  in  the  lamentations  for  the  dead  god. 

Ceremonies  of  the  same  sort  have  been  observed  by  other  peoples, 
probably  for  the  same  purpose.  Thus  we  are  told  that  among  all 
vegetables  corn,  by  which  is  apparently  meant  maize,  holds  the  first 
place  in  the  household  economy  and  the  ceremonial  observance  of 
the  Cherokee  Indians,  who  invoke  it  under  the  name  of  “  the  Old 
Woman”  in  allusion  to  a  myth  that  it  sprang  from  the  blood  of 
an  old  woman  killed  by  her  disobedient  sons.  After  the  last  working 
of  the  crop  a  priest  and  his  assistant  went  into  the  field  and  sang  songs 
of  invocation  to  the  spirit  of  the  corn.  After  that  a  loud  rustling 
would  be  heard,  which  was  thought  to  be  caused  by  the  Old  Woman 
bringing  the  corn  into  the  field.  A  clean  trail  was  always  kept  from 
the  field  to  the  house,  “  so  that  the  corn  might  be  encouraged  to  stay 
at  home  and  not  go  wandering  elsewhere.”  “  Another  curious  cere¬ 
mony,  of  which  even  the  memory  is  now  almost  forgotten,  was  enacted 
after  the  first  working  of  the  corn,  when  the  owner  or  priest  stood  in 
succession  at  each  of  the  four  corners  of  the  field  and  wept  and  wailed 
loudly.  Even  the  priests  are  now  unable  to  give  a  reason  for  this 
performance,  which  may  have  been  a  lament  for  the  bloody  death  of 
Selu,”  the  Old  Woman  of  the  Corn.  In  these  Cherokee  practices  the 
lamentations  and  the  invocations  of  the  Old  Woman  of  the  Corn 
resemble  the  ancient  Egyptian  customs  of  lamenting  over  the  first 
corn  cut  and  calling  upon  Isis,  herself  probably  in  one  of  her  aspects 
an  Old  Woman  of  the  Corn.  Further,  the  Cherokee  precaution  of 
leaving  a  clear  path  from  the  field  to  the  house  resembles  the  Egyptian 
invitation  to  Osiris,  “  Come  to  thy  house.”  So  in  the  East  Indies  to 
this  day  people  observe  elaborate  ceremonies  for  the  purpose  of  bring¬ 
ing  back  the  Soul  of  the  Rice  from  the  fields  to  the  barn.  The  Nandi 
of  East  Africa  perform  a  ceremony  in  September  when  the  eleusine 
grain  is  ripening.  Every  woman  who  owns  a  plantation  goes  out 
with  her  daughters  into  the  cornfields  and  makes  a  bonfire  of  the 
branches  and' leaves  of  certain  trees.  After  that  they  pluck  some 
of  the  eleusine,  and  each  of  them  puts  one  grain  in  her  necklace, 
chews  another  and  rubs  it  on  her  forehead,  throat,  and  breast. 
“No  joy  is  shown  by  the  womenfolk  on  this  occasion,  and  they 
sorrowfully  cut  a  basketful  of  the  corn  which  they  take  home  with 

them  and  place  in  the  loft  to  dry.” 

The  conception  of  the  corn-spirit  as  old  and  dead  at  harvest  is 
very  clearly  embodied  in  a  custom  observed  by  the  Arabs  of  Moab. 
When  the  harvesters  have  nearly  finished  their  task  and  only  a  small 
corner  of  the  field  remains  to  be  reaped,  the  owner  takes  a  handfu 
of  wheat  tied  up  in  a  sheaf.  A  hole  is  dug  in  the  form  of  a  grave 
and  two  stones  are  set  upright,  one  at  the  head  and  the  other  at  the 
foot,  just  as  in  an  ordinary  burial.  Then  the  sheaf  of  wheat  is  laic 
at  the  bottom  of  the  grave,  and  the  sheikh  pronounces  these  words 


XXXIX 


THE  OFFICIAL  RITES 


373 


The  old  man  is  dead.’’  Earth  is  afterwards  thrown  in  to  cover  the 
dead  a  prayer’  May  Allah  bring  us  back  the  wheat  of  the 

§  2.  The  Official  Rites.- Such,  then,  were  the  principal  events  of 
the  farmer  s  calendar  m  ancient  Egypt,  and  such  the  simple  religious 
ntes  by  which  he  celebrated  them.  But  we  have  still  to  consider 
the  Osman  festivals  of  the  official  calendar,  so  far  as  these  are  described 
y  ieek  waters  or  recorded  on  the  monuments.  In  examining  them 
it  is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  that  on  account  of  the  movabfe  year 

1  ,  f  i  11  ual6ndar  the  true  or  astronomical  dates  of  the 

adoDtionSofVtheTStHhATe  Va!?ed  fr°m  y6ar  t0  year>  at  least  until  the 
adoption  of  the  fixed  Alexandrian  year  in  30  b.c.  From  that  time 

onward,  apparently,  the  dates  of  the  festivals  were  determined  by 

the  new  calendar  and  so  ceased  to  rotate  throughout  the  length  of 

the  solar  year.  At  all  events  Plutarch,  writing  about  the  end  of  the 

f,  4  lmphes  that  ,they  were  then  fixed,  not  movable  ;  for 

hough  he  does  not  mention  the  Alexandrian  calendar,  he  clearly 
dates  the  festivals  by  it.  Moreover,  the  long  festal  calendar  of  Esn/ 
“p0;“  document  of  the  Imperial  age,  is  obviously  based  on 
,the  fixed  Alexandrian  year ;  for  it  assigns  the  mark  for  New  Year’s 
Day  to  the  day  which  corresponds  to  the  twenty-ninth  of  August 
•vhich  was  the  first  day  of  the  Alexandrian  year,  and  its  references 
0  the  rising  of  the  Nile,  the  position  of  the  sun,  and  the  operations 
Pf  a6rlculture  are  all  m  harmony  with  this  supposition.  Thus  we 
nay  take  it  as  fairly  certain  that  from  30  B.c.  onwards  the  Egyptian 
estivals  were  stationary  in  the  solar  year. 

-  Herodotus  tells  us  that  the  grave  of  Osiris  was  at  Sais  in  Lower 
>  and  that  there  was  a  lake  there  upon  which  the  sufferings  of 
he  god  were  displayed  as  a  mystery  by  night.  This  commemoration 

eat  tt,d-V1Ke  passl°n.  was  held  once  a  year :  the  people  mourned  and 
1  eat  their  breasts  at  it  to  testify  their  sorrow  for  the  death  of  the  god  • 

ad  an  image  of  a  cow,  made  of  gilt  wood  with  a  golden  sun  between 

-s  horns,  was  carried  out  of  the  chamber  in  which  it  stood  the  rest 

1  the  year.  The  cow  no  doubt  represented  Isis  herself,  for  cows 

rere  sacred  to  her,  and  she  was  regularly  depicted  with  the  horns  of 

cow  on  her  head,  or  even  as  a  woman  with  the  head  of  a  cow  It 

.  probable  that  the  carrying  out  of  her  cow-shaped  image  symbolised 

ie  goddess  searching  for  the  dead  body  of  Osiris  ;  for  this  was  the 

ve  Egyptian  interpretation  of  a  similar  ceremony  observed  in 

lutarch  s  time  about  the  winter  solstice,  when  the  gilt  cow  was 

arned  seven  times  round  the  temple.  A  great  feature  of  the  festival 

as  be  nocturnal  illumination.  People  fastened  rows  of  oil-lamps 

)  the  outside  of  their  houses,  and  the  lamps  burned  all  night  long. 

6  CT11S.  om  was  n°t  confined  to  Sais,  but  was  observed  throughout 
ie  whole  of  Egypt.  6 

This  universal  illumination  of  the  houses  on  one  night  of  the  year 
Jiggests  that  the  festival  may  have  been  a  commemoration  not  merely 
f  me  dead  0sins  but  of  the  dead  in  general,  in  other  words,  that  it 


374 


THE  RITUAL  OF  OSIRIS 


CH. 


may  have  been  a  night  of  All  Souls.  For  it  is  a  widespread  belief 
that  the  souls  of  the  dead  revisit  their  old  homes  on  one  night  of  the 
year  ;  and  on  that  solemn  occasion  people  prepare  for  the  reception 
of  the  ghosts  by  laying  out  food  for  them  to  eat,  and  lighting  lamps 
to  guide  them  on  their  dark  road  from  and  to  the  grave.  Herodotus, 
who  briefly  describes  the  festival,  omits  to  mention  its  date,  but  we 
can  determine  it  with  some  probability  from  other  sources.  Thus 
Plutarch  tells  us  that  Osiris  was  murdered  on  the  seventeenth  of  the 
month  Athyr,  and  that  the  Egyptians  accordingly  observed  mournful 
rites  for  four  days  from  the  seventeenth  of  Athyr.  Now  in  the  Alex¬ 
andrian  calendar,  which  Plutarch  used,  these  four  days  corresponded 
to  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth,  fifteenth,  and  sixteenth  of  November,  and 
this  date  answers  exactly  to  the  other  indications  given  by  Plutarch, 
who  says  that  at  the  time  of  the  festival  the  Nile  was  sinking,  the 
north  winds  dying  away,  the  nights  lengthening,  and  the  leaves  falling 
from  the  trees.  During  these  four  days  a  gilt  cow  swathed  in  a  black 
pall  was  exhibited  as  an  image  of  Isis.  This,  no  doubt,  was  the  image 
mentioned  by  Herodotus  in  his  account  of  the  festival.  On  the  nine¬ 
teenth  day  of  the  month  the  people  went  down  to  the  sea,  the  priests 
carrying  a  shrine  which  contained  a  golden  casket.  Into  this  casket 
they  poured  fresh  water,  and  thereupon  the  spectators  raised  a  shout 
that  Osiris  was  found.  After  that  they  took  some  vegetable  mould, 
moistened  it  with  water,  mixed  it  with  precious  spices  and  incense, 
and  moulded  the  paste  into  a  small  moon-shaped  image,  which  was 
then  robed  and  ornamented.  Thus  it  appears  that  the  purpose  of 
the  ceremonies  described  by  Plutarch  was  to  represent  dramatically, 
first,  the  search  for  the  dead  body  of  Osiris,  and,  second,  its  joyful 
discovery,  followed  by  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  god  who  came  to 
life  again  in  the  new  image  of  vegetable  mould  and  spices.  Lactantius 
tells  us  how  on  these  occasions  the  priests,  with  their  shaven  bodies, 
beat  their  breasts  and  lamented,  imitating  the  sorrowful  search  of 
Isis  for  her  lost  son  Osiris,  and  how  afterwards  their  sorrow  was  turned 
to  joy  when  the  jackal-headed  god  Anubis,  or  rather  a  mummer  in 
his  stead,  produced  a  small  boy,  the  living  representative  of  the  god 
who  was  lost  and  was  found.  Thus  Lactantius  regarded  Osiris  as  the 
son  instead  of  the  husband  of  Isis,  and  he  makes  no  mention  of  the 
image  of  vegetable  mould.  It  is  probable  that  the  boy  who  figured 
in  the  sacred  drama  played  the  part,  not  of  Osiris,  but  of  his  son 
Horus  ;  but  as  the  death  and  resurrection  of  the  god  were  celebrated 
in  many  cities  of  Egypt,  it  is  also  possible  that  in  some  places  the  part 
of  the  god  come  to  life  was  played  by  a  living  actor  instead  of  by  an 
image.  Another  Christian  writer  describes  how  the  Egyptians,  with 
shorn  heads,  annually  lamented  over  a  buried  idol  of  Osiris,  smiting 
their  breasts,  slashing  their  shoulders,  ripping  open  their  old  wounds, 
until,  after  several  days  of  mourning,  they  professed  to  find  the 
mangled  remains  of  the  god,  at  which  they  rejoiced.  However  the 
details  of  the  ceremony  may  have  varied  in  different  places,  the  pre¬ 
tence  of  finding  the  god’s  body,  and  probably  of  restoring  it  to  life, 


XXXIX 


THE  OFFICIAL  RITES  375 

was  a  great  event  in  the  festal  year  of  the  Egyptians.  The  shouts 
of  joy  which  greeted  it  are  described  or  alluded  to  by  many  ancient 
writers. 

The  funeral  rites  of  Osiris,  as  they  were  observed  at  his  great 
festival  in  the  sixteen  provinces  of  Egypt,  are  described  in  a  long 
inscription  of  the  Ptolemaic  period,  which  is  engraved  on  the  walls 
of  the  gods  temple  at  Denderah,  the  Tentyra  of  the  Greeks,  a  town 
of  Upper  Egypt  situated  on  the  western  bank  of  the  Nile  about  forty 
miles  north  of  Thebes.  Unfortunately,  while  the  information  thus 
furnished  is  remarkably  full  and  minute  on  many  points,  the  arrange¬ 
ment  adopted  in  the  inscription  is  so  confused  and  the  expression 
often  so  obscure  that  a  clear  and  consistent  account  of  the  ceremonies 
as  a  whole  can  hardly  be  extracted  from  it.  Moreover,  we  learn  from 
the  document  that  the  ceremonies  varied  somewhat  in  the  several 
cities,  the  ritual  of  Abydos,  for  example,  differing  from  that  of  Busiris. 
Without  attempting  to  trace  all  the  particularities  of  local  usage  I  shall 
briefly  indicate  what  seem  to  have  been  the  leading  features  of  the 
festival,  so  far  as  these  can  be  ascertained  with  tolerable  certainty. 

The  rites  lasted  eighteen  days,  from  the  twelfth  to  the  thirtieth 
of  the  month  Khoiak,  and  set  forth  the  nature  of  Osiris  in  his  triple 
aspect  as  dead,  dismembered,  and  finally  reconstituted  by  the  union 
of  his  scattered  limbs.  In  the  first  of  these  aspects  he  was  called 
Chent- Ament  (Khenti-Amenti),  in  the  second  Osiris-Sep,  and  in  the 
third  Sokari  (Seker).  Small  images  of  the  god  were  moulded  of  sand 
or  vegetable  earth  and  corn,  to  which  incense  was  sometimes  added  ; 
his  face  was  painted  yellow  and  his  cheek-bones  green.  These  images 
were  cast  in  a  mould  of  pure  gold,  which  represented  the  god  in  the 
form  of  a  mummy,  with  the  white  crown  of  Egypt  on  his  head.  The 
festival  opened  on  the  twelfth  day  of  Khoiak  with  a  ceremony  of 
ploughing  and  sowing.  Two  black  cows  were  yoked  to  the  plough, 
which  was  made  of  tamarisk  wood,  while  the  share  was  of  black  copper! 
A  boy  scattered  the  seed.  One  end  of  the  field  was  sown  with  barley, 
the  other  with  spelt,  and  the  middle  with  flax.  During  the  operation 
the  chief  celebrant  recited  the  ritual  chapter  of  “  the  sowing  of  the 
fields/'  At  Busiris  on  the  twentieth  of  Khoiak  sand  and  barley  were 
put  in  the  god’s  “  garden,"  which  appears  to  have  been  a  sort  of  large 
flower-pot.  This  was  done  in  the  presence  of  the  cow-goddess  Shenty, 
represented  seemingly  by  the  image  of  a  cow  made  of  gilt  sycamore 
wood  with  a  headless  human  image  in  its  inside.  “  Then  fresh  in¬ 
undation  water  was  poured  out  of  a  golden  vase  over  both  the  goddess 
and  the  ‘  garden,’  and  the  barley  was  allowed  to  grow  as  the  emblem 
of  the  resurrection  of  the  god  after  his  burial  in  the  earth,  ‘  for  the 
growth  of  the  garden  is  the  growth  of  the  divine  substance.’  "  On 
the  twenty-second  of  Khoiak,  at  the  eighth  hour,  the  images  of  Osiris, 
attended  by  thirty-four  images  of  deities,  performed  a  mysterious 
voyage  in  thirty-four  tiny  boats  made  of  papyrus,  which  were  illu¬ 
minated  by  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  lights.  On  the  twenty- 
fourth  of  Khoiak,  after  sunset,  the  effigy  of  Osiris  in  a  coffin  of  mulberry 


376  THE  RITUAL  OF  OSIRIS  ch. 

wood  was  laid  in  the  grave,  and  at  the  ninth  hour  of  the  night  the 
effigy  which  had  been  made  and  deposited  the  year  before  was  removed 
and  placed  upon  boughs  of  sycamore.  Lastly,  on  the  thirtieth  day 
of  Khoiak  they  repaired  to  the  holy  sepulchre,  a  subterranean  chamber 
over  which  appears  to  have  grown  a  clump  of  Persea-trees.  Entering 
the  vault  by  the  western  door,  they  laid  the  coffined  effigy  of  the  dead 
god  reverently  on  a  bed  of  sand  in  the  chamber.  So  they  left  him  to 
his  rest,  and  departed  from  the  sepulchre  by  the  eastern  door.  Thus 

ended  the  ceremonies  in  the  month  of  Khoiak. 

In  the  foregoing  account  of  the  festival,  drawn  from  the  great 
inscription  of  Denderah,  the  burial  of  Osiris  figures  prominently, 
while  his  resurrection  is  implied  rather  than  expressed.  This  defect 
of  the  document,  however,  is  amply  compensated  by  a  remarkable 
series  of  bas-reliefs  which  accompany  and  illustrate  the  inscription. 
These  exhibit  in  a  series  of  scenes  the  dead  god  lying  swathed  as  a 
mummy  on  his  bier,  then  gradually  raising  himself  up.  higher  and 
higher,  until  at  last  he  has  entirely  quitted  the  bier  and  is  seen  erect 
between  the  guardian  wings  of  the  faithful  Isis,  who  stands  behind 
him,  while  a  male  figure  holds  up  before  his  eyes  the  crux  ansata, 
the  *  Egyptian  symbol  of  life.  The  resurrection  of  the  god  could 
hardly  be  portrayed  more  graphically.  Even  more  instructive, 
however,  is  another  representation  of  the  same  event  in  a  chamber 
dedicated  to  Osiris  in  the  great  temple  of  Isis  at  Philae.  Here  we  see 
the  dead  body  of  Osiris  with  stalks  of  corn,  springing  from  it,  while  . 
a  priest  waters  the  stalks  from  a  pitcher  which  he  holds  in  his  hand.  , 
The  accompanying  inscription  sets  forth  that  this  is  the  foim  of  [ 
him  whom  one  may  not  name,  Osiris  of  the  mysteries,  who  spiings 
from  the  returning  waters.”  Taken  together,  the  picture  and  the 
words  seem  to  leave  no  doubt  that  Osiiis  was  here  conceived  and 
represented  as  a  personification  of  the  corn  which  springs,  from  the 
fields  after  they  have  been  fertilised  by  the  inundation.  This,  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  inscription,  was  the  kernel  of  the  mysteiies,  the  inneimost 
secret  revealed  to  the  initiated.  So  in  the  rites  of  Demeter  at  Eleusis  , 
a  reaped  ear  of  corn  was  exhibited  to  the  worshippers  as  the  central 
mystery  of  their  religion.  We  can  now  fully  understand  why  at  the 
great  festival  of  sowing  in  the  month  of  Khoiak  the  priests  used 
to  bury  effigies  of  Osiris  made  of  earth  and  corn.  When  these  effigies 
were  taken  up  again  at  the  end  of  a  year  or  of  a  shorter  interval, 
the  corn  would  be  found  to  have  sprouted,  from  the  body  of  Osins, 
and  this  sprouting  of  the  grain  would  be  hailed  as  an  omen,  or  rather 
as  the  cause,  of  the  growth  of  the  crops.  The  corn-god  produced  the 
corn  from  himself :  he  gave  his  own  body  to  feed  the  people  ;  he  died 

that  they  might  live.  .  ,  ,,  < 

And  from  the  death  and  resurrection  of  their  great  god  tne 

Egyptians  drew  not  only  their  support  and  sustenance  in.  this  life, 
but  also  their  hope  of  a  life  eternal  beyond  the  grave.  This  hope  is 
indicated  in  the  clearest  manner  by  the  very  remarkable  effigies  oi 
Osiris  which  have  come  to  light  in  Egyptian  cemeteries,  thus  in 


XL  OSIRIS  A  CORN-GOD  377 

the  Valley  of  the  Kings  at  Thebes  there  was  found  the  tomb  of  a 
royal  fan-bearer  who  lived  about  1500  B.c.  Among  the  rich  contents 
ot  the  tomb  there  was  a  bier  on  which  rested  a  mattress  of  reeds 
covered  with  three  layers  of  linen.  On  the  upper  side  of  the  linen 
was  painted  a  life-size  figure  of  Osiris  ;  and  the  interior  of  the  figure 
which  was  waterproof,  contained  a  mixture  of  vegetable  mould’ 
barley,  and  a  sticky  fluid.  The  barley  had  sprouted  and  sent  out 
shoots  two  or  three  inches  long.  Again,  in  the  cemetery  at  Cynopolis 
weie  numerous  burials  of  Osiris  figures.  These  were  made  of  grain 
wrapped  up  m  cloth  and  roughly  shaped  like  an  Osiris,  and  placed 
inside  a  bncked-up  recess  at  the  side  of  the  tomb,  sometimes  in  small 
pottery  coffins,  sometimes  in  wooden  coffins  in  the  form  of  a  hawk- 
mummy,  sometimes  without  any  coffins  at  all.”  These  corn-stuffed 
figures  were  bandaged  like  mummies  with  patches  of  gilding  here  and 
there,  as  if  in  imitation  of  the  golden  mould  in  which  the  similar 
figures  of  Osiris  were  cast  at  the  festival  of  sowing.  Again,  effigies 
of  Osins,  with  faces  of  green  wax  and  their  interior  full  of  grain,  were 
ound  buried  near  the  necropolis  of  Thebes.  Finally,  we  are  told  by 
Professor  Erman  that  between  the  legs  of  mummies  “  there  sometimes 
lies  a  figure  of  Osiris  made  of  slime ;  it  is  filled  with  grains  of  corn, 
the  sprouting  of  which  is  intended  to  signify  the  resurrection  of  the 
god.”  We  cannot  doubt  that,  just  as  the  burial  of  corn-stuffed 
images  of  Osins  in  the  earth  at  the  festival  of  sowing  was  designed 
to  quicken  the  seed,  so  the  burial  of  similar  images  in  the  grave  was 

meant  to  quicken  the  dead,  in  other  words,  to  ensure  their  spiritual 
immortality. 

HI: 

CHAPTER  XL 

THE  NATURE  OF  OSIRIS 

§  1.  Osiris  a  Corn-god  .—The  foregoing  survey  of  the  myth  and  ritual 
of  Osiris  may  suffice  to  prove  that  in  one  of  his  aspects  the  god  was  a 
personification  of  the  corn,  which  may  be  said  to  die  and  come  to 
life  again  every  year.  Through  all  the  pomp  and  glamour  with  which 
in  later  times  the  priests  had  invested  his  worship,  the  conception  of 
him  as  the  corn-god  comes  clearly  out  in  the  festival  of  his  death  and 
resurrection,  which  was  celebrated  in  the  month  of  Khoiak  and  at  a 
later  period  in  the  month  of  Athyr.  That  festival  appears  to  have 
been  essentially  a  festival  of  sowing,  which  properly  fell  at  the  time 
when  the  husbandman  actually  committed  the  seed  to  the  earth.  On 
that  occasion  an  effigy  of  the  corn-god,  moulded  of  earth  and  corn, 
was  buried  with  funeral  rites  in  the  ground  in  order  that,  dying  there,’ 
he  might  come  to  life  again  with  the  new  crops.  The  ceremony  was, 
in  fact,  a  charm  to  ensure  the  growth  of  the  corn  by  sympathetic 
magic,  and  we  may  conjecture  that  as  such  it  was  practised  in  a 
simple  form  by  every  Egyptian  farmer  on  his  fields  long  before  it 


3;8  THE  NATURE  OF  OSIRIS  tn. 

was  adopted  and  transfigured  by  the  priests  in  the  stately  ritual  of 
the  temple.  In  the  modem,  but  doubtless  ancient,  Arab  custom  of 
burying  “  the  Old  Man,”  namely,  a  sheaf  of  wheat,  in  the  harvest- 
field  and  praying  that  he  may  return  from  the  dead,  we  see  the  germ 
out  of  which  the  worship  of  the  com-god  Osiris  was  probably  developed. 

The  details  of  his  myth  fit  in  well  with  this  interpretation  of  the 
god.  He  was  said  to  be  the  offspring  of  Sky  and  Earth.  What  more 
appropriate  parentage  could  be  invented  for  the  corn  which  springs 
from  the  ground  that  has  been  fertilised  by  the  water  of  heaven  ? 
It  is  true  that  the  land  of  Egypt  owed  its  fertility  directly  to  the  Nile 
and  not  to  showers  ;  but  the  inhabitants  must  have  known  or  guessed 
that  the  great  river  in  its  turn  was  fed  by  the  rains  which  fell  m  the 
far  interior.  Again,  the  legend  that  Osiris  was  the  first  to  teach 
men  the  use  of  com  would  be  most  naturally  told  of  the  corn-god 
himself.  Further,  the  story  that  his  mangled  remains  were  scattered 
up  and  down  the  land  and  buried  in  different  places  may  be  a  mythical 
way  of  expressing  either  the  sowing  or  the  winnowing  of  the  grain. 
The  latter  interpretation  is  supported  by  the  tale  that  Isis  placed 
the  severed  limbs  of  Osiris  on  a  corn-sieve.  Or  more  probably  the 
legend  may  be  a  reminiscence  of  a  custom  of  slaying  a  human  victim, 
perhaps  a 'representative  of  the  corn-spirit  and  distributing  his  flesh 
or  scattering  his  ashes  over  the  fields  to  fertilise  them.  In  modem 
Europe  the^  figure  of  Death  is  sometimes  tom  in  pieces,  and  the 
fragments  are  then  buried  in  the  ground  to  make  the  crops  grow 
well  and  in  other  parts  of  the  world  human  victims  are  treated  m 
the  same  way.  With  regard  to  the  ancient  Egyptians  we  have  it  on 
the  authority  of  Manetho  that  they  used  to  burn  red-haired  men  and 
scatter  their  ashes  with  winnowing  fans,  and  it  is.  highly  significant 
that  this  barbarous  sacrifice  was  offered  by  the  kings  at  the  grave 
of  Osiris.  We  may  conjecture  that  the  \ictims  represented  Osins 
himself,  who  was  annually  slain,  dismembered,  and  buried  m  their 
persons  that  he  might  quicken  the  seed  in  the  earth. 

Possibly  in  prehistoric  times  the  kings  themselves  played  the  part 
of  the  god  and  were  slain  and  dismembered  in  that  character.  Set 
as  well  as  Osiris  is  said  to  have  been  torn  in  pieces  after  a  reign  of 
eighteen  days,  which  was  commemorated  by  an  annual  festival  of 
the  same  length.  According  to  one  story  Romulus,  the  first  king  of 
Rome,  was  cut  in  pieces  by  the  senators,  who  buried  the  fragments 
of  him  in  the  ground  ;  and  the  traditional  day  of  his  death,  the  seventh 
of  July  was  celebrated  with  certain  curious  rites,  which  were  apparently 
connected  with  the  artificial  fertilisation  of  the  fig.  Again,  Greek 
legend  told  how  Pentheus,  king  of  Thebes,  and  Lycurgus,  king  of 
the  Thracian  Edonians,  opposed  the  vine-god  Dionysus,  and  how 
the  impious  monarchs  were  rent  in  pieces,  the  one  by  the  frenzied 
Bacchanals,  the  other  by  horses.  These  Greek  traditions  may  .well 
be  distorted  reminiscences  of  a  custom  of  sacrificing  human  beings, 
and  especially  divine  kings,  in  the  character  of  Dionysus,  a  god  who 
resembled  Osiris  in  many  points  and  was  said  like  him  to  have  been 


379 


XL  OSIRIS  A  CORN-GOt) 

tom  limb  from  limb.  We  are  told  that  in  Chios  men  were  rent  in 
pieces  as  a  sacrifice  to  Dionysus  ;  and  since  they  died  the  same  death 
as  their  god,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  they  personated  him. 
The  story  that  the  Thracian  Orpheus  was  similarly  torn  limb  from 
limb  by  the  Bacchanals  seems  to  indicate  that  he  too  perished  in 
the  character  of  the  god  whose  death  he  died.  It  is  significant  that 
the  Thracian  Lycurgus,  king  of  the  Edonians,  is  said  to  have  been  put 
to  death  in  order  that  the  ground,  which  had  ceased  to  be  fruitful, 
might  regain  its  fertility. 

Further,  we  read  of  a  Norwegian  king,  Halfdan  the  Black,  whose 
body  was  cut  up  and  buried  in  different  parts  of  his  kingdom  for 
the  sake  of  ensuring  the  fruitfulness  of  the  earth.  He  is  said  to  have 
been  drowned  at  the  age  of  forty  through  the  breaking  of  the  ice  in 
spring.  What  followed  his  death  is  thus  related  by  the  old  Norse 
historian  Snorri  Sturluson  .*  He  had  been  the  most  prosperous 
(literally,  blessed  with  abundance)  of  all  kings.  So  greatly  did  men 
value  him  that  when  the  news  came  that  he  was  dead  and  his  body 
removed  to  Hringariki  and  intended  for  burial  there,  the  chief  men 
from  Raumariki  and  Westfold  and  Heithmork  came  and  all  requested 
that  they  might  take  his  body  with  them  and  bury  it  in  their  various 
provinces  ;  they  thought  that  it  would  bring  abundance  to  those 
who  obtained  it.  Eventually  it  ^was  settled  that  the  body  was 
distributed  in  four  places.  The  head  was  laid  in  a  barrow  at  Steinn 
in  Hringariki,  and  each  party  took  away  their  own  share  and  buried 
it.  All  these  barrows  are  called  Halfdan’s  barrows.”  It  should  be 
remembered  that  this  Halfdan  belonged  to  the  family  of  the  Ynglings, 
who  traced  their  descent  from  Frey,  the  great  Scandinavian  aod  of 
fertility. 

t  The  natives  of  Kiwai,  an  island  lying  off  the  mouth  of  the  Fly 
River  in  British  New  Guinea,  tell  of  a  certain  magician  named  Segera, 
who  had  sago  for  his  totem.  When  Segera  was  old  and  ill,  he  told 
the  people  that  he  would  soon  die,  but  that,  nevertheless,  he  would 
cause  their  gardens  to  thrive.  Accordingly,  he  instructed  them  that 
when  he  was  dead  they  should  cut  him  up  and  place  pieces  of  his 
flesh  in  their  gardens,  but  his  head  was  to  be  buried  in  his  own  garden. 
Of  him  it  is  said  that  he  outlived  the  ordinary  age,  and  that  no  man 
knew  his  father,  but  that  he  made  the  sago  good  and  no  one  was 
hungry  any  more.  Old  men  who  were  alive  some  years  ago  affirmed 
that  they  had  known  Segera  in  their  youth,  and  the  general  opinion 
of  the  Kiwai  people  seems  to  be  that  Segera  died  not  more  than  two 
generations  ago. 

Taken  all  together,  these  legends  point  to  a  widespread  practice 
of  dismembering  the  body  of  a  king  or  magician  and  burying 
the  pieces  in  different  parts  of  the  country  in  order  to  ensure  the 
fertility  of  the  ground  and  probably  also  the  fecundity  of  man  and 
beast. 

To  return  to  the  human  victims  whose  ashes  the  Egyptians 
scattered  with  winnowing-fans,  the  red  hair  of  these  unfortunates 


380  THE  NATURE  OF  OSIRIS  ch. 

was  probably  significant.  For  in  Egypt  the  oxen  which  were  sacrificed 
had  also  to  be  red  ;  a  single  black  or  white  hair  found  on  the  beast 
would  have  disqualified  it  for  the  sacrifice.  If,  as  I  conjecture,  those 
human  sacrifices  were  intended  to  promote  the  growth  of  the  crops— 
and  the  winnowing  of  their  ashes  seems  to  support  this  "view  red- 
haired  victims  were  perhaps  selected  as  best  fitted  to  personate  the 
spirit  of  the  ruddy  grain.  For  when  a  god  is  represented  by  a  living 
person,  it  is  natural  that  the  human  representative  should  be  chosen 
on  the  ground  of  his  supposed  resemblance  to  the  divine  original. 
Hence  the  ancient  Mexicans,  conceiving  the  maize  as  a  personal 
being  who  went  through  the  whole  course  of  life  between  seed-time 
and  harvest,  sacrificed  new-born  babes  when  the  maize  was  sown, 
older  children  when  it  had  sprouted,  and  so  on  till  it  was  fully  ripe, 
when  they  sacrificed  old  men.  A  name  for  Osiris  was  the .  ciop 
or  “  harvest  ”  and  the  ancients  sometimes  explained  him  as  a 

personification  of  the  com.  .  . 

§  2.  Osiris  a  Tree-spirit.— But  Osiris  was  more  than  a  spirit  of 
the  com  ;  he  was  also  a  tree-spirit,  and  this  may  perhaps  have  been 
his  primitive  character,  since  the  worship  of  trees  is  naturally  older  in 
the  history  of  religion  than  the  worship  of  the  ceieals.  dhe  character 
of  Osiris  as  a  tree-spirit  was  represented  very  graphically  in  a  ceremony 
described  by  Firmicus  Maternus.  -  A  pine-tree  having  been  cut  down, 
the  centre  was  hollowed  out,  and  with  the  wood  thus  excavated  an 
image  of  Osiris  was  made,  which  was  then  buried  like  a  corpse  in 
the  hollow  of  the  tree.  It  is  hard  to  imagine  how  the  conception  of  a 
tree  as  tenanted  by  a  personal  being  could  be  more  plainly  expressed. 
The  image  of  Osiris  thus  made  was  kept  for  a  year  and  then  burned, 
exactly  as  was  done  with  the  image  of  Attis  which  was  attached  to 
the  pine-tree.  The  ceremony  of  cutting  the  tiee,  as  desciibtd  by 
Firmicus  Maternus,  appears  to  be  alluded  to  by  Plutarch.  It  was 
probably  the  ritual  counterpart  of  the  mythical  discovery  of  the  body 
of  Osiris  enclosed  in  the  erica- tree.  In  the  hall  of  Osiris  at  Dendeiah 
the  coffin  containing  the  hawk-headed  mummy  of  the  god  is  clearly 
depicted  as  enclosed  within  a  tree,  apparently  a  conifer,  the  trunk 
and  branches  of  which  are  seen  above  and  below  the  coffin.  The  j 
scene  thus  corresponds  closely  both  to  the  myth  and  to  the  ceremony 
described  by  Firmicus  Maternus. 

It  accords  with  the  character  of  Osiris  as  a  tree-spirit  that  his 
worshippers  were  forbidden  to  injure  fruit-trees,  and  with  his  character 
as  a  god  of  vegetation  in  general  that  they  were  not  allowed  to  stop 
up  wells  of  water,  which  are  so  important  for  the  irrigation  of  hot 
southern  lands.  According  to  one  legend,  he  taught-  men  to  train 
the  vine  to  poles,  to  prune  its  superfluous  foliage,  mid  to  extract 
the  juice  of  the  grape.  In  the  papyrus  of  Nebseni,  written  about 
1550  b.c.,  Osiris  is  depicted  sitting  in  a  shrine,  from  the  roof  of  which 
hang  clusters  of  grapes  ;  and  in  the  papyrus  of  the  royal  scribe  Nekht 
we  see  the  god  enthroned  in  front  of  a  pool,  from  the  banks  of  which  i 
a  luxuriant  vine,  with  many  bunches  of  grapes,  grows  towards  the 


XL 


OSIRIS  A  GOD  OF  THE  DEAD 


381 

||  fn,!:n,  (a.Ce  °f  th®  seated  deity.  The  ivy  was  sacred  to  him,  and  was 
called  his  plant  because  it  is  always  green. 

!  !  „  J  3ii  °SmS  a  (j'f  fertility. — As  a  god  of  vegetation  Osiris  was 

naturally  conceived  as  a  god  of  creative  energy  in  general,  since  men 

at  a  certain  stage  of  evolution  fail  to  distinguish  between  the  re¬ 
productive  powers  of  animals  and  of  plants.  Hence  a  striking  feature 
in  hi.  worship  was  the  coarse  but  expressive  symbolism  by  which 
this  aspect  of  his  nature  was  presented  to  the  eye  not  merely  of  the 

1 K  t  1  -n  th®  multitude‘  At  his  festival  women  used  to  go 
about  the  villages  singing  songs  in  his  praise  and  carrying  obscene 

images  of  him  which  they  set  in  motion  by  means  of  strings  The 
custom  was  probably  a  charm  to  ensure  the  growth  of  the  crops.  A 
similar  image  of  him,  decked  with  all  the  fruits  of  the  earth  is  said  to 
have  stood  in  a  temple  before  a  figure  of  Isis,  and  in  the  chambers 
dedicated  to  him  at  Philae  the  dead  god  is  portrayed  lying  on  his 
bier  m  an  attitude  which  indicates  in  the  plainest  way  that  even  in 
death  his  generative  virtue  was  not  extinct  but  only  suspended,  ready 
to  prove  a  source  of  life  and  fertility  to  the  world  when  the  opportunity 
should  offer  Hymns  addressed  to  Osiris  contain  allusions  to  this 
important  side  of  his  nature.  In  one  of  them  it  is  said  that  the  world 
waxes  green  in  triumph  through  him  ;  and  another  declares,  “  Thou 

ar^  V?  fat^?r  aPd imother  of  mankind,  they  live  on  thy  breath,  they 
subsist  on  the  flesh  of  thy  body."  We  may  conjecture  that  in  this 
paternal  aspect  he  was  supposed,  like  other  gods  of  fertility  to  bless 
men  and  women  with  offspring,  and  that  the  processions  at  his  festival 
were  intended  to  promote  this  object  as  well  as  to  quicken  the  seed 
m  the  ground.  It  would  be  to  misjudge  ancient  religion  to  denounce 
as  lewd  and  profligate  the  emblems  and  the  ceremonies  which  the 
Egyptians  employed  for  the  purpose  of  giving  effect  to  this  conception 
of  the  divine  power.  The  ends  which  they  proposed  to  themselves  in 
these  rites  were  natural  and  laudable ;  only  the  means  they  adopted 
to  compass  them  were  mistaken.  A  similar  fallacy  induced  the  Greeks 
to  adopt  a  like  symbolism  m  their  Dionysiac  festivals,  and  the  superficial 
but  striking  resemblance  thus  produced  between  the  two  religions 
has  perhaps  more  than  anything  else  misled  enquirers,  both  ancient 
and  modem,  into  identifying  worships  which,  though  certainly  akin 
m  nature,  are  perfectly  distinct  and  independent  in  origin. 

§  4.  Osiris  a  God  of  the  Dead. — We  have  seen  that  in  one  of  his 
aspects  Osins  was  the  ruler  and  judge  of  the  dead.  To  a  people  like 
the  Egyptians,  who  not  only  believed  in  a  life  beyond  the  grave  but 
actually  spent  much  of  their  time,  labour,  and  money  in  preparing  for 
it,  tiiis  office  of  the  god  must  have  appeared  hardly,  if  at  all  less 
important  than  his  function  of  making  the  earth  to  bring  forth  its 
truits  in  due  season.  We  may  assume  that  in  the  faith  of  his  worship¬ 
pers  the  two  provinces  of  the  god  were  intimately  connected.  In 
laying  their  dead  in  the  grave  they  committed  them  to  his  keeping 
who  could  raise  them  from  the  dust  to  life  eternal,  even  as  he  caused 
the  seed  to  spring  from  the  ground.  Of  that  faith  the  corn-stuffed 


382 


ISIS 


CH. 


effigies  of  Osiris  found  in  Egyptian  tombs  furnish  an  eloquent  and  un¬ 
equivocal  testimony.  They  were  at  once  an  emblem  and  an  instru¬ 
ment  of  resurrection.  Thus  from  the  sprouting  of  the  grain  the 
ancient  Egyptians  drew  an  augury  of  human  immortality,  they  are 
not  the  only  people  who  have  built  the  same  lofty  hopes  on  the 

same  slender  foundation.  .  ,  ,  .  • 

A  god  who  thus  fed  his  people  with  his  own  broken  body  in  this 

life  and  who  held  out  to  them  a  promise  of  a  blissful  eternity  in  a 
better  world  hereafter,  naturally  reigned  supreme  in  their  affections. 
We  need  not  wonder,  therefore,  that  in  Egypt  the  worship  of  the  other 
gods  was  overshadowed  by  that  of  Osiris,  and  that  while  they  were 
revered  each  in  his  own  district,  he  and  his  divine  partner  Isis  were 

adored  in  all. 


CHAPTER  XLI 


ISIS 

The  original  meaning  of  the  goddess  Isis  is  still  more  difficult  to 
determine  than  that  of  her  brother  and  husband  Osins.  _  Her  attributes 
and  epithets  were  so  numerous  that  in  the  hieroglyphics  she  is  called 
“  the  many-named,”  “  the  thousand-named,”  and  in  Greek  inscriptions 
”  the  myriad-named.”  Yet  in  her  complex  nature  it  is  perhaps  still 
possible  to  detect  the  original  nucleus  round  which  by  a  slow  process 
of  accretion  the  other  elements  gathered.  For  if  her  brother  and 
husband  Osiris  was  in  one  of  his  aspects  the  corn-god,  as  we  have  seen 
reason  to  believe,  she  must  surely  have  been  the  corn-goddess.  There 
are  at  least  some  grounds  for  thinking  so.  For  if  we  may  trust  Dio¬ 
dorus  Siculus,  whose  authority  appears  to  have  been  the  Egyptian 
historian  Manetho,  the  discovery  of  wheat  and  barley  was  attributed 
to  Isis,  and  at  her  festivals  stalks  of  these  grains  were  carried  in  pro¬ 
cession  to  commemorate  the  boon  she  had  conferred  on  men. 
further  detail  is  added  by  Augustine.  He  says  that  Isis  made  the 
discovery  of  barley  at  the  moment  when  she  was  sacrificing  to  the 
common  ancestors  of  her  husband  and  herself,  all  of  whom  had  been 
kings  and  that  she  showed  the  newly  discovered  ears  of  barley  to 
Osiris  and  his  councillor  Thoth  or  Mercury,  as  Roman  writers  called 
him.  That  is  why,  adds  Augustine,  they  identify  Isis  with  Ceres. 
Further,  at  harvest-time,  when  the  Egyptian  reapers  had  cut  the  lire 
stalks  they  laid  them  down  and  beat  their  breasts,  wailing  and  calling 
upon  Isis.  The  custom  has  been  already  explained  as  a  lament  tor 
the  corn-spirit  slain  under  the  sickle.  Amongst  the  epithets  by  which 
Isis  is  designated  in  the  inscriptions  are  “  Creatress  of  green  things, 

“  Green  goddess,  whose  green  colour  is  like  unto  the  greenness  of  ^ 
earth  ”  “Lady  of  Bread,”  “  Lady  of  Beer,”  “  Lady  of  Abundance. 
According  to  Brugsch  she  is  “  not  only  the  creatress  of  the  fres 
verdure  of  vegetation  which  covers  the  earth,  but  is  actually  the  greel 


XLI 


ISIS 


383 


coin-field  itself  which  is  personified  as  a  goddess.”  This  is  confirmed 

7  ler  ePltI'<r,t  Soc,[it  or  Socket,  meaning  “  a  corn-field,”  a  sense  which 
the  word  still  retains  in  Coptic.  The  Greeks  conceived  of  Isis  as  a 
corn-goddess,  for  they  identified  her  with  Demeter.  In  a  Greek 
epigram  she  is  described  as  “  she  who  has  given  birth  to  the  fruits  of 
the  earth,  _  and  the  mother  of  the  ears  of  corn  ”  ;  and  in  a  hymn 
composed  m  her  honour  she  speaks  of  herself  as  “  queen  of  the  wheat- 
held,  and  is  described  as  “charged  with  the  care  of  the  fruitful 
furrows  wheat-rich  path.”  Accordingly,  Greek  or  Roman  artists 
often  represented  her  with  ears  of  corn  on  her  head  or  in  her  hand 

m  tuCh’  T6  “ay  suPP°se’  was  Isis  «  the  olden  time,  a  rustic  Corn- 
Mother  adored  with  uncouth  rites  by  Egyptian  swains.  But  the 

homely  features  of  the  clownish  goddess  could  hardly  be  traced  in  the 
refined,  the  saintly  form  which,  spiritualised  by  ages  of  religious 
evolution  she  presented  to  her  worshippers  of  after  days  as  the  true 
wife,  the  tender  mother,  the  beneficent  queen  of  nature,  encircled  with 
the  nimbus  of  moral  purity,  of  immemorial  and  mysterious  sanctity. 

hus  chastened  and  transfigured  she  won  many  hearts  far  beyond  the 
boundaries  of  her  native  land.  In  that  welter  of  religions  which 
accompanied  the  decline  of  national  life  in  antiquity  her  worship  was 
one  of  the  most  popular  at  Rome  and  throughout  the  empire.  Some 
ot  the  Roman  emperors  themselves  were  openly  addicted  to  it.  And 
however  the  religion  of  Isis  may,  like  any  other,  have  been  often  worn 
as  a  cloak  by  men  and  women  of  loose  life,  her  rites  appear  on  the 
whole  to  have  been  honourably  distinguished  by  a  dignity  and  com¬ 
posure,  a  solemnity  and  decorum  well  fitted  to  soothe  the  troubled 
mind,  to  ease  the  burdened  heart.  They  appealed  therefore  to  gentle 
spirits,  and  above  all  to  women,  whom  the  bloody  and  licentious  rites 
ot  other  Oriental  goddesses  only  shocked  and  repelled.  We  need  not 
wonder^  then,  that  in  a  period  of  decadence,  when  traditional  faiths 
were  shaken,  when  systems  clashed,  when  men’s  minds  were  dis¬ 
quieted,  when  the  fabric  of  empire  itself,  once  deemed  eternal,  began 
to  show  ominous  rents  and  fissures,  the  serene  figure  of  Isis  with  her 
spiritual  calm,  her  gracious  promise  of  immortality,  should  have 
appeared  to  many  like  a  star  in  a  stormy  sky,  and  should  have  roused 

“  r™ts  a  raPture  of  devotion  not  unlike  that  which  was  paid 
m  the  Middle  Ages  to  the  Virgin  Mary.  Indeed  her  stately  ritual 
with  its  shaven  and  tonsured  priests,  its  matins  and  vespers,  its  tinkling 
music,  its  baptism  and  aspersions  of  holy  water,  its  solemn  processions 
its  jewelled  images  of  the  Mother  of  God,  presented  many  points  of 
similarity  to  the  pomps  and  ceremonies  of  Catholicism.  The  re¬ 
semblance  need  not  be  purely  accidental.  Ancient  Egypt  may  have 
contributed  its  share  to  the  gorgeous  symbolism  of  the  Catholic  Church 
as  well  as  to  the  pale  abstractions  of  her  theology.  Certainly  in  art 
the  figure  of  Isis  suckling  the  infant  Horus  is  so  like  that  of  the  Madonna 
and  child  that  it  has  sometimes  received  the  adoration  of  ignorant 

tv.  ILiranS'  ,yn<l  Isis  in  her  later  character  of  patroness  of  mariners 
the  Virgin  Mary  perhaps  owes  her  beautiful  epithet  of  Stella  Maris, 


OSIRIS  AND  THE  SUN 


CH. 


384 


“  Star  of  the  Sea/’  under  which  she  is  adored  by  tempest-tossed  sailors. 
The  attributes  of  a  marine  deity  may  have  been  bestowed  on  Isis  by 
the  sea-faring  Greeks  of  Alexandria.  They  are  quite  foreign  to  her 
original  character  and  to  the  habits  of  the  Egyptians,  who  had  no  love 
of  the  sea.  On  this  hypothesis  Sirius,  the  bright  star  of  Isis,  which  on 
July  mornings  rises  from  the  glassy  waves  of  the  eastern  Mediterranean, 
a  harbinger  of  halcyon  weather  to  mariners,  was  the  true  Stella  Maris , 
“  the  Star  of  the  Sea.” 


CHAPTER  XLII 

OSIRIS  AND  THE  SUN 

Osiris  has  been  sometimes  interpreted  as  the  sun-god,  and  in  modern 
times  this  view  has  been  held  by  so  many  distinguished  writers  that  it 
deserves  a  brief  examination.  If  we  enquire  on  what  evidence  Osiris 
has  been  identified  with  the  sun  or  the  sun-god,  it  will  be  found  on 
analysis  to  be  minute  in  quantity  and  dubious,  where  it  is  not  absolutely 
worthless,  in  quality.  The  diligent  Jablonski,  the  first  modern  scholar 
to  collect  and  sift  the  testimony  of  classical  writers  on  Egyptian 
religion,  says  that  it  can  be  shown  in  many  ways  that  Osiris  is  the  sun, 
and  that  he  could  produce  a  cloud  of  witnesses  to  prove  it,  but  that  it  is 
needless  to  do  so,  since  no  learned  man  is  ignorant  of  the  fact.  Of 
the  ancient  writers  whom  he  condescends  to  quote,  the  only  two  who 
expressly  identify  Osiris  with  the  sun  are  Diodorus  and  Macrobius. 
But  little  weight  can  be  attached  to  their  evidence  ;  for  the  statement 
of  Diodorus  is  vague  and  rhetorical,  and  the  reasons  which  Macrobius, 
one  of  the  fathers  of  solar  mythology,  assigns  for  the  identification 
are  exceedingly  slight. 

The  ground  upon  which  some  modern  writers  seem  chiefly  to  rely  for 
the  identification  of  Osiris  with  the  sun  is  that  the  story  of  his  death 
fits  better  with  the  solar  phenomena  than  with  any  other  in  nature. 
It  may  readily  be  admitted  that  the  daily  appearance  and  disappearance 
of  the  sun  might  very  naturally  be  expressed  by  a  myth  of  his  death 
and  resurrection  ;  and  writers  who  regard  Osiris  as  the  sun  are  careful 
to  indicate  that  it  is  the  diurnal,  and  not  the  annual,  course  of  the 
sun  to  which  they  understand  the  myth  to  apply.  Thus  Renouf,  who 
identified  Osiris  with  the  sun,  admitted  that  the  Egyptian  sun  could 
not  with  any  show  of  reason  be  described  as  dead  in  winter.  But  if  his 
daily  death  was  the  theme  of  the  legend,  why  was  it  celebrated  by  an 
annual  ceremony  ?  This  fact  alone  seems  fatal  to  the  interpretation 
of  the  myth  as  descriptive  of  sunset  and  sunrise.  Again,  though  the 
sun  may  be  said  to  die  daily,  in  what  sense  can  he  be  said  to  be  torn  in 
pieces  ? 

In  the  course  of  our  enquiry  it  has,  I  trust,  been  made  clear  that 
there  is  another  natural  phenomenon  to  which  the  conception  of  death 
and  resurrection  is  as  applicable  as  to  sunset  and  sunrise,  and  which, 


xr.m 


DIONYSUS 


385 


custom  ^^Tli at  fahCt’  haS  been-S0  conceived  and  represented  in  folk- 

vegetation  A  Pb‘en0raenon  1S  ,the  annual  growth  and  decay  of 
vegetation.  A  strong  reason  for  interpreting  the  death  of  Osiris  as  the 

S  S  Z  l*  “  ,h'  •"»-*  «  to  be  foJJ *  ;l 

f  ,1’  e  !ot  unanimous,  voice  of  antiquity  which  classed 
together  the  worship  and  myths  of  Osiris,  Adonis,  Attis  Dionvsus 
and  Demeter,  as  religions  of  essentially  the  same  type.  The  consensus 
ancient  opinion  on  this  subject  seems  too  great  to  be  reiected  as  a 
mere  fancy  So  closely  did  the  rites  of  Osiris  resemble  those  of  Adonis 

thatO^  “  nat  S°m!,  °f  the  pe0ple  of  Byfclus  themselves  maintained 
Wh  1  0slrts  and  not  Adonis  whose  death  was  mourned  by  them 
Such  a  view  could  certainly  not  have  been  held  if  the  rituals  of  the  two 
gods  had  not  been  so  alike  as  to  be  almost  indistinguishable.  Herodotus 
found  the  simdanty  between  the  rites  of  Osiris  and  Dionysus  so  m-eat 
that  he  thought  it  impossible  the  latter  could  have  arisen  Inde- 

whh  d  T;  bey“USt',he  suPP°sed>  have  been  recently  borrowed 
Pi  +  !g  alterations,  by  the  Greeks  from  the  Egyptians  Again’ 
Plutarch,  a  very  keen  student  of  comparative  religion,  insists  upon  the 
detailed  resemblance  of  the  rites  of  Osiris  to  thofe  of  Dionysus  We 
cannot  reject  the  evidence  of  such  intelligent  and  trustworthy  witnesses 
on  plain  matters  of  fact  which  fell  under  their  own  cognizance  Their 
explanations  of  the  worships  it  is  indeed  possible  to  reject  for  the 

of  Ritual  °afre  mgIttUS  ^  0pe"  t0  1Uestion  '•  but  resemblances 

ot  ritual  are  matters  of  observation.  Therefore,  those  who  explain 

Osins  as  the  sun  are  driven  to  the  alternative  of  either  dismissing  as 

mistaken  the  testimony  of  antiquity  to  the  similarity  of  the  rite!  of 

Osiris,  Adonis,  Attis,  Dionysus,  and  Demeter,  or  of  interpreting  ah 

-/r- sun-worship.  No  modern  scholar  has  fairly  Pfaced§and 

he  to  t6ffi  eitber  Slde  of  thls  alternative.  To  accept  the  former  would 
be  to  affirm  that  we  know  the  rites  of  these  deities  better  than  the  men 
who  pract^ed,  or  at  least  who  witnessed  them.  To  accept  the  latter 

aivthdanTrtliafWrenChmn  dippi,"S’  manSIin§'-  and  distorting  of 
i/a  li  r.ltual  from  which  even  Macrobius  shrank.  On  the  other 

and,  the  view  that  the  essence  of  all  these  rites  was  the  mimic  death 
d  revival  of  vegetation,  explains  them  separately  and  collectively 

"ornebfthe  "“"7'  and  harmonises  with  the  general  testimony 
orne  by  the  ancients  to  their  substantial  similarity.  y 


CHAPTER  XLIII 

DIONYSUS 

n  the  preceding  chapters  we  saw  that  in  antiquity  the  civilised 

hane^s  of  ^estem  Asia  a^d  ESy?t  Pictured  to  themselves  the 
ecav  of  vocr  e  seasons»  and  particularly  the  annual  growth  and 
y  egetation,  as  episodes  in  the  life,  of  gods,  whose  mournful 

2  C 


386 


DIONYSUS 


CH. 


death  and  happy  resurrection  they  celebrated  with  dramatic  rites  of 
alternate  lamentation  and  rejoicing.  But  if  the  celebration  was  in 
form  dramatic,  it  was  in  substance  magical;  that  is  to  say,  it  was 
intended,  on  the  principles  of  sympathetic  magic,  to  ensure  the  vernal 
regeneration  of  plants  and  the  multiplication  of  animals,  which  had 
seemed  to  be  menaced  by  the  inroads  of  winter.  In  the  ancient 
world  however,  such  ideas  and  such  rites  were  by  no  means  confined 
to  the  Oriental  peoples  of  Babylon  and  Syria,  of  Phrygia  and  Egypt ; 
they  were  not  a  product  peculiar  to  the  religious  mysticism  of  the 
dreamy  East,  but  were  shared  by  the  races  of  livelier  fancy  and  more 
mercurial  temperament  who  inhabited  the  shores  and  islands  o  e 
Aegean  We  need  not,  with  some  enquirers  in  ancient  and  modem 
times  suppose  that  these  Western  peoples  borrowed  from  the  older 
civilisation  of  the  Orient  the  conception  of  the  Dying  and  Reviving 
God  together  with  the  solemn  ritual,  in  which  that  conception  was  j 
dramatically  set  forth  before  the  eyes  of  the  worshippers  More 
probably  the  resemblance  which  may  be  traced  in  this  respect  between  , 
the  religions  of  the  East  and  the  West  is  no  more  than  what  we  com¬ 
monly  though  incorrectly,  call  a  fortuitous  coincidence,  the  effect  of  , 
similar  causes  acting  alike  on  the  similar  constitution  of  the  human 
mind  in  different  countries  and  under  different  skies.  _  The  Greek 
had  no  need  to  journey  into  far  countries  to  leam  the  vicissitudes  of 
the  seasons,  to  mark  the  fleeting  beauty  of  the  damask  rose,  the  tran¬ 
sient  glory  of  the  golden  corn,  the  passing  splendour  of  the  purple 
grapes  Year  by  year  in  his  own  beautiful  land  he  beheld,  with 
natural  regret,  the  bright  pomp  of  summer  fading  into  the  gloom 
and  stagnation  of  winter,  and  year  by  year  he  hailed  with  natural 
delight  the  outburst  of  fresh  life  in  spring.  Accustomed  to  personify 
the  forces  of  nature,  to  tinge  her  cold  abstractions  with  the  warm 
hues  of  imagination,  to  clothe  her  naked  realities  with  the  gorgeous 
drapery  of  a  mythic  fancy,  he  fashioned  for  himself  a  tram  of  gods 
and  goddesses,  of  spirits  and  elves,  out  of  the  shifting  panorama  of  the 
seasons,  and  followed  the  annual  fluctuations  of  their  fortunes  with 
alternate  emotions  of  cheerfulness  and  dejection,  of  gladness  and 
sorrow  which  found  their  natural  expression  in  alternate  rites  _  of 
rejoicing  and  lamentation,  of  revelry  and  mourning.  A  consideration 
of  some  of  the  Greek  divinities  who  thus  died  and  rose  again  from  the , 
dead  may  furnish  us  with  a  series  of  companion  pictures  to  set  side 
by  side  with  the  sad  figures  of  Adonis,  Attis,  and  Osins.  We  begin 

with  Dionysus. 

The  god  Dionysus  or  Bacchus  is  best  known  to  us  as  a  personifica¬ 
tion  of  the  vine  and  of  the  exhilaration  produced  by  the  juice  of  the 
grape.  His  ecstatic  worship,  characterised  by  wild  dances,  thrilling 
music,  and  tipsy  excess,  appears  to  have  originated  among  the  rude 
tribes’ of  Thrace,  who  were  notoriously  addicted  to  drunkenness. 
Its  mystic  doctrines  and  extravagant  rites  were  essentially  foreign 
to  the  clear  intelligence  and  sober  temperament  of  the  Greek  race. 
Yet  appealing  as  it  did  to  that  love  of  mystery  and  that  proneness 


XLIII 


DIONYSUS 


387 


t0  re^ent0  sa^agery  which  seem  to  be  innate  in  most  men,  the  religion 
spreai  like  wildfire  through  Greece  until  the  god  whom  Homer  hardlv 
eigned  to  notice  had  become  the  most  popular  figure  of  the  pantheon 
The  resemblance  which  his  story  and  his  ceremonies  present  to  those 

hold  Ten®  6d  S°me  enqmrers  both  m  ancient  and  modem  times  to 

from  E^n?TySUr  WaS  mc6ly  a  dlsguised  0siris-  imported  directly 

uZJFI  T  eeCe'.  But  the  «reat  preponderance  of  evidence 
points  to  his  Thracian  origin,  and  the  similarity  of  the  two  worships 

wMch  dby  the  similarity  of  the  ideas  and  customs  on 

While  the  vine  with  its  clusters  was  the  most  characteristic  mani- 

Irt  t  m  e°l  ]?1°1,lySUS'  h,®  Was  also  a  S°d  of  trees  in  general.  Thus  we 
are  told  that  almost  all  the  Greeks  sacrificed  to  “Dionysus  of  the 

tree.  In  Boeotia  one  of  his  titles  was  “  Dionysus  in  the  tree  ”  His 

image  was  often  merely  an  upright  post,  without  arms,  but  draped  in 

a  mantle,  with  a  bearded  mask  to  represent  the  head,  and  witlf  leafy 

boughs  projecting  from  the  head  or  body  to  show  the  nature  of  the 

:  d  D.  °nAa  Vase  hlsrude  ^gy  is  dePicted  appearing  out  of  a  low  tree 
or  bush.  Al  Magnesia  on  the  Maeander  an  image  of  Dionysus  is  said 
to  have  been  found  m  a  plane-tree,  which  had  been  broken  by  the 

Ti?'  5?  T  16  Patron,  of  cuhivated  trees  :  prayers  were  offered 

hnno  nat  ue  7°uld  make  .the  trees  Srow  ■  and  he  was  especially 
noured  by  husbandmen,  chiefly  fruit-growers,  who  set  up  an  image 

^  shape  of  a  natural  tree-stump,  in  their  orchards.  He 

was  said  to  have  discovered  all  tree-fruits,  amongst  which  apples 

and  figs  are  particukriy  mentioned  ;  and  he  was  referred  to  as  “  wdl- 

frmted  he  of  the  green  fruit,”  and  "  making  the  fruit  to  grow  ” 

One  of  his  titles  was  teeming  ”  or  "  bursting  ”  (as  of  sap  or  blossoms)  • 

and  there  was  a  Flowery  Dionysus  in  Attica  and  at  Patrae  in  Achaia! 

he  Athenians  sacrmced  to  him  for  the  prosperity  of  the  fruits  of  the 

and.  Amongst  the  trees  particularly  sacred  to  him,  in  addition  to 

the  vine,  was  the  pine-tree.  The  Delphic  oracle  commanded  the 

-ormthians  to  worship  a  particular  pine-tree  “  equally  with  the  god  ” 

>o  they  made  two  images  of  Dionysus  out  of  it,  with  red  faces  and  gilt 

aodies.  In  art  a  wand,  tipped  with  a  pine-cone,  is  commonly  carried 

3y  the  god  or  his  worshippers.  Again,  the  ivy  and  the  fig-tree  were 

specially  associated  with  him.  In  the  Attic  township  of  Acharnae 

■  ere  was  a  Dionysus  Ivy  ;  at  Lacedaemon  there  was  a  Fig  Dionvsus  • 

UKlni  Naxos,  where  figs  were  called  meilicha,  there  was  a  Dionysus 

viemciuos,  the  face  of  whose  image  was  made  of  fig-wood. 

Further,  there  are  indications,  few  but  significant,  that  Dionysus 

?s  conceived  as  a  deity  of  agriculture  and  the  corn.  He  is  spoken 

i  as  himself  doing  the  work  of  a  husbandman  :  he  is  reported  to 

jave  been  the  first  to  yoke  oxen  to  the  plough,  which  before  had  been 

agged  by  hand  alone  ;  and  some  people  found  in  this  tradition  the 

we  to  the  bovine  shape  in  which,  as  we  shall  see,  the  god  was  often 

opposed  to  present  himself  to  his  worshippers.  Thus  guiding  the 

toughshare  and  scattering  the  seed  as  he  went,  Dionysus  is  said  to 


3g8  DIONYSUS  CH- 

have  eased  the  labour  of  the  husbandman.  Further,  we  are  told 
that  in  the  land  of  the  Bisaltae,  a  Thracian  tribe,  there  was  a  great 
and  fair  sanctuary  of  Dionysus,  where  at  his  festival  a  bright  light 
shone  forth  at  night  as  a  token  of  an  abundant  harvest  vouchsafed 
by  the  deity  ;  but  if  the  crops  were  to  fail  that  year,  the  mystic  light 
was  not  seen,  darkness  brooded  over  the  sanctuary  as  at  other  times. 
Moreover,  among  the  emblems  of  Dionysus  was  the  winnowmg-fan, 
that  is  the  large  open  shovel-shaped  basket,  which  down  to  modern 
times  has  been  used  by  farmers  to  separate  the  grain  from  the  chaff 
by  tossing  the  com  in  the  air.  This  simple  agricultural  instrument 
figured  in  the  mystic  rites  of  Dionysus  ;  indeed  the  god  is  traditionally 
said  to  have  been  placed  at  birth  in  a  winno wing-fan  as  in  a  crad  e  . 
in  art  he  is  represented  as  an  infant  so  cradled  ;  and  from  these  tradi¬ 
tions  and  representations  he  derived  the  epithet  of  Liknites,  that  is, 

“  He  of  the  Winnowing-fan.” 

Like  other  gods  of  vegetation  Dionysus  was  believed  to  nave 
died  a  violent  death,  but  to  have  been  brought  to  life  again; 
and  his  sufferings,  death,  and  resurrection  were  enacted  m  his 
sacred  rites.  His  tragic  story  is  thus  told  by  the  poet  Nonnus. 
Zeus  in  the  form  of  a  serpent  visited  Persephone,  and  she  bore 
him  Zagreus,  that  is,  Dionysus,  a  homed  infant.  Scarcely  was 
he  born,  when  the  babe  mounted  the  throne  of  his  father  Zeus  and 
mimicked  the  great  god  by  brandishing  the  lightning  m  his  tiny 
hand.  But  he  did  not  occupy  the  throne  long  ;  for  the  treacherous 
Titans,  their  faces  whitened  with  chalk,  attacked  him  with  knives 
while  he  was  looking  at  himself  in  a  mirror.  For  a  time  he  evaded 
their  assaults  by  turning  himself  into  various  shapes,  assuming  the 
likeness  successively  of  Zeus  and  Cronus,  of  a  young  man,  of  a  lion, 
a  horse,  and  a  serpent.  Finally,  in  the  form  of  a  bull,  he  was  cut  to 
pieces  by  the  murderous  knives  of  his  enemies.  His  Cretan  myth, 
as  related  by  Firmicus  Maternus,  ran  thus.  He  was  said  to  have 
been  the  bastard  son  of  Jupiter,  a  Cretan  king.  Going  abroad,  Jupiter 
transferred  the  throne  and  sceptre  to  the  youthful  Dionysus,  but, 
knowing  that  his  wife  Juno  cherished  a  jealous  dislike  of  the  child, 
he  entrusted  Dionysus  to  the  care  of  guards  upon  whose  fidelity  he 
believed  he  could  rely.  Juno,  however,  bribed  the  guards,  and 
amusing  the  child  with  rattles  and  a  cunningly-wrought  looking-glass 
lured  him  into  an  ambush,  where  her  satellites,  the  Titans,  rushed 
upon  him,  cut  him  limb  from  limb,  boiled  his  body  with  various  herbs, 
and  ate  it.  But  his  sister  Minerva,  who  had  shared  in  the  deed,  kept 
his  heart  and  gave  it  to  Jupiter  on  his  return,  revealing  to  him  the 
whole  history  of  the  crime.  In  his  rage,  Jupiter  put  the  Titans  to 
death  by  torture,  and,  to  soothe  his  grief  for  the  loss  of  his  son,  made 
an  image  in  which  he  enclosed  the  child’s  heart,  and  then  built  a  temple 
in  his  honour.  In  this  version  a  Euhemeristic  turn  has  been  given 
to  the  myth  by  representing  Jupiter  and  Juno  (Zeus  and  Hera)  as  a 
king  and  queen  of  Crete.  The  guards  referred  to  are  the  mythical 
Curetes  who  danced  a  war-dance  round  the  infant  Dionysus,  as  they 


XLIII 


DIONYSUS 


389 


fTJr  ,  t0  ha,Ve,  doneL  r°und  the  Want  Zeus.  Very  noteworthy  is  the 
gelid,  recorded  both  by  Nonnus  and  Firmicus,  that  in  his  infancy 

Dionysus  occupied  for  a  short  time  the  throne  of  his  father  Zeus 
So  Proelus  tells  us  that  "  Dionysus  was  the  last  king  of  the  gods 
appointed  by  Zeus  For  his  father  set  him  on  the  kingly  throne 
and  placed  m  his  hand  the  sceptre,  and  made  him  king  of  all  the 

hw  t  hiW°?  ’  SUCh  traditions  point  to  a  custom  of  temporarily 
eS,lng  ,  6  klng  s  son  "’ifi1  Hie  royal  dignity  as  a  prehminary  to 
sacnficmg  him  instead  of  his  father.  Pomegranates  were  supposed 

1  hlnnrl  '  I01U  t  l<'  blood  of  Dionysus,  as  anemones  from  the 

blood  of  Adonis  and  violets  from  the  blood  of  Attis :  hence  women 

reframed  from  eating  seeds  of  pomegranates  at  the  festival  of  the 

,  esmophona.  According  to  some,  the  severed  limbs  of  Dionysus 

were  pieced  together,  at  the  command  of  Zeus,  by  Apollo,  who  buried 

:;,P™  ,  The  grave  of  Dionysus  was  showr  in  the  Delphic 

InTh  . beSlde  f  Wen  StatU®  °f  ApoUo-  Hoover,  according^  to 
nother  account,  the  grave  of  Dionysus  was  at  Thebes,  where  he  is 

said  to  have  been  torn  in  pieces.  Thus  far  the  resurrection  of  the 

s  am  god  is  not  mentioned,  but  in  other  versions  of  the  myth  it  is 

;  variously  related.  According  to  one  version,  which  represented 

Dionysus  as  a  son  of  Zeus  and  Demeter,  his  mother  pieced  together 

ef  1Xh  bS  ind  ?a<?e  h™  y0ung  again'  In  others  ^  is  simply 
said  that  shortly  after  his  burial  he  rose  from  the  dead  and  ascended 

up  to  heaven  ,  or  that  Zeus  raised  him  up  as  he  lay  mortally  wounded  • 

afresh  hvT  .the,  heart  of  Di™ysus  and  then  begat  him 

j.  afresh  by  Semele,  who  in  the  common  legend  figures  as  mother  of 

onysus.  Or,  again  the  heart  was  pounded  up  and  given  in  a  potion 
to  Semele,  who  thereby  conceived  him.  F 

eel  KUI?alg  fK°m  tb?  “yth  t0  the  ritua1’  we  flnd  that  the  Cretans 
■  celebrated  a  biennial  festival  at  which  the  passion  of  Dionysus  was 

represented  m  every  detail.  All  that  he  had  done  or  suffered  in  his 

ast  moments  was  enacted  before  the  eyes  of  his  worshippers,  who 

tore  a  live  bull  to  pieces  with  their  teeth  and  roamed  the  woods  with 

frantic  shouts.  In  front  of  them  was  carried  a  casket  supposed  to 

contain  the  sacred  heart  of  Dionysus,  and  to  the  wild  music  of  flutes 

and  cymbals  they  mimicked  the  rattles  by  which  the  infant  god 

had  been  lured  to  his  doom.  Where  the  resurrection  formed  part  of 

the  myth  it  also  was  acted  at  the  rites,  and  it  even  appears  that  a 

general  doctrine  of  resurrection,  or  at  least  of  immortality,  was 

inculcated  on  the  worshippers ;  for  Plutarch,  writing  to  console  his 

mfe  on  the  death  of  their  infant  daughter,  comforts  her  with  the 

thought  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  as  taught  by  tradition  and 

m,the  mystenes  of  Dionysus.  A  different  form  of  the  myth 
0  the  death  and  resurrection  of  Dionysus  is  that  he  descended  into 
Hades  to  bring  up  his  mother  Semele  from  the  dead.  The  local  Argive 
radition  was  that  he  went  down  through  the  Alcyonian  lake  ;  and  his 
re  urn  rom  the  lower  world,  in  other  words  his  resurrection,  was 
annually  celebrated  on  the  spot  by  the  Argives,  who  summoned  him 


DIONYSUS 


CH. 


39° 


from  the  water  by  trumpet  blasts,  while  they  threw  a  lamb  into  the 
lake  as  an  offering  to  the  warder  of  the  dead.  Whether  this  was  a 
spring  festival  does  not  appear,  but  the  Lydians  certainly  celebrated 
the  advent  of  Dionysus  in  spring  ;  the  god  was  supposed  to  bring  the 
season  with  him.  Deities  of  vegetation,  who  are  believed  to  pass 
a  certain  portion  of  each  year  underground,  naturally  come  to  be 
regarded  as  gods  of  the  lower  world  or  of  the  dead.  Both  Dionysus 
and  Osiris  were  so  conceived. 

A  feature  in  the  mythical  character  of  Dionysus,  which  at  first 
sight  appears  inconsistent  with  his  nature  as  a  deity  of  vegetation, 
is  that  he  was  often  conceived  and  represented  in  animal  shape, 
especialfy  in  the  form,  or  at  least  with  the  horns,  of  a  bull.  Thus  he 
is  spoken  of  as  “  cow-born,”  “  bull,”  “  bull-shaped,”  “  bull-faced,” 
“bull-browed,”  “bull-horned,”  “horn-bearing,”  “two-horned,” 
“  horned.”  He  was  believed  to  appear,  at  least  occasionally,  as  a 
bull.  His  images  were  often,  as  at  Cyzicus,  made  in  ball  shape,  or 
with  bull  horns  ;  and  he  was  painted  with  horns.  Types  of  the 
horned  Dionysus  are  found  amongst  the  surviving  monuments  of 
antiquity.  On  one  statuette  he  appears  clad  in  a  bull’s  hide,  the  head, 
horns,  and  hoofs  hanging  down  behind.  Again,  he  is  represented  as 
a  child  with  clusters  of  grapes  round  his  brow,  and  a  calf’s  head,  with 
sprouting  horns,  attached  to  the  back  of  his  head.  On  a  red-figured 
vase  the  god  is  portrayed  as  a  calf-headed  child  seated  on  a  woman’s 
lap.  The  people  of  Cynaetha  held  a  festival  of  Dionysus  in  winter, 
when  men,  who  had  greased  their  bodies  with  oil  for  the  occasion, 
used  to  pick  out  a  bull  from  the  herd  and  carry  it  to  the  sanctuary 
of  the  god.  Dionysus  was  supposed  to  inspire  their  choice  of  the 
particular  bull,  which  probably  represented  the  deity  himself ;  for  at 
his  festivals  he  was  believed  to  appear  in  bull  form.  The  women 
of  Elis  hailed  him  as  a  bull,  and  prayed  him  to  come  with  his  bull’s 
foot.  They  sang,  “  Come  hither,  Dionysus,  to  thy  holy  temple  by 
the  sea  ;  come  with  the  Graces  to  thy  temple,  rushing  with  thy  bull’s 
foot,  O  goodly  bull,  O  goodly  bull !  ”  The  Bacchanals  of  Thrace 
wore  horns  in  imitation  of  their  god.  According  to  the  myth,  it  was  in 
the  shape  of  a  bull  that  he  was  torn  to  pieces  by  the  Titans  ;  and  the 
Cretans,  when  they  acted  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Dionysus,  tore  a 
live  bull  to  pieces  with  their  teeth.  Indeed,  the  rending  and  devouring 
of  live  bulls  and  calves  appear  to  have  been  a  regular  feature  of  the 
Dionysiac  rites.  When  we  consider  the  practice  of  portraying  the  god 
as  a  bull  or  with  some  of  the  features  of  the  animal,  the  belief  that  he 
appeared  in  bull  form  to  his  worshippers  at  the  sacred  rites,  and  the 
legend  that  in  bull  form  he  had  been  tom  in  pieces,  we  cannot  doubt 
that  in  rending  and  devouring  a  live  bull  at  his  festival  the  worshippers 
of  Dionysus  believed  themselves  to  be  killing  the  god,  eating  his  flesh, 
and  drinking  his  blood. 

Another  animal  whose  form  Dionysus  assumed  was  the  goat.  One 
of  his  names  was  “  Kid.”  At  Athens  and  at  Hermion  he  was  wor¬ 
shipped  under  the  title  of  “  the  one  of  the  Black  Goatskin,”  and  a 


XLIII 


DIONYSUS 


39i 


i  Je&end  yan  on  a  certain  occasion  he  had  appeared  clad  in  the  skin 
from  which  he  took  the  title.  In  the  wine-growing  district  of  Phlius 
w  ere  m  autumn  the  plain  is  still  thickly  mantled  with  the  red  and 
golden  foliage  of  the  fading  vines,  there  stood  of  old  a  bronze  image  of 
a  goat  which  the  husbandmen  plastered  with  gold-leaf  as  a  means  of 
protecting  their  vines  against  blight.  The  image  probably  represented 
the  vine-god  himself.  To  save  him  from  the  wrath  of  Hera,  his  father 
Zeus  changed  the  youthful  Dionysus  into  a  kid  ;  and  when  the  gods 
fled  to  Egypt  to  escape  the  fury  of  Typhon,  Dionysus  was  turned  into 
a  goat.  Hence  when  his  worshippers  rent  in  pieces  a  live  goat  and 
devoured  it  raw,  they  must  have  believed  that  they  were  eating  the 
body  and  blood  of  the  god.  The  custom  of  tearing  in  pieces  the  bodies 
of  animals  and  of  men  and  then  devouring  them  raw  has  been  practised 
as  a  religious  rite  by  savages  in  modern  times.  We  need  not  therefore 
dismiss  as  a  fable  the  testimony  of  antiquity  to  the  observance  of 
similar  rites  among  the  frenzied  worshippers  of  Bacchus. 

The  custom  of  killing  a  god  in  animal  form,  which  we  shall  examine 
more  m  detail  further  on,  belongs  to  a  very  early  stage  of  human 
culture,  and  is  apt  in  later  times  to  be  misunderstood.  The  advance 
of  thought  tends  to  strip  the  old  animal  and  plant  gods  of  their  bestial 
and  vegetable  husk,  and  to  leave  their  human  attributes  (which  are 
always  the  kernel  of  the  conception)  as  the  final  and  sole  residuum 
In  other  words,  animal  and  plant  gods  tend  to  become  purely  anthropo- 
moiphic.  When  they  have  become  wholly  or  nearly  so,  the  animals 
and  plants  which  were  at  first  the  deities  themselves,  still  retain  a 
vague  and  ill-understood  connexion  with  the  anthropomorphic  gods 
™°  ^ave  ^eei^  developed  out  of  them.  The  origin  of  the  relationship 
between  the  deity  and  the  animal  or  plant  having  been  forgotten 
various  stories  are  invented  to  explain  it.  These  explanations  may 
follow  one  of  two  lines  according  as  they  are  based  on  the  habitual  or 
j  °n  the  exceptional  treatment  of  the  sacred  animal  or  plant.  The 
sacred  animal  was  habitually  spared,  and  only  exceptionally  slain  • 
and  accordingly  the  myth  might  be  devised  to  explain  either  why  it 
was  spared  or  why  it  was  killed.  Devised  for  the  former  purpose,  the 
myth  would  tell  of  some  service  rendered  to  the  deity  by  the  animal  ; 
devised  for  the  latter  purpose,  the  myth  would  tell  of  some  injury 
:  inflicted  by  the  animal  on  the  god.  The  reason  given  for  sacrificing 
goats  to  Dionysus  exemplifies  a  myth  of  the  latter  sort.  They  were 
sacrificed  to  him,  it  was  said,  because  they  injured  the  vine.  Now 
he  goat,  as  we  have  seen,  was  originally  an  embodiment  of  the  god 
himself.  But  when  the  god  had  divested  himself  of  his  animal  char¬ 
acter  and  had  become  essentially  anthropomorphic,  the  killing  of  the 
goat  m  his  worship  came  to  be  regarded  no  longer  as  a  slaying  of  the 
ei  y  himself,  but  as  a  sacrifice  offered  to  him  ;  and  since  some  reason 
had  to  be  assigned  why  the  goat  in  particular  should  be  sacrificed,  it 
was  alleged  that  this  was  a  punishment  inflicted  on  the  goat  for  injur¬ 
ing  the  vine,  the  object  of  the  god’s  especial  care.  Thus  we  have  the 
strange  spectacle  of  a  god  sacrificed  to  himself  on  the  ground  that  he 


DIONYSUS 


CH. 


392 


is  his  own  enemy.  And  as  the  deity  is  supposed  to  paitake  of  the 
victim  offered  to  him,  it  follows  that,  when  the  victim  is  the  god  s 
old  self,  the  god  eats  of  his  own  flesh.  Hence  the  goat-god  Dionysus  is 
represented  as  eating  raw  goat  s  blood  ,*  and  the  bull-god  Dionysus  is 
called  “  eater  of  bulls/’  On  the  analogy  of  these  instances  we  may 
conjecture  that  wherever  a  deity  is  described  as  the  eater  of  a  par¬ 
ticular  animal,  the  animal  in  question  was  originally  nothing  but  the 
deity  himself.  Later  on  we  shall  find  that  some  savages  propitiate 
dead  bears  and  whales  by  offering  them  portions  of  their  own  bodies. 

All  this,  however,  does  not  explain  why  a  deity  of  vegetation  should 
appear  in  animal  form.  But  the  consideration  of  that  point  had 
better  be  deferred  till  we  have  discussed  the  character  and  attributes 
of  Demeter.  Meantime  it  remains  to  mention  that  in  some  places, 
instead  of  an  animal,  a  human  being  was  torn  in  pieces  at  the  rites  of 
Dionysus.  This  was  the  practice  in  Chios  and  Tenedos  ;  and  at 
Potniae  in  Boeotia  the  tradition  ran  that  it  had  been  formerly  the 
custom  to  sacrifice  to  the  goat-smiting  Dionysus  a  child,  for  whom  a 
goat  was  afterwards  substituted.  At  Orchomenus,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  human  victim  was  taken  from  the  women  of  an  old  royal  family. 
As  the  slain  bull  or  goat  represented  the  slain  god,  so,  we  may  suppose, 
the  human  victim  also  represented  him. 

The  legends  of  the  deaths  of  Pentheus  and  Lycurgus,  two  kings 
who  are  said  to  have  been  torn  to  pieces,  the  one  by  Bacchanals,  the 
other  by  horses,  for  their  opposition  to  the  rites  of  Dionysus,  may  be, 
as  I  have  already  suggested,  distorted  reminiscences  of  a  custom  of 
sacrificing  divine  kings  in  the  character  of  Dionysus  and  of  dispersing 
the  fragments  of  their  broken  bodies  over  the  fields  for  the  purpose  of 
fertilising  them.  It  is  probably  no  mere  coincidence  that  Dionysus 
himself  is  said  to  have  been  torn  in  pieces  at  Thebes,  the  very  place 
where  according  to  legend  the  same  fate  befell  King  Pentheus  at  the 
hands  of  the  frenzied  votaries  of  the  vine-god. 

However,  a  tradition  of  human  sacrifice  may  sometimes  have  been 
a  mere  misinterpretation  of  a  sacrificial  ritual  in  which  an  animal 
victim  was  treated  as  a  human  being.  For  example,  at  Tenedos  the 
new-born  calf  sacrificed  to  Dionysus  was  shod  in  buskins,  and  the 
mother  cow  was  tended  like  a  woman  in  child-bed.  At  Rome  a  she- 
goat  was  sacrificed  to  Vedijovis  as  if  it  were  a  human  victim.  Yet  on 
the  other  hand  it  is  equally  possible,  and  perhaps  more  probable,  that 
these  curious  rites  were  themselves  mitigations  of  an  older  and  ruder 
custom  of  sacrificing  human  beings,  and  that  the  later  pretence  of 
treating  the  sacrificial  victims  as  if  they  were  human  beings  was  merely 
part  of  a  pious  and  merciful  fraud,  which  palmed  off  on  the  deity  less 
precious  victims  than  living  men  and  women.  This  interpretation  is 
supported  by  many  undoubted  cases  in  which  animals  have  been 
substituted  for  human  victims. 


XLIV 


DEMETER  AND  PERSEPHONE 


393 


CHAPTER  XLIV 

DEMETER  AND  PERSEPHONE 

Dionysus  was  not  the  only  Greek  deity  whose  tragic  story  and  ritual 
appear  to  reflect  the  decay  and  revival  of  vegetation.  In  another 
form  and  with  a  different  application  the  old  tale  reappears  in  the 
myth  of  Demeter  and  Persephone.  Substantially  their  myth  is 
identical  with  the  Syrian  one  of  Aphrodite  (Astarte)  and  Adonis,  the 
Phrygian  one  of  Cybele  and  Attis,  and  the  Egyptian  one  of  Isis  and 
Osiris.  In  the  Greek  fable,  as  in  its  Asiatic  and  Egyptian  counter¬ 
parts,  a  goddess  mourns  the  loss  of  a  loved  one,  who  personifies  the 
I  vegetation,  more  especially  the  corn,  which  dies  in  winter  to  revive  in 
spring ;  only  whereas  the  Oriental  imagination  figured  the  loved  and 
lost  one  as  a  dead  lover  or  a  dead  husband  lamented  by  his  leman  or 
his  wife,  Greek  fancy  embodied  the  same  idea  in  the  tenderer  and  purer 
form  of  a  dead  daughter  bewailed  by  her  sorrowing  mother. 

The  oldest  literary  document  which  narrates  the  myth  of  Demeter 
and  Peisephone  is  the  beautiful  Homeric  Hy?nu  to  Dewietey ,  which 
critics  assign  to  the  seventh  century  before  our  era.  The  object  of 
the  poem  is  to  explain  the  origin  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,  and  the 
complete  silence  of  the  poet  as  to  Athens  and  the  Athenians,  who  in 
after  ages  took  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  festival,  renders  it  probable 
that  the  hymn  was  composed  in  the  far-off  time  when  Eleusis  was 
still  a  petty  independent  state,  and  before  the  stately  procession  of 
the  Mysteries  had  begun  to  defile,  in  bright  September  days,  over  the 
low  chain  of  barren  rocky  hills  which  divides  the  flat  Eleusinian  corn- 
land  from  the  more  spacious  olive-clad  expanse  of  the  Athenian  plain. 
Be  that  as  it  may,  the  hymn  reveals  to  us  the  conception  which  the 
writer  entertained  of  the  character  and  functions  of  the  two  goddesses  : 
their  natural  shapes  stand  out  sharply  enough  under  the  thin  veil  of 
poetical  imagery.  The  youthful  Persephone,  so  runs  the  tale,  was 
gathering  roses  and  lilies,  crocuses  and  violets,  hyacinths  and  nar¬ 
cissuses  in  a  lush  meadow,  when  the  earth  gaped  and  Pluto,  lord  of 
the  Dead,  issuing  from  the  abyss  carried  her  off  on  his  golden  car  to 
be  his  bride  and  queen  in  the  gloomy  subterranean  world.  Her 
sorrowing  mother  Demeter,  with  her  yellow  tresses  veiled  in  a  dark 
mourning  mantle,  sought  her  over  land  and  sea,  and  learning  from  the 
Sun  her  daughter  s  fate  she  withdrew  in  high  dudgeon  from  the  gods 
and  took  up  her  abode  at  Eleusis,  where  she  presented  herself  to  the 
king  s  daughters  in  the  guise  of  an  old  woman,  sitting  sadly  under 
the  shadow  of  an  olive  tree  beside  the  Maiden’s  Well,  to  which  the 
damsels  had  come  to  draw  water  in  bronze  pitchers  for  their  father's 
house.  In  her  wrath  at  her  bereavement  the  goddess  suffered  not  the 
seed  to  grow  in  the  earth  but  kept  it  hidden  under  ground,  and  she 
vowed  that  never  would  she  set  foot  on  Olympus  and  never  would  she 
let  the  corn  sprout  till  her  lost  daughter  should  be  restored  to  her. 


394  DEMETER  AND  PERSEPHONE  ch. 

Vainly  the  oxen  dragged  the  ploughs  to  and  fro  in  the  fields  ;  vainly 
the  sower  dropped  the  barley  seed  in  the  biown  furrows  ,  nothing 
came  up  from  the  parched  and  crumbling  soil.  Even  the  Rarian  plain 
near  Eleusis,  which  was  wont  to  wave  with  yellow  harvests,  lay  bare 
and  fallow.  Mankind  would  have  perished  of  hunger  and  the  gods 
would  have  been  robbed  of  the  sacrifices  which  were  their  due,  if  Zeus 
in  alarm  had  not  commanded  Pluto  to  disgorge  his  prey,  to  restore 
his  bride  Persephone  to  her  mother  Demeter.  The  grim  lord  of  the 
Dead  smiled  and  obeyed,  but  before  he  sent  back  his  queen  to  the 
upper  air  on  a  golden  car,  he  gave  her  the  seed  of  a  pomegranate  to 
eat,  which  ensured  that  she  would  return  to  him.  Put  Zeus  stipulated 
that  henceforth  Persephone  should  spend  two-thirds  of  every  year 
with  her  mother  and  the  gods  in  the  upper  world  and  one-third  of  the 
year  with  her  husband  in  the  nether  world,  from  which  she  was  to 
return  year  by  year  when  the  earth  was  gay  with  spiing  floweis. 
Gladly  the  daughter  then  returned  to  the  sunshine,  gladly  her  mother 
received  her  and  fell  upon  her  neck  *  and  in  her  joy  at  recovering  the 
lost  one  Demeter  made  the  corn  to  sprout  from  the  clods  of  the  i 
ploughed  fields  and  all  the  broad  earth  to  be  heavy  with  leaves  and 
blossoms.  And  straightway  she  went  and  showed  this  happy  sight  to 
the  princes  of  Eleusis,  to  Triptolemus,  Eumolpus,  Diodes,  and  to  the 
king  Celeus  himself,  and  moreover  she  revealed  to  them  her  sacred 
rites  and  mysteries.  Blessed,  says  the  poet,  is  the  mortal  man  who 
has  seen  these  things,  but  he  who  has  had  no  share  of  them  in  life  will  . 
never  be  happy  in  death  when  he  has  descended  into  the  darkness  of 
the  grave.  So  the  two  goddesses  departed  to  dwell  in  bliss  with  the 
gods  on  Olympus  ;  and  the  bard  ends  the  hymn  with  a  pious  prayer 
to  Demeter  and  Persephone  that  they  would  be  pleased  to  grant  him 

a  livelihood  in  return  for  his  song. 

It  has  been  generally  recognised,  and  indeed  it  seems  scarcely  open 
to  doubt,  that  the  main  theme  which  the  poet  set  before  himself  in 
composing  this  hymn  was  to  describe  the  traditional  foundation  of 
the  Eleusinian  mysteries  by  the  goddess  Demeter.  The  whole  poem  > 
leads  up  to  the  transformation  scene  in  which  the  bare  leafless  expanse  i 
of  the  Eleusinian  plain  is  suddenly  turned,  at  the  will  of  the  goddess, 
into  a  vast  sheet  of  ruddy  corn  ;  the  beneficent  deity  takes  the 
princes  of  Eleusis,  shows  them  what  she  has  done,  teaches  them  her  ■ 
mystic  rites,  and  vanishes  with  her  daughter  to  heaven.  The  revela¬ 
tion  of  the  mysteries  is  the  triumphal  close  of  the  piece.  This  con¬ 
clusion  is  confirmed  by  a  more  minute  examination  of  the  poem, 
which  proves  that  the  poet  has  given,  not  merely  a  general  account  of 
the  foundation  of  the  mysteries,  but  also  in  more  or  less  veiled  language 
mythical  explanations  of  the  origin  of  particular  rites  which  we  have 
good  reason  to  believe  formed  essential  features  of  the  festival. 
Amongst  the  rites  as  to  which  the  poet  thus  drops  significant  hints  are 
the  preliminary  fast  of  the  candidates  for  initiation,  the  torchlight 
procession,  the  all-night  vigil,  the  sitting  of  the  candidates,  veiled  and 
in  silence,  on  stools  covered  with  sheepskins,  the  use  of  scurrilous 


XLIV 


DEMETER  AND  PERSEPHONE  395 

I  the  breaking  of  ribald  jests,  and  the  solemn  communion  with 

chalice  mity  ^  partlclpatlon  in  a  draught  of  barley-water  from  a  holy 

L  Bu^  there  1S  /et  another  and  a  deeper  secret  of  the  mysteries  which 
the  author  of  the  poem  appears  to  have  divulged  under  cover  of  his 
narrative.  He  tells  us  how,  as  soon  as  she  had  transformed  the 
barren  brown  expanse  of  the  Eleusinian  plain  into  a  field  of  golden 
gram,  she  gladdened  the  eyes  of  Triptolemus  and  the  other  Eleusinian 
princes  by  showing  them  the  growing  or  standing  corn.  When  we 
compare  this  part  of  the  story  with  the  statement  of  a  Christian  writer 
of  the  second  century,  Hippolytus,  that  the  very  heart  of  the  mysteries 
consisted  m  showing  to  the  initiated  a  reaped  ear  of  corn,  we  can  hardly 
doubt  that  the  poet  of  the  hymn  was  well  acquainted  with  this  solemn 
rite,  and  that  he  deliberately  intended  to  explain  its  origin  in  precisely 
the  same  way  as  he  explained  other  rites  of  the  mysteries,  namely  by 
representing  Demeter  as  having  set  the  example  of  performing  the 
ceremony  m  her  own  person.  Thus  myth  and  ritual  mutually  explain 
and  confirm  each  other.  The  poet  of  the  seventh  century  before  our 
era  gives  us  the  myth— he  could  not  without  sacrilege  have  revealed 
the  ritual :  the  Christian  father  reveals  the  ritual,  and  his  revelation 
accords  perfectly  with  the  veiled  hint  of  the  old  poet.  On  the  whole 
then,  we  may,  with  many  modern  scholars,  confidently  accept  the 
statement  of  the  learned  Christian  father  Clement  of  Alexandria,  that 

i  the  myth  of  Demeter  and  Persephone  was  acted  as  a  sacred  drama  in 
the  mysteries  of  Eleusis. 

But  if  the  myth  was  acted  as  a  part,  perhaps  as  the- principal  part 
o  the  most  famous  and  solemn  religious  rites  of  ancient  Greece  we 
ave  still  to  enquire,  What  was,  after  all,  stripped  of  later  accretions 
the  original  kernel  of  the  myth  which  appears  to  later  ages  surrounded 
and  transfigured  by  an  aureole  of  awe  and  mystery,  lit  up  by  some 
of  the  most  brilliant  rays  of  Grecian  literature  and  art  ?  If  we  follow 
the  indications  given  by  our  oldest  literary  authority  on  the  subject 
the  author  of  the  Homeric  hymn  to  Demeter,  the  riddle  is  not  hard 
to  read  ;  the  figures  of  the  two  goddesses,  the  mother  and  the  daughter 
resolve  themselves  into  personifications  of  the  corn.  At  least  this 
appears  to  be  fairly  certain  for  the  daughter  Persephone.  The  goddess 
who  spends  three  or,  according  to  another  version  of  the  myth  six 
months  of  every  year  with  the  dead  under  ground  and  the  remainder 
m  the  year  with  the  living  above  ground  ;  in  whose  absence  the  barley 
*ed  is  hidden  in  the  earth  and  the  fields  lie  bare  and  fallow  ;  on 
whose  return  in  spring  to  the  upper  world  the  corn  shoots  up  from 
the  clods  and  the  earth  is  heavy  with  leaves  and  blossoms— this 
qoddess  can  surely  be  nothing  else  than  a  mythical  embodiment  of 
-he  vegetation,  and  particularly  of  the  corn,  which  is  buried  under 
I.  sod  for  some  months  of  every  winter  and  comes  to  life  again,  as 
rom  the  grave,  in  the  sprouting  cornstalks  and  the  opening  flowers 
met  foliage  of  every  spring.  No  other  reasonable  and  probable  ex¬ 
planation  of  Persephone  seems  possible.  And  if  the  daughter  goddess 


396  DEMETER  AND  PERSEPHONE  ch. 

was  a  personification  of  the  young  corn  of  the  present  year,  may  not 
the  mother  goddess  be  a  personification  of  the  old  corn  of  last  year, 
which  has  given  birth  to  the  new  crops  ?  The  only  alternative  to 
this  view  of  Demeter  would  seem  to  be  to  suppose  that  she  is  a  personi¬ 
fication  of  the  earth,  from  whose  broad  bosom  the  corn  and  all  other 
plants  spring  up,  and  of  which  accordingly  they  may  appropriately 
enough  be  regarded  as  the  daughters.  This  view  of  the  original 
nature  of  Demeter  has  indeed  been  taken  by  some  writers,  both  ancient 
and  modern,  and  it  is  one  which  can  be  reasonably  maintained.  But 
it  appears  to  have  been  rejected  by  the  author  of  the  Homeiic  hymn 
to  Demeter,  for  he  not  only  distinguishes  Demeter  fiom  the  personified 
Earth  but  places  the  two  in  the  sharpest  opposition  to  each  other. 
He  tells  us  that  it  was  Earth  who,  in  accordance  with  the  will  of  Zeus 
and  to  please  Pluto,  lured  Persephone  to  her  doom  by  causing  the 
narcissuses  to  grow  which  tempted  the  young  goddess  to  stray  far 
beyond  the  reach  of  help  in  the  lush  meadow.  Thus  Demeter  of  the 
hymn,  far  from  being  identical  with  the  Earth-goddess,  must  have 
regarded  that  divinity  as  her  worst  enemy,  since  it  was  to  her  insidious 
wiles  that  she  owed  the  loss  of  her  daughter.  But  if  the  Demeter  of 
the  hymn  cannot  have  been  a  personification  of  the  earth,  the  only 
alternative  apparently  is  to  conclude  that  she  was  a  personification  of; 
the  corn. 

The  conclusion  is  confirmed  by  the  monuments  ;  for  m  ancient 
art  Demeter  and  Persephone  are  alike  characterised  as  goddesses  of 
the  com  by  the  crowns  of  corn  which  they  wear  on  their  heads  and  by 
the  stalks  of  com  which  they  hold  in  their  hands.  Again,  it  was 
Demeter  who  first  revealed  to  the  Athenians  the  secret  of  the  com  and 
diffused  the  beneficent  discovery  far  and  wide  through  the  agency 
of  Triptolemus,  whom  she  sent  forth  as  an  itinerant  missionary  to 
communicate  the  boon  to  all  mankind.  On  monuments  of  art,  especi¬ 
ally  in  vase-paintings,  he  is  constantly  represented  along  with  Demeter 
in  this  capacity,  holding  corn-stalks  in  his  hand  and  sitting  in  his  car, 
which  is  sometimes  winged  and  sometimes  drawn  by  dragons,  and 
from  which  he  is  said  to  have  sowed  the  seed  down  on  the  whole  world 
as  he  sped  through  the  air.  In  gratitude  for  the  priceless  boon  many 
Greek  cities  long  continued  to  send  the  first-fruits  of  their  barley  and 
wheat  harvests  as  thank-offerings  to  the  Two  Goddesses,  Demeter  and 
Persephone,  at  Eleusis,  where  subterranean  granaries  were  built  to 
store  the  overflowing  contributions.  Theocritus  tells  how  in  the 
island  of  Cos,  in  the  sweet-scented  summer  time,  the  farmer  brought 
the  first-fruits  of  the  harvest  to  Demeter  who  had  filled  his  threshing- 
floor  with  barley,  and  whose  rustic  image  held  sheaves  and  poppies 
in  her  hands.  Many  of  the  epithets  bestowed  by  the  ancients  on 
Demeter  mark  her  intimate  association  with  the  corn  in  the  clearest 

manner.  _  . 

How  deeply  implanted  in  the  mind  of  the  ancient  Greeks  was  this 

faith  in  Demeter  as  goddess  of  the  corn  may  be  judged  by  the  circum¬ 
stance  that  the  faith  actually  persisted  among  their  Christian  descendants 


XLIV 


DEMETER  AND  PERSEPHONE 


397 


a  er  old  sanctuary  of  Eleusis  down  to  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  bor  when  the  English  traveller  Dodwell  revisited  Eleusis 
the  inhabitants  lamented  to  him  the  loss  of  a  colossal  image  of  Demeter’ 
which  was  carried  off  by  Clarke  in  1802  and  presented  to  the  University 

°f  Canbaldgu’  11  Stl11  remains-  “  In  mY  first  journey  to  Greece/’ 

says  Dodwell,  this  protecting  deity  was  in  its  full  glory,  situated  in 

the  centre  of  a  threshing-floor,  amongst  the  ruins  of  her  temple.  The 
villagers  were  impressed  with  a  persuasion  that  their  rich  harvests 
were  the  effect  of  her  bounty,  and  since  her  removal,  their  abundance 
as  they  assured  me,  has  disappeared.”  Thus  we  see  the  Corn  Goddess 
Demeter  standing  on  the  threshing-floor  of  Eleusis  and  dispensing 
corn  to  her  worshippers  in  the  nineteenth  century  of  the  Christian 
era,  precisely  as  her  image  stood  and  dispensed  corn  to  her  worshippers 
on  the  threshing-floor  of  Cos  in  the  days  of  Theocritus.  And  just  as  the 
people  of  Eleusis  in  the  nineteenth  century  attributed  the  diminution 
of  their  harvests  to  the  loss  of  the  image  of  Demeter,  so  in  antiquity 
the  Sicilians,  a  corn-growing  people  devoted  to  the  worship  of  the  two 
Corn  vjoddesses,  lamented  that  the  crops  of  many  towns  had  perished 
because  the  unscrupulous  Roman  governor  Verres  had  impiously 
carried  off  the  image  of  Demeter  from  her  famous  temple  at  Henna 
Could  we  ask  for  a  clearer  proof  that  Demeter  was  indeed  the  goddess 

t!1!lCOrn  than  this  belief>  field  by  the  Greeks  down  to  modern  times 
that  the  corn-crops  depended  on  her  presence  and  bounty  and  perished 
when  her  image  was  removed  ? 

On  the  whole,  then,  if,  ignoring  theories,  we  adhere  to  the  evidence 
of  the  ancients  themselves  in  regard  to  the  rites  of  Eleusis,  we  shall 
probably  incline  to  agree  with  the  most  learned  of  ancient  antiquaries 
the  Roman  Varro,  who,  to  quote  Augustine’s  report  of  his  opinion' 

(  lnterpreted  the  whole  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  as  relating  to  the 
corn  which  Ceres  (Demeter)  had  discovered,  and  to  Proserpine  (Perse- 
,p  one),  whom  Pluto  had  cairied  off  from  her.  And  Proserpine  herself 
lie  said,  signifies  the  fecundity  of  the  seeds,  the  failure  of  which  at  a 
certain  time  had  caused  the  earth  to  mourn  for  barrenness,  and  there¬ 
fore  had  given  rise  to  the  opinion  that  the  daughter  of  Ceres,  that 
s,  fecundity  itself,  had  been  ravished  by  Pluto  and  detained  in  the 
aether  world  ;  and  when  the  dearth  had  been  publicly  mourned  and 
ecundity  had  returned  once  more,  there  was  gladness  at  the  return 
ct  Proserpine  and  solemn  rites  were  instituted  accordingly.  After 
hat  he  says,”  continues  Augustine,  reporting  Varro,  “  that  many 
.hings  were  taught  m  her  mysteries  which  had  no  reference  but  to 
:he  discovery  of  the  corn.” 

Thus  far  I  have  for  the  most  part  assumed  an  identity  of  nature 
between  Demeter  and  Persephone,  the  divine  mother  and  daughter 
oersomfymg  the  corn  in  its  double  aspect  of  the  seed-corn  of  last 
fear  and  the  ripe  ears  of  this,  and  this  view  of  the  substantial  unity 
>f  mother  and  daughter  is  borne  out  by  their  portraits  in  Greek  art, 
v  ich  are  often  so  alike  as  to  be  indistinguishable.  Such  a  close 
esemblance  between  the  artistic  types  of  Demeter  and  Persephone 


398  DEMETER  AND  PERSEPHONE  ch. 

militates  decidedly  against  the  view  that  the  two  goddesses  are  mythical 
embodiments  of  two  things  so  different  and  so  easily  distinguishable  j 
from  each  other  as  the  earth  and  the  vegetation  which  springs  from  ' 
it.  Had  Greek  artists  accepted  that  view  of  Demeter  and  Persephone, 
they  could  surely  have  devised  types  of  them  which  would  have 
brought  out  the  deep  distinction  between  the  goddesses.  And  if 
Demeter  did  not  personify  the  earth,  can  there  be  any  reasonable 
doubt  that,  like  her  daughter,  she  personified  the  corn  which  was  so 
commonly  called  by  her  name  from  the  time  of  Homer  downwards  ? 
The  essential  identity  of  mother  and  daughter  is  suggested,  not  only 
by  the  close  resemblance  of  their  artistic  types,  but  also  by  the  official 
title  of  “  the  Two  Goddesses  ”  which  was  regularly  applied  to  them 
in  the  great  sanctuary  at  Eleusis  without  any  specification  of  their 
individual  attributes  and  titles,  as  if  their  separate  individualities 
had  almost  merged  in  a  single  divine  substance. 

Surveying  the  evidence  as  a  whole,  we  are  fairly  entitled  to  con¬ 
clude  that  in  the  mind  of  the  ordinary  Greek  the  two  goddesses  were 
essentially  personifications  of  the  corn,  and  that  in  this  germ  the  whole 
efflorescence  of  their  religion  finds  implicitly  its  explanation.  But  to  j 
maintain  this  is  not  to  deny  that  in  the  long  course  of  religious  evolu¬ 
tion  high  moral  and  spiritual  conceptions  were  grafted  on  this  simple  , 
original  stock  and  blossomed  out  into  fairer  flowers  than  the  bloom  of  * 
the  barley  and  the  wheat.  Above  all,  the  thought  of  the  seed  buried 
in  the  earth  in  order  to  spring  up  to  new  and  higher  life  readily  sug¬ 
gested  a  comparison  with  human  destiny,  and  strengthened  the  hope 
that  for  man  too  the  grave  may  be  but  the  beginning  of  a  better  and 
happier  existence  in  some  brighter  world  unknown.  This  simple  and  j 
natural  reflection  seems  perfectly  sufficient  to  explain  the  association 
of  the  Corn  Goddess  at  Eleusis  with  the  mystery  of  death  and  the 
hope  of  a  blissful  immortality.  For  that  the  ancients  regarded  initia¬ 
tion  in  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  as  a  key  to  unlock  the  gates  of  Paradise 
appears  to  be  proved  by  the  allusions  which  well-informed  writers 
among  them  drop  to  the  happiness  in  store  for  the  initiated  hereafter. 
No  doubt  it  is  easy  for  us  to  discern  the  flimsiness  of  the  logical  founda¬ 
tion  on  which  such  high  hopes  were  built.  But  drowning  men  clutch 
at  straws,  and  we  need  not  wonder  that  the  Greeks,  like  ourselves, 
with  death  before  them  and  a  great  love  of  life  in  their  hearts,  should 
not  have  stopped  to  weigh  with  too  nice  a  hand  the  arguments  that 
told  for  and  against  the  prospect  of  human  immortality.  The  reason¬ 
ing  that  satisfied  Saint  Paul  and  has  brought  comfort  to  untold 
thousands  of  sorrowing  Christians,  standing  by  the  deathbed  or  the 
open  grave  of  their  loved  ones,  was  good  enough  to  pass  muster  with 
ancient  pagans,  when  they  too  bowed  their  heads  under  the  burden 
of  grief,  and,  with  the  taper  of  life  burning  low  in  the  socket,  looked 
forward  into  the  darkness  of  the  unknown.  Therefore  we  do  no 
indignity  to  the  myth  of  Demeter  and  Persephone—one  of  the  few 
myths  in  which  the  sunshine  and  clarity  of  the  Greek  genius  are 
crossed  by  the  shadow  and  mystery  of  death — when  we  trace  its 


xlv  THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  NORTHERN  EUROPE  399 

origin  to  some  of  the  most  familiar,  yet  eternally  affecting  aspects 
of  nature,  to  the  melancholy  gloom  and  decay  of  autumn  and  to  the 
freshness,  the  brightness,  and  the  verdure  of  spring. 


CHAPTER  XLV 

|  THE  CORN-MOTHER  AND  THE  CORN-MAIDEN  IN  NORTHERN  EUROPE 

It  has  been  argued  by  W.  Mannhardt  that  the  first  part  of  Demeter’s 
lame  is  derived  from  an  alleged  Cretan  word  deal,  "  barley,”  and 
:hat  accordingly  Demeter means  neither  more  nor  less  than  "  Barlev- 
nother  or  Corn-mother  ”  ;  for  the  root  of  the  word  seems  to  have 
oeen  applied  to  different  kinds  of  grain  by  different  branches  of  the 
Aryans.  As  Crete  appears  to  have  been  one  of  the  most  ancient 
eats  of  the  worship  of  Demeter,  it  would  not  be  surprising  if  her 
lame  were  of  Cretan  origin.  But  the  etymology  is  open  to  serious 
•Ejections,  and  it  is  safer  therefore  to  lay  no  stress  on  it.  Be  that  as 
t  may,  we  have  found  independent  reasons  for  identifying  Demeter 
s  the  Corn-mother,  and  of  the  two  species  of  corn  associated  with  her 
?  G[eek  religion,  namely  barley  and  wheat,  the  barley  has  perhaps 
he  better  claim  to  be  her  original  element  ;  for  not  only  would  it 
eem  to  have  been  the  staple  food  of  the  Greeks  in  the  Homeric  age, 
ut  there  are  grounds  for  believing  that  it  is  one  of  the  oldest,  if  not 
he  very  oldest,  cereal  cultivated  by  the  Aryan  race.  Certainly  the 
!se  of  barley  in  the  religious  ritual  of  the  ancient  Hindoos  as  well  as 
f  the  ancient  Greeks  furnishes  a  strong  argument  in  favour  of  the 
feat  antiquity  of  its  cultivation,  which  is  known  to  have  been 
ractised  by  the  lake-dwellers  of  the  Stone  Age  in  Europe. 

Analogies  to  the  Corn-mother  or  Barley-mother  of  ancient  Greece 
fve  been  collected  in  great  abundance  by  W.  Mannhardt  from  the 
folk-lore  of  modern  Europe..  The  following  may  serve  as  specimens. 

In  Germany  the  corn  is  very  commonly  personified  under  the 
fme  of  the  Corn-mother.  Thus  in  spring,  when  the  corn  waves  in 
ie  wind,  the  peasants  say,  “  There  comes  the  Corn -mother  ”  or  "  The 
Tm-mother  is  running  over  the  field,”  or  “  The  Corn-mother  is  going 
rough  the  corn.”  When  children  wish  to  go  into  the  fields  to  pull 
e  blue  corn-flowers  or  the  red  poppies,  they  are  told  not  to  do  so, 
;cause  the  Corn-mother  is  sitting  in  the  corn  and  will  catch  them! 

'  :  aSam  ske  is  called,  according  to  the  crop,  the  Rye-mother  or  the  Pea- 
i  other,  and  children  are  warned  against  straying  in  the  rye  or  among 
le  Peas  by  threats  of  the  Rye-mother  or  the  Pea-mother.  Again 
le  QonL-mother  is  believed  to  make  the  crop  grow.  Thus  in  the 
nghbourhood  ofMagdeburg  it”  is  sometimes  said,  “  It  will  be  a  good 
;  ar  for  flax  ;  the  Flax-mother  has  been  seen.”  In  a  village  of  Styria 
1  is  said  that  the  Corn-mother,  in  the  shape  of  a  female  puppet  made  out 
|  last  sheaf  of  corn  and  dressed  in  white,  may  be  seen  at  mid- 


4oo  THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  NORTHERN  EUROPE  ch. 

night  in  the  corn-fields,  which  she  fertilises  by  passing  through  them  , 
but  if  she  is  angry  with  a  farmer,  she  withers  up  all  his  com. 

Further,  the  Corn-mother  plays  an  important  part  in  harvest 
customs.  She  is  believed  to  be  present  in  the  handful  of  corn  which 
is  left  standing  last  on  thelield;  "and  with  the  cutting  of  this  last 
Handful  she  is  caught,  or  driven  away,  or  killed.^  ^  In  the  first  of  these 
cases,  the  last  sheaf  is  carried  joyfully  home  and  honoured  as  a  divine 
being.  It  is  placed  in  the  bam,  and  at  threshing  the  corn-spirit 
appears  again.  In  the  Hanoverian  district  of  Hadeln  the  reapers 
stand  round  the  last  sheaf  and  beat  it  with  sticks  in  order  to  drive  the 
Corn-mother  out  of  it.  They  call  to  each  other,  There  she  is  !  hit 
her  !  Take  care  she  doesn’t  catch  you  !  ”  The  beating  goes  on  till 
the  grain  is  completely  threshed  out ;  then  the  Corn-mother  is  believed 
to  be  driven  away.  In  the  neighbourhood  of  Danzig  the  person  who 
cuts  the  last  ears  of  corn  makes  them  into  a  doll,  which  is  called  the 
Corn-mother  or  the  Old  Woman  and  is  brought  home  on  the  last 
waggon.  In  some  parts  of  Holstein  the  last  sheaf  is  dressed  in  woman’s 
clothes  and  called  the  Corn-mother.  It  is  carried  home  on  the  last 
waggon,  and  then  thoroughly  drenched  with  water.  The  drenching 
with  water  is  doubtless  a  rain-charm.  In  the  distinct  of  Bruck  in 
Styria  the  last  sheaf,  called  the  Corn-mother,  is  made  up  into  the 
shape  of  a  woman  by  the  oldest  married  woman  in  the  village,  of  an 
age  from  fifty  to  fifty-five  years.  The  finest  ears  are  plucked  out  of 
it  and  made  into  a  wreath,  which,  twined  with  flowers,  is  carried  on 
her  head  by  the  prettiest  girl  of  the  village  to  the  farmer  or  squire, 
while  the  Corn-mother  is  laid  down  in  the  bam  to  keep  off  the  mice. 
In  other  villages  of  the  same  district  the  Corn-mother,  at  the  close 
of  harvest,  is  carried  by  two  lads  at  the  top  of  a  pole.  They  march 
behind  the  girl  who  wears  the  wreath  to  the  squire’s  house,  and  while 
he  receives  the  wreath  and  hangs  it  up  in  the  hall,  the  Corn-mother 
is  placed  on  the  top  of  a  pile  of  wood,  where  she  is  the  centre  of  the 
harvest  supper  and  dance.  Afterwards  she  is  hung  up  in  the  barn  and 
remains  there  till  the  threshing  is  over.  The  man  who  gives  the  last 
stroke  at  threshing  is  called  the  son  of  the  Com-mother  ;  he  is  tied 
up  in  the  Com-mother,  beaten,  and  carried  through  the  village.  The 
wreath  is  dedicated  in  church  on  the  following  Sunday  ;  and  on 
Easter  Eve  the  grain  is  rubbed  out  of  it  by  a  seven-year-old  girl 
and  scattered  amongst  the  young  com.  At  Christmas  the  straw  of 
the  wreath  is  placed  in  the  manger  to  make  the  cattle  thrive.  Here  the 
fertilising  power  of  the  Com-mother  is  plainly  brought  out  by  scattering 
the  seed  taken  from  her  body  (for  the  wreath  is  made  out  of  the  Com- 
mother)  among  the  new  corn  ;  and  her  influence  over  animal  life  is 
indicated  by  placing  the  straw  in  the  manger.  Amongst  the  Slavs 
also  the  last  sheaf  is  known  as  the  Rye-mother,  the  Wheat-mother, 
the  Oats-mother,  the  Barley-mother,  and  so  on,  according  to  the 
crop.  In  the  district  of  Tamow,  Galicia,  the  wreath  made  out  of  the 
last  stalks  is  called  the  Wheat-mother,  Rye-mother,  or  Pea-mother. 
It  is  placed  on  a  girl’s  head  and  kept  till  spring,  when  some  of  the 


|XLV  THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  NORTHERN  EUROPE  401 
Mother  of  the  Barle^kteofTe^ye!^  Mother  of  Se 

to  wend  hleTarf  **  T  ^  the  ,aSt  wagg0"  is  ^ 

^h  c fothes  S|g  t^rfcand  JgR  3*1 

c“  tK  “  -  “ 

-ri 

:  pi  5  ft  &r«wsj  s 

he  flowers  whh  which  it  was  adorned.  Then  the  Jl  who  wi  t 

■ve  a  fruit fuieve‘rg  If  YY  T6’  a”d  aU  ^  that  Ceres  may 
ive  a  iruitml  year.  Here,  as  Mannhardt  observes,  the  old  custom 

as  remained  intact,  though  the  name  Ceres  is  a  bit  of  schoolmaster’s 

— BSh,SJSnrf  S"'y  l»4«t  <•  •■w.S  mlS.iS: 

Id  consists  of  a  tot  iarmer  f  a  marned  man-  it  is  made  double 
In  j  /r  1U1  1  corn-PuPPet  placed  inside  of  a  large  one  This 
c^ledjhej^oy^eaf.  It  is  delivered  to  the  farmeris  Trie  who 
ities  it  and  gives  drink-money  in  return.  ’  who 

Sometimes  the  last  sheaf  is  called,  not  the  Corn-mother  but  the 

T  the  P-vince  of  Osnabruck! 

fm  attoT  fll  d  the  Harvest-mother ;  it  is  made  up  in  female 
/  u  v  tPen.the  reapers  dance  about  with  it.  In  some  parts  of 
estphalia  the  last  sheaf  at  the  rye-harvest  is  made  espedallv  heavv 

They  Mnz h  h°me  ® 

Kial  Shane6  InTh  to  f’  they  d°  not  fashion  *  mto  any 

r  aI  shape.  In  the  district  of  Erfurt-  a  very  heavv  sheaf  net 

pessajily  the  last,  is  called  the  Great  Mother,  and  is  carried  on  the  las 

-ggon  to  the  barn,  where  all  hands  lift  it  diiwn  amid  a  fire  of  tofes 

Sometimes  again  the  last  sheaf  is  called  the  Grandmother  and  is 

i  lie  wi  1  owers,  ribbons,  and  a  woman’s  apron.  In  East  Prussia 

the  reapers  call  !„t  to  the  womln  who 
■  the  last  sheaf,  You  are  getting  the  Old  Grandmother  ”  Tn  the 
-  hbourhood  of  Magdeburg  the  men  and  women  servants  stride 
s  all  get  the  last  sheaf,  called  the  Grandmother.  Whoever  vets 

hrirleSs8' h6lm  thn  neXt  year’  but  his  or  her  sP°use  wiU  be  old  ; 

1  g  rl  gets,  ‘i.  she  will  marry  a  widower ;  if  a  man  gets  it  he  will 
ry  an  old  crone.  In  Silesia  the  Grandmotherhfwe  Jundfe 

f  P  °  /  iree  or  i°ur  sheaves  by  the  person  who  tied  the  last 
f-was  formeriy  fashioned  into  a  rude  likeness  of  the  human 

•  by  the  name  otoheT  °fTtB.elfast  the  last  sheaf  sometimes 


2D 


402  THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  NORTHERN  EUROPE  ch. 

Often  the  last  sheaf  is  called  the  Old.  Woman  or_the_01d__Man. 

In  Germany  it  is  frequently  shaped  and  dressed  as  a  woman,  and  the 
person  who  cuts  it  or  binds  it  is  said  to  “  get  the  Old  Woman.”  At 
Altisheim,  in  Swabia,  when  all  the  corn  of  a  farm  has  been  cut  except 
a  single  strip,  all  the  reapers  stand  in  a  row  before  the  strip  ;  each 
cuts  his  share  rapidly,  and  he  who  gives  the  last  cut  “  has  the  Old 
Woman.”  When  the  sheaves  are  being  set  up  in  heaps,  the  person 
who  gets  hold  of  the  Old  Woman,  which  is  the  largest  and  thickest 
of  all  the  sheaves,  is  jeered  at  by  the  rest,  who  call  out  to  him,  “  He 
has  the  Old  Woman  and  must  keep  her.”  The  woman  who  binds  the 
last  sheaf  is  sometimes  herself  called  the  Old  Woman,  and  it  is  said 
that  she  will  be  married  in  the  next  year.  In  Neusaass,  West  Prussia, 
both  the  last  sheaf— which  is  dressed  up  in  jacket,  hat,  and  ribbons— 
and  the  woman  who  binds  it  are  called  the  Old  Woman.  Together 
they  are  brought  home  on  the  last  waggon  and  are  drenched  with  water. 
In  various  parts  of  North  Germany  the  last  sheaf  at  harvest  is  made 
up  into  a  human  effigy  and  called  “  the  Old  Man  ”  ;  and  the  woman 
who  bound  it  is  said  “  to  have  the  Old  Man.” 

In  West  Prussia,  when  the  last  rye  is  being  raked  together,  the 
women  and  girls  hurry  with  the  work,  for  none  of  them  likes  to  be 
the  last  and  to  get  “  the  Old  Man,”  that  is,  a  puppet  made  out  of  the 
last  sheaf,  which  must  be  carried  before  the  other  reapers  by  the 
person  who  was  the  last  to  finish.  In  Silesia  the  last  sheaf  is  called 
the  Old  Woman  or  the  Old  Man  and  is  the  theme  of  many  jests  ;  it 
is  made  unusually  large  and  is  sometimes  weighted  with  a  stone. 
Among  the  Wends  the  man  or  woman  who  binds  the  last  sheaf  at 
wheat  harvest  is  said  to  “  have  the  Old  Man.”  A  puppet  is  made  out 
of  the  wheaten  straw  and  ears  in  the  likeness  of  a  man  and  decked 
with  flowers.  The  person  who  bound  the  last  sheaf  must  carry  the  1 
Old  Man  home,  while  the  rest  laugh  and  jeer  at  him.  The  puppet  is 
hung  up  in  the  farmhouse  and  remains  till  a  new  Old  Man  is  made  at 
the  next  harvest. 

In  some  of  these  customs,  as  Mannhardt  has  remarked,  the  person 
who  is  called  by  the  same  name  as  the  last  sheaf  and  sits  beside  it  on 
the  last  waggon  is  obviously  identified  with  it  ;  he  or  she  represents  1 
the  corn-spirit  which  has  been  caught  in  the  last  sheaf ;  in  other 
words,  the  corn-spirit  is  represented  in  duplicate,  by  a  human  being 
and  by  a  sheaf.  The  identification  of  the  person  with  the  sheaf  is 
made  still  clearer  by  the  custom  of  wrapping  up  in  the  last  sheaf  the 
person  who  cuts  or  binds  it.  Thus  at  Hermsdorf  in  Silesia  it  used  to 
be  the  regular  practice  to  tie  up  in  the  last  sheaf  the  woman  who 
had  bound  it.  At  Weiden,  in  Bavaria,  it  is  the  cutter,  not  the  binder, 
of  the  last  sheaf  who  is  tied  up  in  it.  Here  the  person  wrapt  up  in 
the  corn  represents  the  corn-spirit,  exactly  as  a  person  wrapt  in 
branches  or  leaves  represents  the  tree-spirit. 

The  last  sheaf,  designated  as  the  Old  Woman,  is  often  distinguished 
from  the  other  sheaves  by  its  size  and  weight.  Thus  in  some  villages  of 
West  Prussia  the  Old  Woman  is  made  twice  as  long  and  thick  as  a 


j  xlv  THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  NORTHERN  EUROPE  403 

common  sheaf  and  a  stone  is  fastened  in  the  middle  of  it.  Sometimes 
it  is  made  so  heavy  that  a  man  can  barely  lift  it.  At  Alt-PUlau  in 
Sam  and,  eight  or  nine  sheaves  are  often  tied  together  to  make  the 
Old  Woman,  and  the  man  who  sets  it  up  grumbles  at  its  weight.  At 
Itzgrund,  in  Saxe-Coburg,  the  last  sheaf,  called  the  Old  Woman  is 
made  large  with  the  express  intention  of  thereby  securing  a  good 

laZ  orlfvv  is  Z  dle  CUSf°m  °f  makinS  the  Iast  ^eaf  LusuZly 
Urge  or  heavy  is  a  charm,  working  by  sympathetic  magic,  to  ensure  a 

large  and  heavy  crop  at  the  following  harvest. 

In  Scotland,  when  the  last  com  was  cut  after  Hallowmas  the 
I  female  figure  made  out  of  it  was  sometimes  called  the  Carlin  or  Carline 

!  Zm8’  1^  °fd  ^°™an'  But  lf  cut  before  Hallowmas,  it  was  called 
the  Maiden  ;  if  cut  after  sunset,  it  was  called  the  Witch,  being  supposed 

.  ring  bad  luck  Among  the  Highlanders  of  Scotland  the  last  corn 
cut  at  harvest  is  known  either  as  the  Old  Wife  ( CaiUeach )  or  as  the 
:  Maiden  ,  on  the  whole  the  former  name  seems  to  prevail  in  the  western 
and  the  latter  m  the  central  and  eastern  districts.  Of  the  Maiden 
we  shall  speak  presently ;  here  we  are  dealing  with  the  Old  Wife 
The  fol  owing  general  account  of  the  custom  is  given  by  a  careful 
and  well-informed  enquirer,  the  Rev.  J.  G.  Campbell,  minister  of 
the  remote  Hebridean  island  of  Tiree  :  "  The  Harvest  Old  Wife  (a 
\Chm  Ueach). -In  harvest,  there  was  a  struggle  to  escape  from  being 
the  last  done  with  the  shearing,  and  when  tillage  in  common  existed^ 
instances  were  known  of  a  ridge  being  left  unshorn  (no  person  would 
claim  it)  because  of  it  being  behind  the  rest.  The  fear  entertained 
was  that  of  having  the  «  famine  of  the  farm  ’  (gort  a  bhaile),  in  the  shape 
1  n  imaginary  old  woman  {cailleach),  to  feed  till  next  harvest.  Much 
:emulation  and  amusement  arose  from  the  fear  of  this  old  woman. 

tlfp6  ot  d°f e,madf  a  doU  of  some  blades  of  com,  which  was  called 
nf  old  Wlfe>  and  sent  it  to  his  nearest  neighbour.  He  in  turn 
when  ready,  passed  it  to  another  still  less  expeditious,  and  the  person 
ft last  remained  with  had  the  old  woman  '  to  keep  for  that  year." 

Old  wlfpe^rla7/d  °n  l5laT  thu  laSt  C°rn  CUt  g0es  by  the  name  of  the 
^SjVife^  {CatUeach) ,  and  when  she  has  done  her  duty  at  harvest  she 

s  ung  up  on  the  wall  and  stays  there  till  the  time  comes  to  plough 

he  fields  for  the  next  year's  crop.  Then  she  is  taken  down,  and  on 

he  first  day  when  the  men  go  to  plough  she  is  divided  among  them 

ke  hZf  Z  °  **  h°USe'  ^  take  her  “  their  pockets  and 
,  er  to  the  horses  to  eat  when  they  reach  the  field  This 

Innir ledi°  SeCUre  g00d  luck  for  the  next  harvest  and  is  under- 
tood  to  be  the  proper  end  of  the  Old  Wife. 

U-f3  °.f  the  same  sort  are  reported  from  Wales.  Thus  in  north 
mbrokeslnre  a  tuft  of  the  last  com  cut,  from  six  to  twelve  inches 
ng,  is  plaited  and  goes  by  the  name  of  the  Hag  (wrack)  ;  and  quaint 
Id  customs  used  to  be  practised  with  it  within  the  memory  of  many 
'ersons  still  alive.  Great  was  the  excitement  among  the  reapers 
1  .n  the  last  patch  of  standing  corn  was  reached.  All  in  turn  threw 
ieir  sic  v  es  at  it,  and  the  one  who  succeeded  in  cutting  it  received  a 


404  THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  NORTHERN  EUROPE  ch. 

jug  of  home-brewed  ale.  The  Hag  (wrack)  was  then  hurriedly  made 
and  taken  to  a  neighbouring  farm,  where  the  reapers  were  still  busy 
at  their  work.  This  was  generally  done  by  the  ploughman  ;  but 
he  had  to  be  very  careful  not  to  be  observed  by  his  neighbours,  for  if 
they  saw  him  coming  and  had  the  least  suspicion  of  his  errand  they 
would  soon  make  him  retrace  his  steps.  Creeping  stealthily  up  behind 
a  fence  he  waited  till  the  foreman  of  his  neighbour’s  reapers  was  just 
opposite  him  and  within  easy  reach.  Then  he  suddenly  threw  the 
Hag  over  the  fence  and,  if  possible,  upon  the  foreman’s  sickle.  On 
that  he  took  to  his  heels  and  made  off  as  fast  as  he  could  run,  and 
he  was  a  lucky  man  if  he  escaped  without  being  caught  or  cut  by  the 
flying  sickles  which  the  infuriated  reapers  hurled  after  him.  In  other 
cases  the  Hag  was  brought  home  to  the  farmhouse  by  one  of  the 
reapers.  He  did  his  best  to  bring  it  home  dry  and  without  being 
observed  ;  but  he  was  apt  to  be  roughly  handled  by  the  people  of 
the  house,  if  they  suspected  his  errand.  Sometimes  they  stripped 
him  of  most  of  his  clothes,  sometimes  they  would  drench  him  with 
water  which  had  been  carefully  stored  in  buckets  and  pans  for  the 
purpose.  If,  however,  he  succeeded  in  bringing  the  Hag  in  dry  and 
unobserved,  the  master  of  the  house  had  to  pay  him  a  small  fine  ; 
or  sometimes  a  jug  of  beer  “  from  the  cask  next  to  the  wall,”  which 
seems  to  have  commonly  held  the  best  beer,  would  be  demanded  by  the 
bearer.  The  Hag  was  then  carefully  hung  on  a  nail  in  the  hall  or 
elsewhere  and  kept  there  all  the  year.  The  custom  of  bringing  in 
the  Hag  (wrack)  into  the  house  and  hanging  it  up  still  exists  in  some 
farms  of  north  Pembrokeshire,  but  the  ancient  ceremonies  which 
have  just  been  described  are  now  discontinued. 

In  County  Antrim,  down  to  some  years  ago,  when  the  sickle  was 
finally  expelled  by  the  reaping  machine,  the  few  stalks  of  corn  left 
standing  last  on  the  field  were  plaited  together ;  then  the  reapers, 
blindfolded,  threw  their  sickles  at  the  plaited  com,  and  whoever 
happened  to  cut  it  through  took  it  home  with  him  and  put  it  over 
his  door.  This  bunch  of  com  was  called  the  Carley — probably  the 
same  word  as  Carlin. 

Similar  customs  are  observed  by  Slavonic  peoples.  Thus  in 
Poland  the  last  sheaf  is  commonly  called  the  Baba,  that  is,  the  Old 
Woman.  “  In  the  last  sheaf,”  it  is  said,  “  sits  the  Baba.”  The 
sheaf  itself  is  also  called  the  Baba,  and  is  sometimes  composed  of  twelve 
smaller  sheaves  lashed  together.  In  some  parts  of  Bohemia  the 
Baba,  made  out  of  the  last  sheaf,  has  the  figure  of  a  woman  with  a 
great  straw  hat.  It  is  carried  home  on  the  last  harvest-waggon  and 
delivered,  along  with  a  garland,  to  the  farmer  by  two  girls.  In  binding 
the  sheaves  the  women  strive  not  to  be  last,  for  she  who  binds  the 
last  sheaf  will  have  a  child  next  year.  Sometimes  the  harvesters 
call  out  to  the  woman  who  binds  the  last  sheaf,  “  She  has  the  Baba,” 
or  “  She  is  the  Baba.”  In  the  district  of  Cracow,  when  a  man  binds 
the  last  sheaf,  they  say,  “  The  Grandfather  is  sitting  in  it  ”  ;  when  a 
woman  binds  it,  they  say,  “  The  Baba  is  sitting  in  it,”  and  the  woman 


xlv  THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  NORTHERN  EUROPE  405 

h?r.self  £  wrapt  up  in  the  sheaf,  so  that  only  her  head  projects  out 
of  it.  Thus  encased  m  the  sheaf,  she  is  carried  on  the  last  harvest- 
waggon  to  the  house,  where  she  is  drenched  with  water  by  the  whole 
family  She  remains  in  the  sheaf  till  the  dance  is  over,  and  for  a  year 
she  retains  the  name  of  Baba.  y 

In  Lithuania  the  name  for  the  last  sheaf  is  Boba  (Old  Woman) 
answering  to  the  Polish  name  Baba.  The  BobalTSd  to  sit  in  the 
corn  which  is  left  standing  last.  The  person  who  binds  the  last 
s  eaf  or  digs  the  last  potato  is  the  subject  of  much  banter,  and  receives 
and  long  retains  the  name  of  the  Old  Rye-woman  or  the  Old  Potato- 
woman.  The  last  sheaf— the  Boba— is  made  into  the  form  of  a  woman 
carried  solemnly  through  the  village  on  the  last  harvest-waggon 

and  drenched  with  water  at  the  farmer’s  house  ;  then  every  one 
dances  with  it.  J 


In  Russia  also  the  last  sheaf  is  often  shaped  and  dressed  as  a 
^on}an;  d  cayried  with  dance  and  song  to  the  farmhouse.  Out  of 
the  last  sheaf  the  Bulgarians  make  a  doll  which  they  call  the  Corn- 
1  quee*?  °r  Corn-mother ;  it  is  dressed  in  a  woman’s  shirt,  carried 
round  the  village,  and  then  thrown  into  the  river  in  order  to  secure 
plenty  of  ram  and  dew  for  the  next  year’s  crop.  Or  it  is  burned  and 
the  ashes  strewn  on  the  fields,  doubtless  to  fertilise  them.  The  name 
Queen,  as  applied  to  the  last  sheaf,  has  its  analogies  in  Central  and 
r  Northern  Europe.  Thus,  m  the  Salzburg  district  of  Austria,  at  the 
end  of  the  harvest  a  great  procession  takes  place,  in  which  a  Queen 
of  the  Corn-ears  (. Ahrenkonigin )  is  drawn  along  in  a  little  carriage  by 
young  fellows.  The  custom  of  the  Harvest  Queen  appears  to  have 
been  common  in  England.  Milton  must  have  been  familiar  with  it 
tor  m  Paradise  Lost  he  says  : 


“  Adam  the  while 

\V aiting  desirous  hev  vetuyn,  had  wove 
Of  choicest  flow  vs  a  gayland  to  adoyn 
Hev  tvesses,  and  hey  yuval  labouvs  cyown, 

As  reapeys  oft  aye  wont  theiy  hayvest-queen.” 


Often  customs  of  this  sort  are  practised,  not  on  the  harvest-field 
out  on  the  threshing-floor.  The  spirit  of  the  corn,  fleeing  before  the 
•eapers  as  they  cut  down  the  ripe  grain,  quits  the  reaped  corn  and 
akes  refuge  m  the  barn,  where  it  appears  in  the  last  sheaf  threshed 
nther  to  perish  under  the  blows  of  the  flail  or  to  flee  thence  to  the  still 
inthreshed  corn  of  a  neighbouring  farm.  Thus  the  last  corn  to  be 
hreshed  is  called  the  Mother-Corn  or  the  Old  Woman.  Sometimes 
he  person  who  gives  the  last  stroke  with  the  flail  is  called  the  Old 
woman,  and  is  wrapt  in  the  straw  of  the  last  sheaf,  or  has  a  bundle 
?  st4w  fastened  on  his  back.  Whether  wrapt  in  the  straw  or  carrying 
t  on  his  back,  he  is  carted  through  the  village  amid  general  laughter! 
n  some  districts  of  Bavaria,  Thuringen,  and  elsewhere,  the  man 
dio  threshes  the  last  sheaf  is  said  to  have  the  Old  Woman  or  the  • 
id  Corn -woman  ;  he  is  tied  up  in  straw,  carried  or  carted  about  the 


406  THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  NORTHERN  EUROPE  ch. 

village,  and  set  down  at  last  on  the  dunghill,  or  taken  to  the  threshing- 
floor  of  a  neighbouring  farmer  who  has  not  finished  his  threshing. 
In  Poland  the  man  who  gives  the  last  stroke  at  threshing  is  called 
Baba  (Old  Woman)  ;  he  is  wrapt  in  corn  and  wheeled  through  the 
village.  Sometimes  in  Lithuania  the  last  sheaf  is  not  threshed,  but 
is  fashioned  into  female  shape  and  carried  to  the  barn  of  a  neighbour 
who  has  not  finished  his  threshing. 

In  some  parts  of  Sweden,  when  a  stranger  woman  appears  on  the 
threshing-floor,  a  flail  is  put  round  her  body,  stalks  of  corn  are  wound 
round  her  neck,  a  crown  of  ears  is  placed  on  her  head,  and  the  threshers 
call  out,  “  Behold  the  Corn-woman.”  Here  the  stranger  woman, 
thus  suddenly  appearing,  is  taken  to  be  the  corn-spirit  who  has  just 
been  expelled  by  the  flails  from  the  corn-stalks.  In  other  cases  the  : 
farmer’s  wife  represents  the  corn-spirit..  Thus  in  the  Commune  of 
Saligne  (Vendee),  the  farmer’s  wife,  along  with  the  last  sheaf,  is  tied 
up  in  a  sheet,  placed  on  a  litter,  and  carried  to  the  threshing  machine, 
under  which  she  is  shoved.  Then  the  woman  is  drawn  out  and  the 
sheaf  is  threshed  by  itself,  but  the  woman  is  tossed  in  the  sheet,  as  i 
if  she  were  being  winnowed.  It  would  be  impossible  to  express  more 
clearly  the  identification  of  the  woman  with  the  corn  than  by  this 
graphic  imitation  of  threshing  and  winnowing  her. 

In  these  customs  the  spirit  of  the  ripe  corn  is  regarded  as  old,  or 
at  least  as  of  mature  age.  Hence  the  names  of  Mother,  Grandmother, 
Old  Woman,  and  so  forth.  But  in  other  cases  the  corn-spirit  is  con-  ( 
ceived  as  young.  Thus  at  Saldern,  near  Wolfenbuttel,  when  the  rye 
has  been  reaped,  three  sheaves  are  tied  together  with  a  rope  so  as 
to  make  a  puppet  with  the  corn  ears  for  a  head.  This  puppet  is 
called  the  Maiden  or  the  Corn-maiden.  Sometimes  the  corn-spirit 
is  conceived  as  a  child  who  is  separated  from  its  mother  by  the  stroke 
of  the  sickle.  This  last  view  appears  in  the  Polish  custom  of  calling 
out  to  the  man  who  cuts  the  last  handful  of  corn,  “  You  have  cut 
the  navel-string.”  In  some  districts  of  West  Prussia  the  figure  made 
out  of  the  last  sheaf  is  called  the  Bastard,  and  a  boy  is  wrapt  up  in 
it.  The  woman  who  binds  the  last  sheaf  and  represents  the  Corn- 
mother  is  told  that  she  is  about  to  be  brought  to  bed  ;  she  cries  like 
a  woman  in  travail,  and  an  old  woman  in  the  character  of  grandmother 
acts  as  midwife.  At  last  a  cry  is  raised  that  the  child  is  born  ;  where¬ 
upon  the  boy  who  is  tied  up  in  the  sheaf  whimpers  and  squalls  like 
an  infant.  The  grandmother  wraps  a  sack,  in  imitation  of  swaddling 
bands,  round  the  pretended  baby,  who  is  carried  joyfully  to  the  barn, 
lest  he  should  catch  cold  in  the  open  air.  In  other  parts  of  North 
Germany  the  last  sheaf,  or  the  puppet  made  out  of  it,  is  called  the 
Child,  the  Harvest-Child,  and  so  on,  and  they  call  out  to  the  woman 
who  binds  the  last  sheaf,  “You  are  getting  the  child.” 

In  some  parts  of  Scotland,  as  well  as  in  the  north  of  England, 
the  last  handful  of  corn  cut  on  the  harvest-field  was  called  the  kirn, 
and  the  person  who  carried  it  off  was  said  “  to  win  the  kirn.”  It 
was  then  dressed  up  like  a  child’s  doll  and  went  by  the  name  of  the 


xlv  THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  NORTHERN  EUROPE  407 

1  kirn-baby,  the  kirn-doll,  or  the  Maiden.  In  Berwickshire  down  to 
about  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  there  was  an  eager 
,  competition  among  the  reapers  to  cut  the  last  bunch  of  standing 
corn.  They  gathered  round  it  at  a  little  distance  and  threw  their 
sickles  in  turn  at  it,  and  the  man  who  succeeded  in  cutting  it  through 
gave  it  to  the  girl  he  preferred.  She  made  the  corn  so  cut  into  a 
»  kirn-dolly  and  dressed  it,  and  the  doll  was  then  taken  to  the  farm¬ 
house  and  hung  up  there  till  the  next  harvest,  when  its  place  was 
taken  by  the  new  kirn-dolly.  At  Spottiswoode  in  Berwickshire  the 
reaping  of  the  last  corn  at  harvest  was  called  "  cutting  the  Queen  ” 
almost  as  often  as  “  cutting  the  kirn.”  The  mode  of  cutting" it  was 
not  by  throwing  sickles.  One  of  the  reapers  consented  to  be  blind¬ 
folded,  and  having  been  given  a  sickle  in  his  hand  and  turned  twice 
or  thrice  about  by  his  fellows,  he  was  bidden  to  go  and  cut  the  kirn. 
His  groping  about  and  making  wild  strokes  in  the  air  with  his  sickle 
excited  much  hilarity.  When  he  had  tired  himself  out  in  vain  and 
given  up  the  task  as  hopeless,  another  reaper  was  blindfolded  and 
pursued  the  quest,  and  so  on,  one  after  the  other,  till  at  last  the  kirn 
was  cut.  The  successful  reaper  was  tossed  up  in  the  air  with  three 
cheers  by  his  brother  harvesters.  To  decorate  the  room  in  which 
the  kirn-supper  was  held  at  Spottiswoode  as  well  as  the  granary, 
where  the  dancing  took  place,  two  women  made  kirn-dollies  or  Queens 
every  year ;  and  many  of  these  rustic  effigies  of  the  corn-spirit  might 
be  seen  hanging  up  together. 

In  some  parts  of  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  the  last  handful  of 
corn  that  is  cut  by  the  reapers  on  any  particular  farm  is  called  the 
■Maiden,  or  in  Gaelic  Maidhdeanbuain,  literally  "the  shorn  Maiden.” 

:  Superstitions  attach  to  the  winning  of  the  Maiden.  If  it  is  got  by  a 
young  person,  they  think  it  an  omen  that  he  or  she  will  be  married 
before  another  harvest.  For  that  or  other  reasons  there  is  a  strife 
between  the  reapers  as  to  who  shall  get  the  Maiden,  and  they  resort 
to  various  stratagems  for  the  purpose  of  securing  it.  One  of  them, 
for  example,  will  often  leave  a  handful  of  corn  uncut  and  cover  it 
up  with  earth  to  hide  it  from  the  other  reapers,  till  all  the  rest  of 
the  corn  on  the  field  is  cut  down.  Several  may  try  to  play  the  same 
trick,  and  the  one  who  is  coolest  and  holds  out  longest  obtains  the 
coveted  distinction.  When  it  has  been  cut,  the  Maiden  is  dressed 
with  ribbons  into  a  sort  of  doll  and  affixed  to  a  wall  of  the  farmhouse. 
In  the  north  of  Scotland  the  Maiden  is  carefully  preserved  till  Yule 
morning,  when  it  is  divided  among  the  cattle  “  to  make  them  thrive 
all  the  year  round.”  In  the  neighbourhood  of  Balquhidder,  Perth¬ 
shire,  the  last  handful  of  corn  is  cut  by  the  youngest  girl  on  the  held, 
and  is  made  into  the  rude  form  of  a  female  doll,  clad  in  a  paper  dress, 
and  decked  with  ribbons.  It  is  called  the  Maiden,  and  is  kept  in 
the  farmhouse,  generally  above  the  chimney,  for  a  good  while,  some¬ 
times  till  the  Maiden  of  the  next  year  is  brought  in.  The  writer  of  this 
book  witnessed  the  ceremony  of  cutting  the  Maiden  at  Balquhidder 
in  September  1888.  A  lady  friend  informed  me  that  as  a  young  girl 


4o 8  THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  NORTHERN  EUROPE  ch. 


she  cut  the  Maiden  several  times  at  the  request  of  the  reapers  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Perth.  The  name  of  the  Maiden  was  given  to  the 
last  handful  of  standing  corn  ;  a  reaper  held  the  top  of  the  bunch 
while  she  cut  it.  Afterwards  the  bunch  was  plaited,  decked  with 
ribbons,  and  hung  up  in  a  conspicuous  place  on  the  wall  of  the  kitchen 
till  the  next  Maiden  was  brought  in.  The  harvest-supper  in  this 
neighbourhood  was  also  called  the  Maiden  ;  the  reapers  danced  at  it. 

On  some  farms  on  the  Gareloch,  in  Dumbartonshire,  about  the 
year  1830,  the  last  handful  of  standing  corn  was  called  the  Maiden. 
It  was  divided  in  two,  plaited,  and  then  cut  with  the  sickle  by  a  girl, 
who,  it  was  thought,  would  be  lucky  and  would  soon  be  married. 
When  it  was  cut  the  reapers  gathered  together  and  threw  their  sickles 
in  the  air.  The  Maiden  was  dressed  with  ribbons  and  hung  in  the 
kitchen  near  the  roof,  where  it  was  kept  for  several  years  with  the 
date  attached.  Sometimes  five  or  six  Maidens  might  be  seen  hanging 
at  once  on  hooks.  The  harvest-supper  was  called  the  Kirn.  In 
other  farms  on  the  Gareloch  the  last  handful  of  corn  was  called  the 
Maidenhead  or  the  Head  ;  it  was  neatly  plaited,  sometimes  decked 
with  ribbons,  and  hung  in  the  kitchen  for  a  year,  when  the  grain  was 
given  to  the  poultry. 

In  Aberdeenshire  “  the  last  sheaf  cut,  or  ‘  Maiden/  is  carried  home 
in  merry  procession  by  the  harvesters.  It  is  then  presented  to  the 


le 

mistress  of  the  house,  who  dresses  it  up  to  be  preserved  till  the  first 
mare  foals.  The  Maiden  is  then  taken  down  and  presented  to  the 
mare  as  its  first  food.  The  neglect  of  this  would  have  untoward  effects 
upon  the  foal,  and  disastrous  consequences  upon  farm  operations 
generally  for  the  season.”  In  the  north-east  of  Aberdeenshire  the 
last  sheaf  is  commonly  called  the  clyack  sheaf.  It  used  to  be  cut  by 
the  youngest  girl  present  and  was  dressed  as  a  woman.  Being  brought 
home  in  triumph,  it  was  kept  till  Christmas  morning,  and  then  given 
to  a  mare  in  foal,  if  there  was  one  on  the  farm,  or,  if  there  was  not, 
to  the  oldest  cow  in  calf.  Elsewhere  the  sheaf  was  divided  between 
all  the  cows  and  their  calves  or  between  all  the  horses  and  the  cattle  of 
the  farm.  In  Fifeshire  the  last  handful  of  corn,  known  as  the  Maiden, 
is  cut  by  a  young  girl  and  made  into  the  rude  figure  of  a  doll,  tied  with 
ribbons,  by  which  it  is  hung  on  the  wall  of  the  farm-kitchen  till  the  next 
spring.  The  custom  of  cutting  the  Maiden  at  harvest  was  also  observed 
in  Inverness-shire  and  Sutherlandshire. 

A  somewhat  maturer  but  still  youthful  age  is  assigned  to  the  corn- 
spirit  by  the  appellations  of  Bride,  Oats-bride,  and  Wheat-bride,  which 
in  Germany  are  sometimes  bestowed  both  on  the  last  sheaf  and  on  the 
woman  who  binds  it.  At  wheat-harvest  near  Muglitz,  in  Moravia,  a 
small  portion  of  the  wheat  is  left  standing  after  all  the  rest  has  been 
reaped.  This  remnant  is  then  cut,  amid  the  rejoicing  of  the  reapers, 
by  a  young  girl  who  wears  a  wreath  of  wheaten  ears  on  her  head  and 
goes  by  the  name  of  the  Wheat-bride.  It  is  supposed  that  she  will 
be  a  real  bride  that  same  year.  Near  Roslin  and  Stonehaven,  in 
Scotland,  the  last  handful  of  corn  cut  “  got  the  name  of  ‘  the  bride,’ 


.  xlv  THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  NORTHERN  EUROPE  409 

i  and  she  was  placed  over  the  bress  or  chimney-piece  ;  she  had  a  ribbon 
tied  below  her  numerous  ears,  and  another  round  her  waist.” 

ometnnes  the  idea  implied  by  the  name  of  Bride  is  worked  out 
more  fully  by  representing  the  productive  powers  of  vegetation  as 
bride  and  bridegroom.  Thus  in  the  Vorharz  an  Oats-man  and  an 
Oats-womaip  swathed  m  straw,  dance  at  the  harvest  feast.  In  South 
Saxony  an  Oats-bridegroom  and  an  Oats-bride  figure  together  at  the 
harvest  celebration.  The  Oats-bridegroom  is  a  man  completely  wrapt 
.  ats  straw  the  Oats-bride  is  a  man  dressed  in  woman’s  clothes 
.  but  not  wrapt  in  straw.  They  are  drawn  in  a  waggon  to  the  ale-house’ 

nlirnk  the  banCh  takfS  p  f Ce'  V*  the  beSinning  of  the  dance  the  dancers 
I  pluck  the  bunches  of  oats  one  by  one  from  the  Oats-bridegroom  while 

he  struggles  to  keep  them,  till  at  last  he  is  completely  stript  of  them 

P”dASt +ndS  ^  e^P0sed  t0  the  daughter  and  jests  of  the  company. 
In  Austrian  Silesia  the  ceremony  of  the  Wheat-bride  ”  is  celebrated 

ho  ^thT^  PP°plfe  the  end  0f  the  harvest-  The  woman  who 
bound  the  last  sheaf  plays  the  part  of  the  Wheat-bride,  wearing  the 

harvest-crown  of  wheat  ears  and  flowers  on  her  head.  Thus  adorned 
standing  beside  her  Bridegroom  in  a  waggon  and  attended  by  brides¬ 
maids,  she  is  drawn  by  a  pair  of  oxen,  in  full  imitation  of  a  marriage 
procession  to  the  tavern,  where  the  dancing  is  kept  up  till  morning 
Somewhat  later  m  the  season  the  wedding  of  the  Oats-bride  is  celebrated 
with  the  like  rustic  pomp.  About  Neisse,  in  Silesia,  an  Oats-king  and 
an  Oats-queen,  dressed  up  quaintly  as  a  bridal  pair,  are  seated  on  a 
harrow  and  drawn  by  oxen  into  the  village. 

In  these  last  instances  the  corn-spirit  is  personified  in  double  form 
as  male  and  female.  But  sometimes  the  spirit  appears  in  a  double 
emale  form  as  both  old  and  young,  corresponding  exactly  to  the  Greek 
Demeter  and  Persephone,  if  my  interpretation  of  these  goddesses  is 
ight  We  have  seen  that  in  Scotland,  especially  among  the  Gaelic- 
speaking  population,  the  last  corn  cut  is  sometimes  called  the  Old  Wife 

SthS°m  1 8  Malden-  Now  there  are  parts  of  Scotland  in  which 

th  an  Old  Wife  ( Cailleach )  and  a  Maiden  are  cut  at  harvest  The 
iccounts  of  this  custom  are  not  quite  clear  and  consistent,  but  the 
;eneral  rule  seems  to  be  that,  where  both  a  Maiden  and  an  Old  Wife 
G ailleach)  are  fashioned  out  of  the  reaped  corn  at  harvest,  the  Maiden 
s  made  out  of  the  last  stalks  left  standing,  and  is  kept  by  the  farmer 
n  whose  land  it  was  cut ;  while  the  Old  Wife  is  made  out  of  other 
talks,  sometimes  out  of  the  first  stalks  cut,  and  is  regularly  passed  on 
0  a  laggaid  farmer  who  happens  to  be  still  reaping  after  his  brisker 
eig  our  has  cut  all  his  corn.  Thus  while  each  farmer  keeps  his  own 
laiden,  as  the  embodiment  of  the  young  and  fruitful  spirit  of  the  corn 
e  passes  on  the  Old  Wife  as  soon  as  he  can  to  a  neighbour,  and  so  the 
d  lady  may  make  the  round  of  all  the  farms  in  the  district  before  she 
nds  a  place  m  which  to  lay  her  venerable  head.  The  farmer  with 
nom  she  finally  takes  up  her  abode  is  of  course  the  one  who  has  been 
ie ;  last  of  all  the  countryside  to  finish  reaping  his  crops,  and  thus  the 
Lstmction  of  entertaining  her  is  rather  an  invidious  one.  He  is 


410  THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  NORTHERN  EUROPE  ch. 

thought  to  be  doomed  to  poverty  or  to  be  under  the  obligation  of 
“  providing  for  the  dearth  of  the  township  ”  in  the  ensuing  season. 
Similarly  we  saw  that  in  Pembrokeshire,  where  the  last  corn  cut  is 
called,  not  the  Maiden,  but  the  Hag,  she  is  passed  on  hastily  to  a 
neighbour  who  is  still  at  work  in  his  fields  and  who  receives  his  aged 
visitor  with  anything  but  a  transport  of  joy.  If  the  Old  Wife  repre¬ 
sents  the  corn-spirit  of  the  past  year,  as  she  probably  does  wherever 
she  is  contrasted  with  and  opposed  to  a  Maiden,  it  is  natural  enough 
that  her  faded  charms  should  have  less  attractions  for  the  husbandman 
than  the  buxom  form  of  her  daughter,  who  may  be  expected  to  become 
in  her  turn  the  mother  of  the  golden  grain  when  the  revolving  year  has 
brought  round  another  autumn.  The  same  desire  to  get  rid  of  the 
effete  Mother  of  the  Corn  by  palming  her  off  on  other  people  comes 
out  clearly  in  some  of  the  customs  observed  at  the  close  of  threshing, 
particularly  in  the  practice  of  passing  on  a  hideous  straw  puppet  to  a 
neighbour  farmer  who  is  still  threshing  his  corn. 

The  harvest  customs  just  described  are  strikingly  analogous  to  the 
spring  customs  which  we  reviewed  in  an  earlier  part  of  this  work. 

(1)  As  in  the  spring  customs  the  tree-spirit  is  represented  both  by  a  tree 
and  by  a  person,  so  in  the  harvest  customs  the  corn-spiiit  is  represented 
both  by  the  last  sheaf  and  by  the  person  who  cuts  or  binds  or  threshes 
it.  The  equivalence  of  the  person  to  the  sheaf  is  shown  by  giving  him 
or  her  the  same  name  as  the  sheaf  ;  by  wrapping  him  or  her  in  it ;  and 
by  the  rule  observed  in  some  places,  that  when  the  sheaf  is  called  the 
Mother,  it  must  be  made  up  into  human  shape  by  the  oldest  married 
woman,  but  that  when  it  is  called  the  Maiden,  it  must  be  cut  by  the 
youngest  girl.  Here  the  age  of  the  personal  representative  of  the 
corn-spirit  corresponds  with  that  of  the  supposed  age  of  the  corn- 
spirit,  just  as  the  human  victims  offered  by  the  Mexicans  to  promote 
the  growth  of  the  maize  varied  with  the  age  of  the  maize.  For  in  the 
Mexican,  as  in  the  European,  custom  the  human  beings  were  probably 
representatives  of  the  corn-spirit  rather  than  victims  offered  to  it. 

(2)  Again,  the  same  fertilising  influence  which  the  tree-spirit  is  supposed 
to  exert  over  vegetation,  cattle,  and  even  women  is  ascribed  to  the 
corn-spirit.  Thus,  its  supposed  influence  on  vegetation  is  shown  by 
the  practice  of  taking  some  of  the  grain  of  the  last  sheaf  (in  which  the 
corn-spirit  is  regularly  supposed  to  be  present)  and  scattering  it  among 
the  young  corn  in  spring  or  mixing  it  with  the  seed-corn.  Its  influence 
on  animals  is  shown  by  giving  the  last  sheaf  to  a  mare  in  foal,  to  a  cow 
in  calf,  and  to  horses  at  the  first  ploughing.  Lastly,  its  influence  on 
women  is  indicated  by  the  custom  of  delivering  the  Mother-sheaf, 
made  into  the  likeness  of  a  pregnant  woman,  to  the  farmer’s  wife; 
by  the  belief  that  the  woman  who  binds  the  last  sheaf  will  have  a 
child  next  year  ;  perhaps,  too,  by  the  idea  that  the  person  who  gets 
it  will  soon  be  married. 

Plainly,  therefore,  these  spring  and  harvest  customs  are  based  on 
the  same  ancient  modes  of  thought,  and  form  parts  of  the  same  piimitive 
heathendom,  which  was  doubtless  practised  by  our  forefathers  long 


xlv  THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  NORTHERN  EUROPE  411 

I  before  the  dawn  of  history.  Amongst  the  marks  of  a  primitive  ritual 
we  may  note  the  following  : 

1  •  J-jlk  special  class  of  persons  is  set  apart  for  the  performance  of 
the  rites  ;  in  other  words,  there  are  no  priests.  The  rites  may  be 
performed  by  any  one,  as  occasion  demands. 

2- es  ar e  set  apart  for  the  performance  of  the  rites  ; 

>  in  other  words,  there  are  no  temples.  The  rites  may  be  performed 
anywhere,  as  occasion  demands. 

3.  Spipits,  not  gpds^  are  recognised,  (a)  As  distinguished  from 
gods,  spiiits  are  restiicted  in  their  operations  to  definite  departments 
of  nature.  Their  names  are  general,  not  proper.  Their  attributes  are 
generic,  lathei  than  individual  *  in  other  words,  there  is  an  indefinite 
I  number  of  spirits  of  each  class,  and  the  individuals  of  a  class  are  all 
much  alike ;  they  have  no  definitely  marked  individuality ;  no 
accepted  tiaditions  are  current  as  to  their  origin,  life,  adventures,  and 
character.  ( b )  On  the  other  hand  gods,  as  distinguished  from  spirits, 
are  not  restricted  to  definite  departments  of  nature.  It  is  true  that 
there  is  generally  some  one  department  over  which  they  preside  as 
their  special  province  ;  but  they  are  not  rigorously  confined  to  it  ; 
they  can  exert  their  power  for  good  or  evil  in  many  other  spheres  of 
natuie  and  life.  Again,  they  bear  individual  or  proper  names,  such 
as  Demeter,  Persephone,  Dionysus  ;  and  their  individual  characters 
and  histories  are  fixed  by  current  myths  and  the  representations  of  art. 

4*  Tjrejjfys_are  magical  rather  than  propitiatory .  In  other  words, 
the  desired  objects  are  attained,  not  by  propitiating  the  favour  of 
divine  beings  through  sacrifice,  prayer,  and  praise,  but  by  ceremonies 
which,  as  I  have  already  explained,  are  believed  to  influence  the  course 
of  nature  directly  through  a  physical  sympathy  or  resemblance  between 
the  rite  and  the  effect  which  it  is  the  intention  of  the  rite  to  produce. 

Judged  by  these  tests,  the  spring  and  harvest  customs  of  our 
European  peasantry  deserve  to  rank  as  primitive.  For  no  special 
class  of  persons  and  no  special  places  are  set  exclusively  apart  for  their 
performance  ;  they  may  be  performed  by  any  one,  master  or  man, 
mistress  or  maid,  boy  or  girl ;  they  are  practised,  not  in  temples  or 
churches,  but  in  the  woods  and  meadows,  beside  brooks,  in  barns,  on 
harvest  fields  and  cottage  floors.  The  supernatural  beings  whose 
existence  is  taken  for  granted  in  them  are  spirits  rather  than  deities  : 
(their  functions  are  limited  to  certain  well-defined  departments  of 
nature  :  their  names  are  general,  like  the  Barley-mother,  the  Old 
Woman,  the  Maiden,  not  proper  names  like  Demeter,  Persephone, 
Dionysus.  Their  generic  attributes  are  known,  but  their  individual 
histories  and  characters  are  not  the  subject  of  myths.  For  they  exist 
jin  classes  rather  than  as  individuals,  and  the  members  of  each  class 
; are  indistinguishable.  For  example,  every  farm  has  its  Corn-mother, 
or  its  Old  Woman,  or  its  Maiden  ;  but  every  Corn-mother  is  much 
like  every  other  Corn-mother,  and  so  with  the  Old  Women  and  Maidens. 
Lastly,  in  these  harvest,  as  in  the  spring  customs,  the  ritual  is  magical 
rather  than  propitiatory.  This  is  shown  by  throwing  the  Corn-mother 


412 


THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  MANY  LANDS 


CH. 


into  the  river  in  order  to  secure  rain  and  dew  for  the  crops  ;  by  making 
the  Old  Woman  heavy  in  order  to  get  a  heavy  crop  next  year  ;  by 
strewing  grain  from  the  last  sheaf  amongst  the  young  crops  in  spring ; 
and  by  giving  the  last  sheaf  to  the  cattle  to  make  them  thrive. 


CHAPTER  XLVI 

THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  MANY  LANDS 

§  i.  The  Corn-mother  in  America. — European  peoples,  ancient  and 
modern,  have  not  been  singular  in  personifying  the  corn  as  a  mother 
goddess.  The  same  simple  idea  has  suggested  itself  to  other  agri¬ 
cultural  races  in  distant  parts  of  the  world,  and  has  been  applied  by 
them  to  other  indigenous  cereals  than  barley  and  wheat.  If  Europe 
has  its  Wheat-mother  and  its  Barley-mother,  America  has  its  Maize- 
mother  and  the  East  Indies  their  Rice-mother.  These  personifications 
I  will  now  illustrate,  beginning  with  the  American  personification  of  the 
maize.  ' 

We  have  seen  that  among  European  peoples  it  is  a  common  custom  1 
to  keep  the  plaited  corn-stalks  of  the  last  sheaf,  or  the  puppet  which 
is  formed  out  of  them,  in  the  farm-house  from  harvest  to  harvest. 
The  intention  no  doubt  is,  or  rather  originally  was,  by  preserving  the 
representative  of  the  corn-spirit  to  maintain  the  spirit  itself  in  life  and 
activity  throughout  the  year,  in  order  that  the  corn  may  grow  and  the 
crops  be  good.  This  interpretation  of  the  custom  is  at  all  events 
rendered  highly  probable  by  a  similar  custom  observed  by  the  ancient 
Peruvians,  and  thus  described  by  the  old  Spanish  historian  Acosta : 

“  They  take  a  certain  portion  of  the  most  fruitful  of  the  maize  that 
grows  in  their  farms,  the  which  they  put  in  a  certain  granary  which 
they  do  call  Pirua,  with  certain  ceremonies,  watching  three  nights ; 
they  put  this  maize  in  the  richest  garments  they  have,  and  being  thus 
wrapped  and  dressed,  they  worship  this  Pirua,  and  hold  it  in  great 
veneration,  saying  it  is  the  mother  of  the  maize  of  their  inheritances, 
and  that  by  this  means  the  maize  augments  and  is  preserved.  In 
this  month  [the  sixth  month,  answering  to  May]  they  make  a  particular 
sacrifice,  and  the  witches  demand  of  this  Pirua  if  it  hath  strength 
sufficient  to  continue  until  the  next  year  ;  and  if  it  answers  no,  then 
they  carry  this  maize  to  the  farm  to  burn,  whence  they  brought  it, 
according  to  every  man’s  power  ;  then  they  make  another  Pirua, 
with  the  same  ceremonies,  saying  that  they  renew  it,  to  the  end  the 
seed  of  maize  may  not  perish,  and  if  it  answers  that  it  hath  force 
sufficient  to  last  longer,  they  leave  it  until  the  next  year.  This  foolish 
vanity  continueth  to  this  day,  and  it  is  very  common  amongst  the 
Indians  to  have  these  Piruas.” 

In  this  description  of  the  custom  there  seems  to  be  some  error. 
Probably  it  was  the  dressed-up  bunch  of  maize,  not  the  granary 


XLVI 


THE  RICE-MOTHER  IN  THE  EAST  INDIES  413 

(Pima),  which  was  worshipped  by  the  Peruvians  and  regarded  as  the 
Mother  of  the  Maize.  This  is  confirmed  by  what  we  know  of  the 
Peruvian  custom  from  another  source.  The  Peruvians,  we  are  told 
believed  all  useful  plants  to  be  animated  by  a  divine  being  who  causes 
their  growth.  According  to  the  particular  plant,  these  divine  beings 
were  called  the  Maize -mother  (Zara -mama),  the  Quinoa- mother 
(Qmnoa-mama),  the  Coca -mother  (Coca -mama),  and  the  Potato- 
mother  (Axo-mama).  Figures  of  these  divine  mothers  were  made 
respectively  of  ears  of  maize  and  leaves  of  the  quinoa  and  coca 
plants  ;  they  were  dressed  in  women’s  clothes  and  worshipped.  Thus 
the  Maize-mother  was  represented  by  a  puppet  made  of  stalks  of 
maize  dressed  in  full  female  attire  ;  and  the  Indians  believed  that 

as  mother,  it  had  the  power  of  producing  and  giving  birth  to  much 
maize.”  Probably,  therefore,  Acosta  misunderstood  his  informant 
and  the  Mother  of  the  Maize  which  he  describes  was  not  the  granary 
(Pirua),  but  the  bunch  of  maize  dressed  in  rich  vestments.  The 
Peruvian  Mother  of  the  Maize,  like  the  harvest-Maiden  at  Balquhidder 
was  kept  for  a  year  in  order  that  by  her  means  the  corn  might  grow 
and  multiply.  But  lest  her  strength  might  not  suffice  to  last  till  the 
next  harvest,  she  was  asked  in  the  course  of  the  year  how  she  felt 
and  if  she  answered  that  she  felt  weak,  she  was  burned  and  a  fresh 
Mother^  of  the  Maize  made,  "  to  the  end  the  seed  of  maize  may  not 
perish.  Here,  it  may  be  observed,  we  have  a  strong  confirmation 
of  the  explanation  already  given  of  the  custom  of  killing  the  god,  both 
periodically  and  occasionally.  The  Mother  of  the  Maize  was  allowed, 
as  a  rule,  to  live  through  a  year,  that  being  the  period  during  which 
her  strength  might  reasonably  be  supposed  to  last  unimpaired  ;  but 
on  any  symptom  of  her  strength  failing  she  was  put  to  death,  and  a 
fresh  and  vigorous  Mother  of  the  Maize  took  her  place,  lest  the  maize 
which  depended  on  her  for  its  existence  should  languish  and  decay. 

§2.  The  Rice-mother  in  the  East  Indies.— If  the  reader  still  feels 
my  doubts  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  harvest  customs  which  have  been 
practised  within  living  memory  by  European  peasants,  these  doubts 
may  perhaps  be  dispelled  by  comparing  the  customs  observed  at  the 
nce-haivest  by  the  Malays  and  Dyaks  of  the  East  Indies.  For  these 
Eastern  peoples  have  not,  like  our  peasantry,  advanced  beyond  the 
ntellectual  stage  at  which  the  customs  originated;  their  theory  and 
■heir  practice  are  still  in  unison  ;  for  them  the  quaint  rites  which 
n  Europe  have  long  dwindled  into  mere  fossils,  the  pastime  of 
downs  and  the  puzzle  of  the  learned,  are  still  living  realities  of  which 
:hey  can  render  an  intelligible  and  truthful  account.  Hence  a  study 
)  their  beliefs  and  usages  concerning  the  rice  may  throw  some  light 

>n  the  true  meaning  of  the  ritual  of  the  corn  in  ancient  Greece  and 
modern  Europe. 

Now  the  whole  of  the  ritual  which  the  Malays  and  Dyaks  observe 
m  connexion  with  the  rice  is  founded  on  the  simple  conception  of  the 
ice  as  animated  by  a  soul  like  that  which  these  people  attribute  to 
mankind.  They  explain  the  phenomena  of  reproduction,  growth, 


414  THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  MANY  LANDS  ch. 

decay,  and  death  in  the  rice  on  the  same  pi  inciples  on  which  they 
explain  the  corresponding  phenomena  in  human  beings.  They 
imagine  that  in  the  fibres  of  the  plant,  as  in  the  body  of  a  man,  there  is 
a  certain  vital  element,  which  is  so  far  independent  of  the  plant  that  I 
it  may  for  a  time  be  completely  separated  fiom  it  without  fatal  effects, 
though  if  its  absence  be  prolonged  beyond  certain  limits  the  plant  will 
wither  and  die.  This  vital  yet  separable  element  is  what,  for  the  want 
of  a  better  word,  we  must  call  the  soul  of  a  plant,  just  as  a  similar 
vital  and  separable  element  is  commonly  supposed  to  constitute  the 
soul  of  man  ;  and  on  this  theory  or  myth  of  the  plant-soul  is  built 
the  whole  worship  of  the  cereals,  just  as  on  the  theory  or  myth  of  the 
human  soul  is  built  the  whole  worship  of  the  dead,— a  towering  super¬ 
structure  reared  on  a  slender  and  precarious  foundation. 

Believing  the  rice  to  be  animated  by  a  soul  like  that  of  a  man,  the 
Indonesians  naturally  treat  it  with  the  deference  and  the  considera¬ 
tion  which  they  show  to  their  fellows.  Thus  they  behave  towards  the 
rice  imbloom  as  they  behave  towards  a  pregnant  woman  ;  they  abstain 
from  firing  guns  or  making  loud  noises  in  the  field,  lest  they  should  so 
frighten  the  soul  of  the  rice  that  it  would  miscarry  and  bear  no  grain  ; 
and  for  the  same  reason  they  will  not  talk  of  corpses  or  demons  in  the 
rice-fields.  Moreover,  they  feed  the  blooming  rice  with  foods  of 
various  kinds  which  are  believed  to  be  wholesome  for  women  with 
child  ;  but  when  the  rice-ears  are  just  beginning  to  form,  they  are 
looked  upon  as  infants,  and  women  go  through  the  fields  feeding  them 
with  rice-pap  as  if  they  were  human  babes.  In  such  natural  and 
obvious  comparisons  of  the  breeding  plant  to  a  breeding  woman,  and 
of  the  young  grain  to  a  young  child,  is  to  be  sought  the  origin  of  the 
kindred  Greek  conception  of  the  Corn-mother  and  the  Corn-daughter, 
Demeter  and  Persephone.  But  if  the  timorous  feminine  soul  of  the 
rice  can  be  frightened  into  a  miscarriage  even  by  loud  noises,  it  is  easy 
to  imagine  what  her  feelings  must  be  at  harvest,  when  people  are 
under  the  sad  necessity  of  cutting  down  the  rice  with  the  knife.  At  so 
critical  a  season  every  precaution  must  be  used  to  render  the  necessary 
surgical  operation  of  reaping  as  inconspicuous  and  as  painless  as 
possible.  For  that  reason  the  reaping  of  the  seed-rice  is  done  with 
knives  of  a  peculiar  pattern,  such  that  the  blades  are  hidden  in 
the  reapers’  hands  and  do  not  frighten  the  rice-spirit  till  the  very 
last  moment,  when  her  head  is  swept  off  almost  before  she  is  aware ; 
and  from  a  like  delicate  motive  the  reapers  at  work  in  the  fields 
employ  a  special  form  of  speech,  which  the  rice-spirit  cannot  be 
expected  to  understand,  so  that  she  has  no  warning  or  inkling  of 
what  is  going  forward  till  the  heads  of  rice  are  safely  deposited  in  the 

basket. 

Among  the  Indonesian  peoples  who  thus  personify  the  rice  we  may 
take  the  Kayans  or  Bahaus  of  Central  Borneo  as  typical.  In  order  to 
secure  and  detain  the  volatile  soul  of  the  rice  the  Kayans  resort  to  a 
number  of  devices.  Among  the  instruments  employed  for  this  pur¬ 
pose  are  a  miniature  ladder,  a  spatula,  and  a  basket  containing  hooks, 


xlvi  THE  RICE-MOTHER  IN  THE  EAST  INDIES 


415 


thorns,  and  cords.  With  the  spatula  the  priestess  strokes  the  soul  of 
the  nee  do wn  the  little  ladder  into  the  basket,  where  it  is  naturally 
held  fast  by  the  hooks,  the  thorn,  and  the  cord  ;  and  having  thus 
captured  and  imprisoned  the  soul  she  conveys  it  into  the  rice-granary. 
Sometimes  a  bamboo  box  and  a  net  are  used  for  the  same  purpose 
And  m  order  to  ensure  a  good  harvest  for  the  following  year  it  is 
necessary  not  only  to  detain  the  soul  of  all  the  grains  of  rice  which 
are  safely  stored  m  the  granary,  but  also  to  attract  and  recover  the 
sou  of  all  the  rice  that  has  been  lost  through  falling  to  the  earth  or 
being  eaten  by  deer,  apes,  and  pigs.  For  this  purpose  instruments  of 
various  sorts  have  been  invented  by  the  priests.  One,  for  example  is 
a  bamboo  vessel  provided  with  four  hooks  made  from  the  wood  of  a 
fruit-tree,  by  means  of  which  the  absent  rice-soul  may  be  hooked  and 
drawn  back  into  the  vessel,  which  is  then  hung  up  in  the  house  Some¬ 
times  two  hands  carved  out  of  the  wood  of  a  fruit-tree  are  used  for 
the  same  purpose.  And  every  time  that  a  Kayan  housewife  fetches 
lice  fiorn  the  granary  for  the  use  of  her  household,  she  must  propitiate 

T1C,e  m  the  £ranar3h  lest  theY  should  be  angry  at  being 
robbed  of  their  substance.  6 

The  same  need  of  securing  the  soul  of  the  rice,  if  the  crop  is  to 
thrive,  is  keenly  felt  by  the  Karens  of  Burma.  When  a  rice-field  does 
not  flourish,  they  suppose  that  the  soul  (kelah)  of  the  rice  is  in  some 
way  detained  from  the  rice.  If  the  soul  cannot  be  called  back,  the 
crop  wilt  fail.  _  The  following  formula  is  used  in  recalling  the  kelah 
(soul)  of  the  rice  :  "O  come,  ric e-kelah,  come  !  Come  to  the  field 
Come  to  the  rice.  With  seed  of  each  gender,  come.  Come  from  the 
river  Kho,  come  from  the  river  Kaw  from  the  place  where  they  meet 
come.  Come  from  the  West,  come  from  the  East.  From  the  throat 
of  the  bird,  from  the  maw  of  the  ape,  from  the  throat  of  the  elephant. 
Come  from  the  sources  of  rivers  and  their  mouths.  Come  from  the 
country  of  the  Shan  and  Burman.  From  the  distant  kingdoms  come 
From  all  granaries  come.  O  ric z-kelah,  come  to  the  rice.” 

The  Corn-mother  of  our  European  peasants  has  her  match  in  the 
Kice-mother  of  the  Minangkabauers  of  Sumatra.  The  Minangka- 
bauers  definitely  attribute  a  soul  to  rice,  and  will  sometimes  assert 
that  rice  pounded  in  the  usual  way  tastes  better  than  rice  ground  in  a 
mill,  because  in  the  mill  the  body  of  the  rice  was  so  bruised  and 
attered  that  the  soul  has  fled  from  it.  Like  the  Javanese  they  think 
that  the  rice  is  under  the  special  guardianship  of  a  female  spirit  called 
Samng  San,  who  is  conceived  as  so  closely  knit  up  with  the  plant  that 
the  rice  often  goes  by  her  name,  as  with  the  Romans  the  corn  might 
e  called  Ceres.  In  particular  Saning  Sari  is  represented  by  certain 
stalks  or  grains  called  indoea  padi,  that  is,  literally,  “  Mother  of  Rice/' 
a  name  that  is  often  given  to  the  guardian  spirit  herself.  This  so- 
called  Mother  of  Rice  is  the  occasion  of  a  number  of  ceremonies 
observed  at  the  planting  and  harvesting  of  the  rice  as  well  as  during 
its  preservation  in  the  barn.  When  the  seed  of  the  rice  is  about  to  be 
mwn  in  the  nursery  or  bedding-out  ground,  where  under  the  wet 


4i6  THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  MANY  LANDS  ch. 

system  of  cultivation  it  is  regularly  allowed  to  sprout  before  being 
transplanted  to  the  fields,  the  best  grains  are  picked  out  to  form  the 
Rice-mother.  These  are  then  sown  in  the  middle  of  the  bed,  and  the 
common  seed  is  planted  round  about  them.  The  state  of  the  Rice- 
mother  is  supposed  to  exert  the  greatest  influence  on  the  growth  of 
the  rice  ;  if  she  droops  or  pines  away,  the  harvest  will  be  bad  in  conse¬ 
quence.  The  woman  who  sows  the  Rice-mother  in  the  nursery  lets 
her  hair  hang  loose  and  afterwards  bathes,  as  a  means  of  ensuring  an 
abundant  harvest.  When  the  time  comes  to  transplant  the  rice  from 
the  nursery  to  the  field,  the  Rice-mother  receives  a  special  place  either 
in  the  middle  or  in  a  corner  of  the  field,  and  a  prayer  or  charm  is 
uttered  as  follows  :  “  Saning  Sari,  may  a  measure  of  rice  come  from  a 
stalk  of  rice  and  a  basketful  from  a  root ;  may  you  be  frightened 
neither  by  lightning  nor  by  passers-by  !  Sunshine  make  you  glad  ; 
with  the  storm  may  you  be  at  peace  ;  and  may  rain  serve  to  wash 
your  face  !  ”  While  the  rice  is  growing,  the  particular  plant  which 
was  thus  treated  as  the  Rice-mother  is  lost  sight  of  ;  but  before 
harvest  another  Rice-mother  is  found.  When  the  crop  is  ripe  for 
cutting,  the  oldest  woman  of  the  family  or  a  sorcerer  goes  out  to  look 
for  her.  The  first  stalks  seen  to  bend  under  a  passing  breeze  are  the 
Rice-mother,  and  they  are  tied  together  but  not  cut  until  the  first- 
fruits  of  the  field  have  been  carried  home  to  serve  as  a  festal  meal  for 
the  family  and  their  friends,  nay  even  for  the  domestic  animals  ;  since 
it  is  Saning  Sari’s  pleasure  that  the  beasts  also  should  partake  of  her 
good  gifts.  After  the  meal  has  been  eaten,  the  Rice-mother  is  fetched 
home  by  persons  in  gay  attire,  who  carry  her  very  carefully  under  an  i 
umbrella  in  a  neatly  worked  bag  to  the  barn,  where  a  place  in  the 
middle  is  assigned  to  her.  Every  one  believes  that  she  takes  care  of 
the  rice  in  the  barn  and  even  multiplies  it  not  uncommonly. 

When  the  Tomori  of  Central  Celebes  are  about  to  plant  the  rice, 
they  bury  in  the  field  some  betel  as  an  offering  to  the  spirits  who 
cause  the  rice  to  grow.  The  rice  that  is  planted  round  this  spot  is  the 
last  to  be  reaped  at  harvest.  At  the  commencement  of  the  reaping 
the  stalks  of  this  patch  of  rice  are  tied  together  into  a  sheaf,  which 
is  called  “  the  Mother  of  the  Rice  ”  ( ineno  pae),  and  offerings  in  the 
shape  of  rice,  fowl’s  liver,  eggs,  and  other  things  are  laid  down  before 
it.  When  all  the  rest  of  the  rice  in  the  field  has  been  reaped,  "  the 
Mother  of  the  Rice  ”  is  cut  down  and  carried  with  due  honour  to  the 
rice-barn,  where  it  is  laid  on  the  floor,  and  all  the  other  sheaves  are 
piled  upon  it.  The  Tomori,  we  are  told,  regard  the  Mother  of  the 
Rice  as  a  special  offering  made  to  the  rice-spirit  Omonga,  who  dwells 
in  the  moon.  If  that  spirit  is  not  treated  with  proper  respect,  for 
example  if  the  people  who  fetch  rice  from  the  barn  are  not  decently 
clad,  he  is  angry  and  punishes  the  offenders  by  eating  up  twice  as  much 
rice  in  the  barn  as  they  have  taken  out  of  it ;  some  people  have  heard 
him  smacking  his  lips  in  the  barn,  as  he  devoured  the  rice.  On  the 
other  hand  the  Toradjas  of  Central  Celebes,  who  also  practise  the 
custom  of  the  Rice-mother  at  harvest,  regard  her  as  the  actual  mother 


xlvi  THE  RICE-MOTHER  IN  THE  EAST  INDIES  4i7 

of  the  whole  harvest,  and  therefore  keep  her  carefully,  lest  in  her 

absence  the  garnered  store  of  rice  should  all  melt  away  and 
qis  3,ppe  ar. 

Again,  just  as  in  Scotland  the  old  and  the  young  spirit  of  the  corn 
are  represented  as  an  Old  Wife  (Cailleach)  and  a  Maiden  respectively 
so  in  the  Malay  Peninsula  we  find  both  the  Rice-mother  and  her  child 
represented  by  different  sheaves  or  bundles  of  ears  on  the  harvest-field 
The  ceremony  of  cutting  and  bringing  home  the  Soul  of  the  Rice 
!was  witnessed  by  Mr.  W.  W.  Skeat  at  Chodoi  in  Selangor  on  the 
twenty-eighth  of  January  1897.  The  particular  bunch  or  sheaf 
which  was  to  serve  as  the  Mother  of  the  Rice-soul  had  previously  been 
sought  and  identified  by  means  of  the  markings  or  shape  of  the  ears, 
hrom  this  sheaf  an  aged  sorceress,  with  much  solemnity,  cut  a  little 
bundle  of  seven  ears,  anointed  them  with  oil,  tied  them  round  with 
parti-coloured  thread,  fumigated  them  with  incense,  and  having  wrapt 
them  m  a  white  cloth  deposited  them  in  a  little  oval-shaped  basket 
These  seven  ears  were  the  infant  Soul  of  the  Rice  and  the  little  basket 
vas  its  cradle.  It  was  carried  home  to  the  farmer’s  house  by  another 
voman,  who  held  up  an  umbrella  to  screen  the  tender  infant  from  the 
lot  rays  of  the  sun.  Arrived  at  the  house  the  Rice-child  was  welcomed 
)y  the  women  of  the  family,  and  laid,  cradle  and  all,  on  a  new  sleeping- 
nat  with  pillows  at  the  head.  After  that  the  farmer’s  wife  was 
nstructed  to  observe  certain  rules  of  taboo  for  three  days  the  rules 
>emg  m  many  respect  identical  with  those  which  have  to  be  observed 
or  three  days  after  the  birth  of  a  real  child.  Something  of  the  same 
ender  care  which  is  thus  bestowed  on  the  newly-born  Rice-child  is 
laturally  extended  also  to  its  parent,  the  sheaf  from  whose  body  it 
/as  taken.  This  sheaf,  which  remains  standing  in  the  field  after  the 
ace-soul  has  been  carried  home  and  put  to  bed,  is  treated  as  a  newly- 
lade  mother;  that  is  to  say,  young  shoots  of  trees  are  pounded 
[ogether  and  scattered  broadcast  every  evening  for  three  successive 
ays,  and  when  the  three  days  are  up  you  take  the  pulp  of  a  coco-nut 
nd  what  are  called  “  goat-flowers,”  mix  them  up,  eat  them  with  a 
;ttie  sugar,  and  spit  some  of  the  mixture  out  among  the  rice.  So  after 
.  real  birth  the  young  shoots  of  the  jack-fruit,  the  rose-apple,  certain 

°.f  banana'  1and  the  thin  PulP  of  young  coco-nuts  are  mixed 
ith  dried  fish,  salt,  acid,  prawn-condiment,  and  the  like  dainties  to 
>rm  a  sort  of  salad,  which  is  administered  to  mother  and  child  for 
iree  successive  days.  The  last  sheaf  is  reaped  by  the  farmer’s  wife 
ho  carries  it  back  to  the  house,  where  it  is  threshed  and  mixed  with 
ie  Rice-soul.  The  farmer  then  takes  the  Rice-soul  and  its  basket  and 
iposits  it,  together  with  the  product  of  the  last  sheaf,  in  the  biy 
frcular  rice-bm  used  by  the  Malays.  Some  grains  from  the  Rice-soul 
<e  rmxed  with  the  seed  which  is  to  be  sown  in  the  following  year 
f  thls  Rlce-mother  and  Rice-child  of  the  Malay  Peninsula  we  may  see 
e  counterpart  and  in  a  sense  the  prototype  of  the  Demeter  and 
brsephone  of  ancient  Greece. 

Once  more,  the  European  custom  of  representing  the  corn-spirit 


4i8  THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  MANY  LANDS  ch. 

in  the  double  form  of  bride  and  bridegroom  has  its  parallel  in  a  i 
ceremony  observed  at  the  rice-harvest  in  Java.  Before  the  reapers 
begin  to  cut  the  rice,  the  priest  or  sorcerer  picks  out  a  number  of  ears 
of  rice,  which  are  tied  together,  smeared  with  ointment,  and  adorned 
with  flowers.  Thus  decked  out,  the  ears  are  called  the  padi-penganten , 
that  is,  the  Rice  -  bride  and  the  Rice  -  bridegroom  ;  their  wedding 
feast  is  celebrated,  and  the  cutting  of  the  rice  begins  immediately  , 
afterwards.  Later  on,  when  the  rice  is  being  got  in,  a  bridal  chamber  i 
is  partitioned  off  in  the  barn,  and  furnished  with  a  new  mat,  a  lamp,  and 
all  kinds  of  toilet  articles.  Sheaves  of  rice,  to  represent  the  wedding 
guests,  are  placed  beside  the  Rice-bride  and  the  Rice-bridegroom. 
Not  till  this  has  been  done  may  the  whole  harvest  be  housed  in  the 
barn.  And  for  the  first  forty  days  after  the  rice  has  been  housed,  no  ( 
one  may  enter  the  barn,  for  fear  of  disturbing  the  newly-wedded 
pair. 

In  the  islands  of  Bali  and  Lombok,  when  the  time  of  harvest  has 
come,  the  owner  of  the  field  himself  makes  a  beginning  by  cutting 
“  the  principal  rice  ”  with  his  own  hands  and  binding  it  into  two 
sheaves,  each  composed  of  one  hundred  and  eight  stalks  with  their 
leaves  attached  to  them.  One  of  the  sheaves  represents  a  man  and 
the  other  a  woman,  and  they  are  called  “  husband  and  wife.”  The 
male  sheaf  is  wound  about  with  thread  so  that  none  of  the  leaves  are 
visible,  whereas  the  female  sheaf  has  its  leaves  bent  over  and  tied  so 
as  to  resemble  the  roll  of  a  woman’s  hair.  Sometimes,  for  further 
distinction,  a  necklace  of  rice-straw  is  tied  round  the  female  sheaf. 
When  the  rice  is  brought  home  from  the  field,  the  two  sheaves  repre¬ 
senting  the  husband  and  wife  are  carried  by  a  woman  on  her  head,  and 
are  the  last  of  all  to  be  deposited  in  the  barn.  There  they  are  laid  to 
rest  on  a  small  erection  or  on  a  cushion  of  rice-straw.  The  whole 
arrangement,  we  are  informed,  has  for  its  object  to  induce  the  rice' 
to  increase  and  multiply  in  the  granary,  so  that  the  owner  may  get , 
more  out  of  it  than  he  put  in.  Hence  when  the  people  of  Bali  bring 
the  two  sheaves,  the  husband  and  wife,  into  the  barn,  they  say, 
“  Increase  ye  and  multiply  without  ceasing.”  When  all  the  rice  in  the 
barn  has  been  used  up,  the  two  sheaves  representing  the  husband  and 
wife  remain  in  the  empty  building  till  they  have  gradually  disappeared 
or  been  devoured  by  mice.  The  pinch  of  hunger  sometimes  drives 
individuals  to  eat  up  the  rice  of  these  two  sheaves,  but  the  wretches 
who  do  so  are  viewed  with  disgust  by  their  fellows  and  branded  as  pigs 
and  dogs.  Nobody  would  ever  sell  these  holy  sheaves  with  the  rest 
of  their  profane  brethren. 

The  same  notion  of  the  propagation  of  the  rice  by  a  male  andil 
female  power  finds  expression  amongst  the  Szis  of  Upper  Burma. 
When  the  paddy,  that  is,  the  rice  with  the  husks  still  on  it,  has  been 
dried  and  piled  in  a  heap  for  threshing,  all  the  friends  of  the  household 
are  invited  to  the  threshing-floor,  and  food  and  drink  are  brought  out. 
The  heap  of  paddy  is  divided  and  one  half  spread  out  for  threshing, 
while  the  other  half  is  left  piled  up.  On  the  pile  food  and  spirits  are 


XLVI 


double  personification  of  the  corn 


421 

and  Maidens  (Persephonesi  out  nf  Z  C°™-mothers  (Demeters) 

But  unfortunately  the  Deleter  and VZ'?™  °"  harvest-helds. 

the  demVenq  nf  tm-mc  •  •  .  eisephone  whom  we  know  were 

W,c7  ,  ,f  *  ’  the  maJestic  inhabitants  of  lordlv  temnles  •  it 

was  for  such  divinities  alone  that  the  refined  writers  of  anticnfitv  hi 
eyes ;  the  uncouth  rites  performed  by  rustics  amo!st  Z  Y  h 
beneath  their  notice.  Even  if  they  noticed  hZ  7  g  ‘  1  7  Were 

1  emP^-  Stl11  the  writings  even  of  these  town-bred  and  cultured 
: pei sons  afford  us  an  occasional  glimpse  of  a  Demeter  as  rude  n 

rudest  that  a  remote  German  village  can  show.  Thus  the  slrv  tl  1 
Iasion  begat  a  child  Plutus  (“  wealth  ”  “  abundance  dp  Z  ‘  1  ‘ 
on  a  thrice-ploughed  field,  may  be  compared  with  the  Wes^  PruTkn 
custom  of  the  mock  birth  of  a  child  on  the  harvest  field  m  tv 
Prussian  custom  the  pretended  mother  represents  the  tv,'  1  1 
(Zytniamatka) ;  the  pretended  child  represent  Co SbabT aTd The 
whole  ceremony  is  a  charm  to  ensure  a  crop  next  year  Thl  t 
md  the  legend  alike  point  to  an  older  practice  of  performing  among 
•he  sprouting  crops  in  spring  or  the  stubble  in  autumn  one  of  those 

£0orf“PZZfto0finfoseeahti0n  ^  Which>  “  We  have  s’een-  Primitive 

lecaying  energies  of  i" 

he  civilised  Demeter  will  be  afforded  farther  on,  when  welcome  to 
leal  With  another  aspect  of  those  agricultural  divinities. 

1  1  he  reader  may  have  observed  that  in  modern  folk-customs  the 

orn-spu  it  is  generally  represented  either  by  a  Corn-mother  fOld 
Oman,  etc.)  or  by  a  Maiden  (Harvest-child,  etc.),  not  both  by  a  Corn 

pother  and  by  a  Maiden.  Why  then  did  the  Greeks  represent  The' 
orn  both  as  a  mother  and  a  daughter  ? 

tb  ,th!  ®ret°n  castom  the  mother-sheaf— a  large  figure  made  out 
t,  .,  aStSheaf  Wlth  a  sma11  corn-doll  inside  of  it— clearly  represents 
si  T  thenpm0ther  anTthe  Corn-daughteT  the  latter  still  unborn 

the6  ripe  ££  ^  ^ 

>  the“  oftl  •  6ar’S  -°rn’  WhiCh  may  bC  re«arded-  naturally  eTTugT 

arvest  tf  t  f  ^  C°m’  SmCe  *  is  from  the  seed  of  this  year’s 
arvest  that  next  years  crop  will  spring.  Further,  we  have7 seen 

dghlandere  ofT  ntf  ‘ ^ d  th  ^  PenJnsula  and  sometimes  among  the 

male  form  both  a Zd  7^  °Tthe  gram  is  rePre^nted  in  double 

e  ripe  crop  in  %n  1  ^1°™%  by  means  of  ears  taken  alike  from 

TlfoTZrT//  fCT  n  th<3  °ld  Splnt  0f  the  corn  aPPears  as  the 

le  Malays  of  the  P  Splrit  as  the  Maiden  I  while  among 

Hated  t?  1  1  Peninsula  the  two  spirits  of  the  rice  are  definitely 

f  meter°would  °he  TT  ”°  “T  ^  JudSed  bT  these  analogies 

-meter  would  be  the  ripe  crop  of  this  year;  Persephone  would  be 


422 


THE  CORN-MOTHER  IN  MANY  LANDS 


CH. 


the  seed-corn  taken  from  it  and  sown  in  autumn,  to  reappear  m  spimg. 
The  descent  of  Persephone  into  the  lower  world  would  thus  be  a 
mythical  expression  for  the  sowing  of  the  seed  ;  her  reappearance  in 
spring  would  signify  the  sprouting  of  the  young  coni.  In  this  way 
the  Persephone  of  one  year  becomes  the  Demeter  of  the  next  and  this 
may  very  well  have  been  the  original  form  of  the  myth.  But  when 
with  the  advance  of  religious  thought  the  corn  came  to  be  personified, 
no  longer  as  a  being  that  went  through  the  whole  cycle  of  bn  1, 
growth  reproduction,  and  death  within  a  year,  but  as  an  immortal 
goddess,  consistency  required  that  one  of  the  two  Pe-omfeiations 
the  mother  or  the  daughter,  should  be  sacrificed.  However  the 
doubTe  conception  of  the  corn  as  mother  and  daughter  may  have  been 
too  old  and  too  deeply  rooted  in  the  popular  mind  to  be  eradicated 
bv  logic,  and  so  room  had  to  be  found  in  the  refoimed  myth  both  for  j 
mother  and  daughter.  This  was  done  by  assigning  to  Persephone  : 
the  character  of  the  corn  sown  in  autumn  and  sprouting  xn  spring, 
while  Demeter  was  left  to  play  the  somewhat  vague  part  of  the  heavy 
mother  of  the  corn,  who  laments  its  annual  disappearance  undergioun  , 
and  rejoices  over  its  reappearance  in  spring.  Thus  instead  of  a  regular  j 
succession  of  divine  beings,  each  living  a  year  and  then  giving  birth 
to  her  successor,  the  reformed  myth  exhibits  the  conception  of  two 
divine  and  immortal  beings,  one  of  whom  annually  disappears  into  an 
reappears  from  the  ground,  while  the  other  has  little  to  do  but  to  weep 

and.  reioice  at  the  appropiiate  seasons.  , 

This  theory  of  the  double  personification  of  the  corn  in  Greek  myth 
assumes  that  both  personifications  (Demeter  and  Persephone)  are 
original  But  if  we  suppose  that  the  Greek  myth  started  with  a 
sinele  personification,  the  aftergrowth  of  a  second  personification 
mav  perhaps  be  explained  as  follows.  On  looking  over  the  harves  , 
customs  which  have  been  passed  under  review,  it  may  be  noticed  tha 
Sey  involve  two  distinct  conceptions  of  the  corn-spirit.  For  wherea 
in  some  of  the  customs  the  corn-spirit  is  treated  as  immanent  m  the 
corn,  in  others  it  is  regarded  as  external  to  it.  Thus  when  a  Partl™'“ 
sheaf  is  called  by  the  name  of  the  corn-spirit,  and  is  dressed  in  clothe 
and  handled  with  reverence,  the  spirit  is  clearly  regarded  as  immanen 
in  the  corn.  But  when  the  spirit  is  said  to  make  the  crops  grow  } 
nassing  through  them,  or  to  blight  the  grain  of  those  against  when 
she  has  a  grudge,  she  is  apparently  conceived  as  distinct  from,  thoug 
exercising  power  over,  the  corn.  Conceived  m  the  latter  mode  th 
corn-spirit  is  in  a  fair  way  to  become  a  deity  of  the >  corn  if  she  ha, 
not  become  so  already.  Of  these  two  conceptions  that  of  the  cor 
spirit  as  immanent  in  the  corn  is  doubtless  the  older,  since  the  vie 
of  nature  as  animated  by  indwelling  spirits  appears  to  have  general  , 
preceded  the  view  of  it  as  controlled  by  external  deities  ;  to  put  i 
shortly,  animism  precedes  deism.  In  the  harvest  customs  of  or 
European  peasantry  the  corn-spirit  seems  to  be  conceived  now  c 
immanent  in  the  corn  and  now  as  external  to  it.  In  Greek  my  w  J 
on  the  other  hand,  Demeter  is  viewed  rather  as  the  deity  of  the  cor 


xlvi  DOUBLE  PERSONIFICATION  OF  THE  CORN  423 

,  than  as  the  spirit  immanent  in  it.  The  process  of  thought  which 
i  leads  to  the  change  from  the  one  mode  of  conception  to  the  other  is 
anthropomorphism,  or  the  gradual  investment  of  the  immanent  spirits 
with  more  and  more  of  the  attributes  of  humanity.  As  men  emerge 
from  savagery  the  tendency  to  humanise  their  divinities  gains  strength  ; 
and  the  more  human  these  become  the  wider  is  the  breach  which  severs 
them  from  the  natural  objects  of  which  they  were  at  first  merely  the 
animating  spirits  or  souls.  But  in  the  progress  upwards  from  savagery 
men  of  the  same  generation  do  not  march  abreast ;  and  though  the 
new  anthropomorphic  gods  may  satisfy  the  religious  wants  of  the 
more  developed  intelligences,  the  backward  members  of  the  community 
,  will  cling  by  preference  to  the  old  animistic  notions.  Now  when 
the  spirit  of  any  natural  object  such  as  the  corn  has  been  invested 
with  human  qualities,  detached  from  the  object,  and  converted  into  a 
deity  controlling  it,  the  object  itself  is,  by  the  withdrawal  of  its  spirit, 
left  inanimate  ;  it  becomes,  so  to  say,  a  spiritual  vacuum.  But  the 
popular  fancy,  intolerant  of  such  a  vacuum,  in  other  words,  unable 
to  conceive  anything  as  inanimate,  immediately  creates  a  fresh  mythical 
being,  with  which  it  peoples  the  vacant  object.  Thus  the  same  natural 
object  comes  to  be  represented  in  mythology  by  two  distinct  beings  : 
first  by  the  old  spirit  now  separated  from  it  and  raised  to  the  rank  of 
a  deity  ;  second,  by  the  new  spirit,  freshly  created  by  the  popular 
fancy  to  supply  the  place  vacated  by  the  old  spirit  on  its  elevation 
to  a  higher  sphere.  In  such  cases  the  problem  for  mythology  is, 
having  got  two  distinct  personifications  of  the  same  object,  what  to 
do  with  them  ?  How  are  their  relations  to  each  other  to  be  adjusted, 
and  room  found  for  both  in  the  mythological  system  ?  When  the  old 
spirit  or  new  deity  is  conceived  as  creating  or  producing  the  object  in 
question,  the  problem  is  easily  solved.  Since  the  object  is  believed 
to  be  produced  by  the  old  spirit,  and  animated  by  the  new  one,  the 
latter,  as  the  soul  of  the  object,  must  also  owe  its  existence  to  the 
former  ;  thus  the  old  spirit  will  stand  to  the  new  one  as  producer  to 
produced,  that  is,  in  mythology,  as  parent  to  child,  and  if  both  spirits 
are  conceived  as  female,  their  relation  will  be  that  of  mother  and 
daughter.  In  this  way,  starting  from  a  single  personification  of  the 
corn  as  female,  mythic  fancy  might  in  time  reach  a  double  personi¬ 
fication  of  it  as  mother  and  daughter.  It  would  be  very  rash  to  affirm 
that  this  was  the  way  in  which  the  myth  of  Demeter  and  Persephone 
actually  took  shape  ;  but  it  seems  a  legitimate  conjecture  that  the 
reduplication  of  deities,  of  which  Demeter  and  Persephone  furnish 
an  example,  may  sometimes  have  arisen  in  the  way  indicated.  For 
example,  among  the  pairs  of  deities  dealt  with  in  a  former  part  of 
this  work,  it  has  been  shown  that  there  are  grounds  for  regarding  both. 
Isis  and  her  companion  god  Osiris  as  personifications  of  the  corn.  On 
the  hypothesis  just  suggested,  Isis  would  be  the  old  corn-spirit,  and 
Osiris  would  be  the  newer  one,  whose  relationship  to  the  old  spirit 
was  variously  explained  as  that  of  brother,  husband,  and  son  ;  for  of 
course  mythology  would  always  be  free  to  account  for  the  coexistence 


LITYERSES 


CH. 


424 


of  the  two  divinities  in  more  ways  than  one.  It  must  not,  however, 
be  forgotten  that  this  proposed  explanation  of  such  pairs  of  deities  as 
Demeter  and  Persephone  or  Isis  and  Osiris  is  purely  conjectural,  and 
is  only  given  for  what  it  is  worth. 


CHAPTER  XLVII 

LITYERSES 

§  i.  Songs  of  the  Corn-reapers. — In  the  preceding  pages  an  attempt 
has  been  made  to  show  that  in  the  Corn-mother  and  Harvest-maiden 
of  Northern  Europe  we  have  the  prototypes  of  Demeter  and  Persephone. 
But  an  essential  feature  is  still  wanting  to  complete  the  resemblance. 
A  leading  incident  in  the  Greek  myth  is  the  death  and  resurrection 
of  Persephone  ;  it  is  this  incident  which,  coupled  with  the  nature  of 
the  goddess  as  a  deity  of  vegetation,  links  the  myth  with  the  cults  of 
Adonis,  Attis,  Osiris,  and  Dionysus  ;  and  it  is  in  virtue  of  this  incident 
that  the  myth  finds  a  place  in  our  discussion  of  the  Dying  God.  It 
remains,  therefore,  to  see  whether  the  conception  of  the  annual  death 
and  resurrection  of  a  god,  which  figures  so  prominently  in  these  great 
Greek  and  Oriental  worships,  has  not  also  its  origin  or  its  analogy  in 
the  rustic  rites  observed  by  reapers  and  vine-dressers  amongst  the 
corn-shocks  and  the  vines. 

Our  general  ignorance  of  the  popular  superstitions  and  customs 
of  the  ancients  has  already  been  confessed.  But  the  obscurity  which 
thus  hangs  over  the  first  beginnings  of  ancient  religion  is  fortunately 
dissipated  to  some  extent  in  the  present  case.  The  worships  of 
Osiris,  Adonis,  and  Attis  had  their  respective  seats,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  Egypt,  Syria,  and  Phrygia  ;  and  in  each  of  these  countries  certain 
harvest  and  vintage  customs  are  known  to  have  been  observed,  the 
resemblance  of  which  to  each  other  and  to  the  national  rites  struck 
the  ancients  themselves,  and,  compared  with  the  harvest  customs  of 
modern  peasants  and  barbarians,  seems  to  throw  some  light  on  the 
origin  of  the  rites  in  question. 

It  has  been  already  mentioned,  on  the  authority  of  Diodorus,' 
that  in  ancient  Egypt  the  reapers  were  wont  to  lament  over  the  first 
sheaf  cut,  invoking  Isis  as  the  goddess  to  whom  they  owed  the  dis¬ 
covery  of  corn.  To  the  plaintive  song  or  cry  sung  or  uttered  by 
Egyptian  reapers  the  Greeks  gave  the  name  of  Maneros,  and  explained 
the  name  by  a  story  that  Maneros,  the  only  son  of  the  first  Egyptian 
king,  invented  agriculture,  and,  dying  an  untimely  death,  was  thus 
lamented  by  the  people.  It  appears,  however,  that  the  name  Maneros 
is  due  to  a  misunderstanding  of  the  formula  maa-ne-hra,  “  Come  to 
the  house,”  which  has  been  discovered  in  various  Egyptian  writings, 
for  example  in  the  dirge  of  Isis  in  the  Book  of  the  Dead.  Hence 
we  may  suppose  that  the  cry  maa-ne-hra  was  chanted  by  the  reapers 


XLVII 


SONGS  OF  THE  CORN-REAPERS 


425 


over  the  cut  corn  as  a  dirge  for  the  death  of  the  corn-spirit  (Isis  or 
Osiris)  and  a  prayer  for  its  return.  As  the  cry  was  raised  over  the 
first  ears  reaped,  it  would  seem  that  the  corn-spirit  was  believed  by 
the  Egyptians  to  be  present  in  the  first  corn  cut  and  to  die  under 
the  sickle.  We  have  seen  that  in  the  Malay  Peninsula  and  Java  the 
first  ears  of  rice  are  taken  to  represent  either  the  Soul  of  the  Rice 
or  the  Rice-bride  and  the  Rice-bridegroom.  In  parts  of  Russia  the 
first  sheaf  is  treated  much  in  the  same  way  that  the  last  sheaf  is 
treated  elsewher^  It  is  reaped  by  the  mistress  herself,  taken  home 
and  set  in  the  place  of  honour  near  the  holy  pictures  ;  afterwards 
it  is  threshed  separately,  and  some  of  its  grain  is  mixed  with  the 
next  year’s  seed-corn.  In  Aberdeenshire,  while  the  last  corn  cut 
was  generally  used  to  make  the  clyack  sheaf,  it  was  sometimes,  though 
rarely,  the  first  corn  cut  that  was  dressed  up  as  a  woman  and  carried 
home  with  ceremony. 

In  Phoenicia  and  Western  Asia  a  plaintive  song,  like  that  chanted 
by  the  Egyptian  corn-reapers,  was  sung  at  the  vintage  and  probably 
(to  judge  by  analogy)  also  at  harvest.  This  Phoenician  song  was 
called  by  the  Greeks  Linus  or  Ailinus  and  explained,  like  Maneros, 
as  a  lament  for  the  death  of  a  youth  named  Linus.  According  to 
one  story  Linus  was  brought  up  by  a  shepherd,  but  torn  to  pieces  by 
his  dogs.  But,  like  Maneros,  the  name  Linus  or  Ailinus  appears  to 
have  originated  in  a  verbal  misunderstanding,  and  to  be  nothing 
more  than  the  cry  ai  lanu,  that  is  “  Woe  to  us,”  which  the  Phoenicians 
probably  uttered  in  mourning  for  Adonis  ;  at  least  Sappho  seems  to 
have  regarded  Adonis  and  Linus  as  equivalent. 

In  Bithynia  a  like  mournful  ditty,  called  Bormus  or  Borimus, 
was  chanted  by  Mariandynian  reapers.  Bormus  was  said  to  have 
been  a  handsome  youth,  the  son  of  King  Upias  or  of  a  wealthy 
and  distinguished  man.  One  summer  day,  watching  the  reapers  at 
work  in  his  fields,  he  went  to  fetch  them  a  drink  of  water  and  was 
never  heard  of  more.  So  the  reapers  sought  for  him,  calling  him 
in  plaintive  strains,  which  they  continued  to  chant  at  harvest  ever 
afterwards. 

§  2.  Killing  the  Corn-spirit. — In  Phrygia  the  corresponding  song, 
sung  by  harvesters  both  at  reaping  and  at  threshing,  was  called 
Lityerses.  According  to  one  story,  Lityerses  was  a  bastard  son  of 
Midas,  King  of  Phrygia,  and  dwelt  at  Celaenae.  He  used  to  reap 
the  corn,  and  had  an  enormous  appetite.  When  a  stranger  happened 
to  enter  the  corn-field  or  to  pass  by  it,  Lityerses  gave  him  plenty  to 
eat  and  drink,  then  took  him  to  the  corn-fields  on  the  banks  of  the 
Maeander  and  compelled  him  to  reap  along  with  him.  Lastly,  it 
was  his  custom  to  wrap  the  stranger  in  a  sheaf,  cut  off  his  head  with 
a  sickle,  and  carry  away  his  body,  swathed  in  the  corn-stalks.  But 
at  last  Hercules  undertook  to  reap  with  him,  cut  off  his  head  with 
the  sickle,  and  threw  his  body  into  the  river.  As  Hercules  is  reported 
to  have  slain  Lityerses  in  the  same  way  that  Lityerses  slew  others, 
We  may  infer  that  Lityerses  used  to  throw  the  bodies  of  his  victims 


LITYERSES 


CH. 


426 


into  the  river.  According  to  another  version  of  the  story,  Lityerses, 
a  son  of  Midas,  was  wont  to  challenge  people  to  a  reaping  match 
with  him,  and  if  he  vanquished  them  he  used  to  thrash  them  ;  but 
one  day  he  met  with  a  stronger  reaper,  who  slew  him. 

There  are  some  grounds  for  supposing  that  in  these  stories  of 
Lityerses  we  have  the  description  of  a  Phrygian  harvest  custom  in 
accordance  with  which  certain  persons,  especially  strangers  passing 
the  harvest  field,  were  regularly  regarded  as  embodiments  of  the 
corn-spirit,  and  as  such  were  seized  by  the  reapers,  w rapt  in  sheav  es, 
and  beheaded,  their  bodies,  bound  up  in  the  corn-stalks,  being  after¬ 
wards  thrown  into  water  as  a  rain-charm.  The  grounds  for  this 
supposition  are,  first,  the  resemblance  of  the  Lityerses  story  to  the 
harvest  customs  of  European  peasantry,  and,  second,  the  frequency 
of  human  sacrifices  offered  by  savage  races  to  promote  the  fertility 
of  the  fields.  We  will  examine  these  grounds  successively,  beginning 
with  the  former. 

In  comparing  the  story  with  the  harvest  customs  of  Europe,  three 
points  deserve  special  attention,  namely  ;  I.  the  reaping  match  and 
the  binding  of  persons  in  the  sheaves  ;  II.  the  killing  of  the  corn- 
spirit  or  his  representatives  ;  III.  the  treatment  of  visitors  to  the 

harvest  field  or  of  strangers  passing  it. 

I.  In  regard  to  the  first  head,  we  have  seen  that  in  modern  Europe 

person  who  cuts  or  binds  or  threshes  the  last  sheaf  is  often  exposed 
torougK~treatm  of  his  fellow-labourers!  For  example, 

he  is  bound  up  in  the  last  sheaf,  and,  thus  encased,  is  carried  or  carted 
about,  beaten,  drenched  with  water,  thrown  on  a  dunghill,  and  so 
forth/  Or,  if  he  is  spared  this  horseplay,  he  is  at  least  the  subject 
of  ridicule  or  is  thought  to  be  destined  to  suffer  some  misfortune  in 
the  course  of  the  year.  Hence  the  harvesters  are  naturally  reluctant 
to  give  the  last  cut  at  reaping  or  the  last  stroke  at  threshing  or  to 
bind  the  last  sheaf,  and  towards  the  close  of  the  work  this  reluctance 
produces  an  emulation  among  the  labourers,  each  striving  to  finish 
his  task  as  fast  as  possible,  in  order  that  he  may  escape  the  invidious 
distinction  of  being  last.  For  example,  in  the  Mittelmark  district  of 
Prussia,  when  the  rye  has  been  reaped,  and  the  last  sheaves  are  about 
to  be  tied  up,  the  binders  stand  in  two  rows  facing  each  other,  every 
woman  with  her  sheaf  and  her  straw  rope  before  her.  At  a  given 
signal  they  all  tie  up  their  sheaves,  and  the  one  who  is  the  last  to 
finish  is  ridiculed  by  the  rest.  Not  only  so,  but  her  sheaf  is  made 
up  into  human  shape  and  called  the  Old  Man,  and  she  must  carry  it 
home  to  the  farmyard,  where  the  harvesters  dance  in  a  circle  round 
her  and  it.  Then  they  take  the  Old  Man  to  the  farmer  and  deliver 
it  to  him  with  the  words,  “  We  bring  the  Old  Man  to  the  Master. 
He  may  keep  him  till  he  gets  a  new  one/  After  that  the  Old  Man  is 
set  up  against  a  tree,  where  he  remains  for  a  long  time,  the  butt  of 
many  jests.  At  Aschbach  in  Bavaria,  when  the  reaping  is  nearly 
finished,  the  reapers  say,  “  Now,  we  will  drive  out  the  Old  Man.” 
Each  of  them  sets  himself  to  reap  a  patch  of  coni  as  fast  as  he  can ; 


XL  VII 


KILLING  THE  CORN-SPIRIT 


427 


lie  who  cuts  the  last  handful  or  the  last  stalk  is  greeted  by  the  rest 
with  an  exulting  cry,  “  You  have  the  Old  Man."  Sometimes  a  black 
mask  is  fastened  on  the  reaper’s  face  and  he  is  dressed  in  woman's 
clothes  ;  or  if  the  reaper  is  a  woman,  she  is  dressed  in  man's  clothes. 
A  dance  follows.  At  the  supper  the  Old  Man  gets  twice  as  large  a 
portion  of  the  food  as  the  others.  The  proceedings  are  similar  at 
threshing  ;  the  person  who  gives  the  last  stroke  is  said  to  have  the 
Old  Man.  At  the  supper  given  to  the  threshers  he  has  to  eat  out  of 
the  cream-ladle  and  to  drink  a  great  deal.  Moreover,  he  is  quizzed 
and  teased  in  all  sorts  of  ways  till  he  frees  himself  from  further 
annoyance  by  treating  the  others  to  brandy  or  beer. 

These  examples  illustrate  the  contests  in  reaping,  threshing,  and 
binding  which  take  place  amongst  the  harvesters,  from  their  un¬ 
willingness  to  suffer  the  ridicule  and  discomfort  incurred  by  the  one 
who  happens  to  finish  his  work  last.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the 
person  who  is  last  at  reaping,  binding,  or  threshing,  is  regarded  as 
the  representative  of  the  corn-spirit,  and  this  idea  is  more  fully 
expressed  by  binding  him  or  her  in  corn-stalks.  The  latter  custom 
has  been  already  illustrated,  but  a  few  more  instances  may  be  added. 
At  Kloxin,  near  Stettin,  the  harvesters  call  out  to  the  woman  who 
binds  the  last  sheaf,  “  You  have  the  Old  Man,  and  must  keep  him." 
As  late  as  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  custom  was 
to  tie  up  the  woman  herself  in  pease-straw,  and  bring  her  with  music 
to  the  farmhouse,  where  the  harvesters  danced  with  her  till  the 
pease-straw  fell  off.  In  other  villages  round  Stettin,  when  the  last 
harvest-waggon  is  being  loaded,  there  is  a  regular  race  amongst  the 
women,  each  striving  not  to  be  last.  For  she  who  places  the  last 
sheaf  on  the  waggon  is  called  the  Old  Man,  and  is  completely  swathed 
in  corn-stalks  ;  she  is  also  decked  with  flowers,  and  flowers  and  a 
helmet  of  straw  are  placed  on  her  head.  In  solemn  procession  she 
carries  the  harvest-crown  to  the  squire,  over  whose  head  she  holds  it 
while  she  utters  a  string  of  good  wishes.  At  the  dance  which  follows, 
the  Old  Man  has  the  right  to  choose  his,  or  rather  her,  partner  ;  it 
is  an  honour  to  dance  with  him.  At  Gommern,  near  Magdeburg,  the 
reaper  who  cuts  the  last  ears  of  corn  is  often  wrapt  up  in  corn-stalks 
so  completely  that  it  is  hard  to  see  whether  there  is  a  man  in  the  bundle 
or  not.  Thus  wrapt  up  -he  is  taken  by  another  stalwart  reaper  on 
his  back,  and  carried  round  the  field  amidst  the  joyous  cries  of  the 
harvesters.  At  Neuhausen,  near  Merseburg,  the  person  who  binds 
the  last  sheaf  is  wrapt  in  ears  of  oats  and  saluted  as  the  Oatsman, 
whereupon  the  others  dance  round  him.  At  Brie,  Isle  de  France, 
the  farmer  himself  is  tied  up  in  the  first  sheaf.  At  Dingelstedt,  in 
the  district  of  Erfurt,  down  to  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century 
it  was  the  custom  to  tie  up  a  man  in  the  last  sheaf.  He  was  called 
the  Old  Man,  and  was  brought  home  on  the  last  waggon,  amid  huzzas 
and  music.  On  reaching  the  farmyard  he  was  rolled  round  the  barn 
and  drenched  with  water.  At  Nordlingen  in  Bavaria  the  man  who 
gives  the  last  stroke  at  threshing  is  wrapt  in  straw  and  rolled  on  the 


LITYERSES 


CH. 


428 


threshing-floor.  In  some  parts  of  Oberpfalz,  Bavaria,  he  is  said  to 
“  get  the  Old  Man/'  is  wrapt  in  straw,  and  carried  to  a  neighbour 
who  has  not  yet  finished  his  threshing.  In  Silesia  the  woman  who 
binds  the  last  sheaf  has  to  submit  to  a  good  deal  of  horse-play.  She 
is  pushed,  knocked  down,  and  tied  up  in  the  sheaf,  after  which  she 
is  called  the  corn-puppet  ( Kornpopel ). 

“  In  all  these  cases  the  idea  is  that  the  spirit  of  the  corn — the 
Old  Man  of  vegetation — is  driven  out  of  the  corn  last  cut  or  last 
threshed,  and  lives  in  the  barn  during  the  winter.  At  sowing-time 
he  goes  out  again  to  the  fields  to  resume  his  activity  as  animating 
force  among  the  sprouting  corn.” 

II.  Passing  to  the  second  point  of  comparison  between  the  Lityerses 
story  and  European  harvest  customs,  we  have  now  to  see  that  in  the 
latter  the  corn-spirit  is  often  believed  to  be  killed  at  reaping  or  thresh¬ 
ing.  In  the  Romsdal  and  other  parts  of  Norway,  when  the  haymaking 
is  over,  the  people  say  that  “  the  Old  Hay-man  has  been  killed.”  In 
some  parts  of  Bavaria  the  man  who  gives  the  last  stroke  at  threshing 
is  said  to  have  killed  the  Corn-man,  the  Oats-man,  or  the  Wheat-man, 
according  to  the  crop.  In  the  Canton  of  Tillot,  in  Lorraine,  at 
threshing  the  last  corn  the  men  keep  time  with  their  flails,  calling 
out  as  they  thresh,  “  We  are  killing  the  Old  Woman  !  We  are  killing 
the  Old  Woman  !  ”  If  there  is  an  old  woman  in  the  house  she  is 
warned  to  save  herself,  or  she  will  be  struck  dead.  Near  Ragnit, 
in  Lithuania,  the  last  handful  of  corn  is  left  standing  by  itself,  with  the 
words,  “  The  Old  Woman  (Boba)  is  sitting  in  there.”  Then  a  young 
reaper  whets  his  scythe  and,  with  a  strong  sweep,  cuts  down  the 
handful.  It  is  now  said  of  him  that  “  he  has  cut  off  the  Boba’s  head  ”  ; 
and  he  receives  a  gratuity  from  the  farmer  and  a  jugful  of  water  over 
his  head  from  the  farmer’s  wife.  According  to  another  account, 
every  Lithuanian  reaper  makes  haste  to  finish  his  task  ;  for  the  Old 
Rye-woman  lives  in  the  last  stalks,  and  whoever  cuts  the  last  stalks 
kills  the  Old  Rye-woman,  and  by  killing  her  he  brings  trouble  on 
himself.  In  Wilkischken,  in  the  district  of  Tilsit,  the  man  who  cuts 
the  last  corn  goes  by  the  name  of  “  the  killer  of  the  Rye-woman.” 
In  Lithuania,  again,  the  corn-spirit  is  believed  to  be  killed  at  threshing 
as  well  as  at  reaping.  When  only  a  single  pile  of  corn  remains  to  be 
threshed,  all  the  threshers  suddenly  step  back  a  few  paces,  as  if  at  the 
word  of  command.  Then  they  fall  to  work,  plying  their  flails  with  the 
utmost  rapidity  and  vehemence,  till  they  come  to  the  last  bundle. 
Upon  this  they  fling  themselves  with  almost  frantic  fury,  straining 
every  nerve,  and  raining  blows  on  it  till  the  word  "  Halt  !  ”  rings  out 
sharply  from  the  leader.  The  man  whose  flail  is  the  last  to  fall  after 
the  command  to  stop  has  been  given  is  immediately  surrounded  by 
all  the  rest,  crying  out  that  “  he  has  struck  the  Old  Rye- woman 
dead.”  He  has  to  expiate  the  deed  by  treating  them  to  brandy ; 
and,  like  the  man  who  cuts  the  last  corn,  he  is  known  as  “  the  killer 
of  the  Old  Rye-woman.”  Sometimes  in  Lithuania  the  slain  corn-spirit 
was  represented  by  a  puppet.  Thus  a  female  figure  was  made  out  of 


XLVII 


KILLING  THE  CORN-SPIRIT 


429 


corn-stalks,  dressed  in  clothes,  and  placed  on  the  threshing-floor, 
under  the  heap  of  corn  which  was  to  be  threshed  last.  Whoever 
thereafter  gave  the  last  stroke  at  threshing  “  struck  the  Old  Woman 
dead.”  We  have  already  met  with  examples  of  burning  the  figure 
which  represents  the  corn-spirit.  In  the  East  Riding  of  Yorkshire 
a  custom  called  “  burning  the  Old  Witch  ”  is  observed  on  the  last  day 
of  harvest.  A  small  sheaf  of  corn  is  burnt  on  the  field  in  a  fire  of 
stubble  ;  peas  are  parched  at  the  fire  and  eaten  with  a  liberal  allow¬ 
ance  of  ale  ;  and  the  lads  and  lasses  romp  about  the  flames  and  amuse 
themselves  by  blackening  each  other’s  faces.  Sometimes,  again,  the 
corn-spirit  is  represented  by  a  man,  who  lies  down  under  the  last  corn  ; 
it  is  threshed  upon  his  body,  and  the  people  say  that  “  the  Old  Man  is 
being  beaten  to  death.”  We  saw  that  sometimes  the  farmer’s  wife 
is  thrust,  together  with  the  last  sheaf,  under  the  threshing-machine, 
as  if  to  thresh  her,  and  that  afterwards  a  pretence  is  made  of  winnow¬ 
ing  her.  At  Volders,  in  the  Tyrol,  husks  of  corn  are  stuck  behind  the 
neck  of  the  man  who  gives  the  last  stroke  at  threshing,  and  he  is 
throttled  with  a  straw  garland.  If  he  is  tall,  it  is  believed  that  the 
corn  will  be  tall  next  year.  Then  he  is  tied  on  a  bundle  and  flung 
into  the  river.  In  Carinthia,  the  thresher  who  gave  the  last  stroke, 
and  the  person  who  untied  the  last  sheaf  on  the  threshing-floor,  are 
bound  hand  and  foot  with  straw  bands,  and  crowns  of  straw  are  placed 
on  their  heads.  Then  they  are  tied,  face  to  face,  on  a  sledge,  dragged 
through  the  village,  and  flung  into  a  brook.  The  custom  of  throwing 
the  representative  of  the  corn -spirit  into  a  stream,  like  that  of  drench¬ 
ing  him  with  water,  is,  as  usual,  a  rain-charm. 

III.  Thus  far  the  representatives  of  the  corn-spirit  have  generally 
been  the  man  or  woman  who  cuts,  binds,  or  threshes  the  last  corn. 
We  now  come  to  the  cases  in  which  the  corn-spirit  is  represented 
either  by  a  stranger  passing  the  harvest-field  (as  in  the  Lityerses 
tale),  or  by  a  visitor  entering  it  for  the  first  time.  All  over  Germany 
it  is  customary  for  the  reapers  or  threshers  to  lay  hold  of  passing 
strangers  and  bind  them  with  a  rope  made  of  corn-stalks,  till  they 
pay  a  forfeit ;  and  when  the  farmer  himself  or  one  of  his  guests  enters 
the  field  or  the  threshing-floor  for  the  first  time,  he  is  treated  in  the 
same  way.  Sometimes  the  rope  is  only  tied  round  his  arm  or  his 
feet  or  his  neck.  But  sometimes  he  is  regularly  swathed  in  corn. 
Thus  at  Solor  in  Norway,  whoever  enters  the  field,  be  he  the  master 
or  a  stranger,  is  tied  up  in  a  sheaf  and  must  pay  a  ransom.  In  the 
neighbourhood  of  Soest,  when  the  farmer  visits  the  flax-pullers  for  the 
first  time,  he  is  completely  enveloped  in  flax.  Passers-by  are  also 
surrounded  by  the  women,  tied  up  in  flax,  and  compelled  to  stand 
brandy.  At  Nordlingen  strangers  are  caught  with  straw  ropes  and 
tied  up  in  a  sheaf  till  they  pay  a  forfeit.  Among  the  Germans  of 
Haselberg,  in  West  Bohemia,  as  soon  as  a  farmer  had  given  the  last 
corn  to  be  threshed  on  the  threshing-floor,  he  was  swathed  in  it  and 
had  to  redeem  himself  by  a  present  of  cakes.  In  the  canton  of 
Putanges,  in  Normandy,  a  pretence  of  tying  up  the  owner  of  the  land 


430 


LITYERSES 


CH. 


in  the  last  sheaf  of  wheat  is  still  practised,  or  at  least  was  still  practised 
some  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  The  task  falls  to  the  women  alone. 
They  throw  themselves  on  the  proprietor,  seize  him  by  the  arms, 
the  legs,  and  the  body,  throw  him  to  the  ground,  and  stretch  him  on 
the  last  sheaf.  Then  a  show  is  made  of  binding  him,  and  the  conditions 
to  be  observed  at  the  harvest-supper  are  dictated  to  him.  When  he 
has  accepted  them,  he  is  released  and  allowed  to  get  up.  At  Brie, 
Isle  de  France,  when  any  one  who  does  not  belong  to  the  farm  passes 
by  the  harvest-field,  the  reapers  give  chase.  If  they  catch  him,  they 
bind  him  in  a  sheaf  and  bite  him,  one  after  the  other,  in  the  forehead, 
crying,  “  You  shall  carry  the  key  of  the  field.”  “  To  have  the  key  ” 
is  an  expression  used  by  harvesters  elsewhere  in  the  sense  of  to  cut  or 
bind  or  thresh  the  last  sheaf  ;  hence,  it  is  equivalent  to  the  phrases 
“  You  have  the  Old  Man,”  “  You  are  the  Old  Man,”  which  are  addressed 
to  the  cutter,  binder,  or  thresher  of  the  last  sheaf.  Therefore,  when  a 
stranger,  as  at  Brie,  is  tied  up  in  a  sheaf  and  told  that  he  will  “  carry 
the  key  of  the  field,”  it  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  he  is  the  Old  Man, 
that  is,  an  embodiment  of  the  corn-spirit.  In  hop-picking,  if  a  well- 
dressed  stranger  passes  the  hop-yard,  he  is  seized  by  the  women, 
tumbled  into  the  bin,  covered  with  leaves,  and  not  released  till  he  has 
paid  a  fine. 

Thus,  like  the  ancient  Lityerses,  modern  European  reapers  have 
been  wont  to  lay  hold  of  a  passing  stranger  and  tie  him  up  in  a  sheaf. 
It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  they  should  complete  the  parallel  by 
cutting  off  his  head  ;  but  if  they  do  not  take  such  a  strong  step,  their 
language  and  gestures  are  at  least  indicative  of  a  desire  to  do  so. 
For  instance,  in  Mecklenburg  on  the  first  day  of  reaping,  if  the  master 
or  mistress  or  a  stranger  enters  the  field,  or  merely  passes  by  it,  all 
the  mowers  face  towards  him  and  sharpen  their  scythes,  clashing 
their  whet-stones  against  them  in  unison,  as  if  they  were  making 
ready  to  mow.  Then  the  woman  who  leads  the  mowers  steps  up  to 
him  and  ties  a  band  round  his  left  arm.  He  must  ransom  himself 
by  payment  of  a  forfeit.  Near  Ratzeburg,  when  the  master  or  other 
person  of  mark  enters  the  field  or  passes  by  it,  all  the  harvesters  stop 
work  and  march  towards  him  in  a  body,  the  men  with  their  scythes 
in  front.  On  meeting  him  they  form  up  in  line,  men  and  women. 
The  men  stick  the  poles  of  their  scythdfe  in  the  ground,  as  they  do  in 
whetting  them  ;  then  they  take  off  their  caps  and  hang  them  on  the 
scythes,  while  their  leader  stands  forward  and  makes  a  speech.  When 
he  has  done,  they  all  whet  their  scythes  in  measured  time  very  loudly, 
after  which  they  put  on  their  caps.  Two  of  the  women  binders  then 
come  forward  ;  one  of  them  ties  the  master  or  stranger  (as  the  case 
may  be)  with  corn-ears  or  with  a  silken  band  ;  the  other  delivers  a 
rhyming  address.  The  following  are  specimens  of  the  speeches  made 
by  the  reaper  on  these  occasions.  In  some  parts  of  Pomerania  every 
passer-by  is  stopped,  his  way  being  barred  with  a  corn-rope.  The 
reapers  form  a  circle  round  him  and  sharpen  their  scythes,  while  their 
leader  says : 


XL  VI I 


KILLING  THE  CORN-SPIRIT 


43i 


“  The  men  are  ready,  The  corn  is  great  and  small, 

The  scythes  are  bent,  The  gentleman  must  be  mowed.” 

Then  the  process  of  whetting  the  scythes  is  repeated.  At  Ramin, 
in  the  district  of  Stettin,  the  stranger,  standing  encircled  by  the 
reapers,  is  thus  addressed  : 

“  We’ll  stroke  the  gentleman 

With  our  naked  sword, 

Wherewith  we  shear  meadows  and 
fields. 

We  shear  princes  and  lords. 

Labourers  are  often  athirst ; 

On  the  threshing-floor  strangers  are  also  regarded  as  embodiments 
of  the  corn-spirit,  and  are  treated  accordingly.  At  Wiedingharde  in 
Schleswig  when  a  stranger  comes  to  the  threshing-floor  he  is  asked, 
"  Shall  I  teach  you  the  flail-dance  ?  ”  If  he  says  yes,  they  put  the 
arms  of  the  threshing-flail  round  his  neck  as  if  he  were  a  sheaf  of 
corn,  and  press,  them  together  so  tight  that  he  is  nearly  choked.  In 
some  parishes  of  Wermland  (Sweden),  when  a  stranger  enters  the 
threshing-floor  where  the  threshers  are  at  work,  they  say  that  “  they 
will  teach  him  the  threshing-song.”  Then  they  put  a  flail  round  his 
neck  and  a  straw  rope  about  his  body.  Also,  as  we  have  seen,  if  a 
stranger  woman  enters  the  threshing-floor,  the  threshers  put  a  flail 
round  her  body  and  a  wreath  of  corn-stalks  round  her  neck,  and  call 
out,  “  See  the  Corn-woman  !  See  !  that  is  how  the  Corn-maiden 
looks  !  ” 

Thus  in  these  harvest-customs  of  modern  Europe  the  person  who 
cuts,  binds,  or  threshes  the  last  corn  is  treated  as  an  embodiment 
of  the  corn-spirit  by  being  wrapt  up  in  sheaves,  killed  in  mimicry 
by  aadqijjmral  jmnkPici^^  rown  into  the  wat_erT  Th^P 

coincidences  with  the  Lityerses  story  seem  to  prove  that  the  latter 
is  a  genuine  description  of  an  old  Phrygian  harvest-custom.  But 
since  in  the  modern  parallels  the  killing  of  the  personal  representative 
of  the  corn-spirit  is  necessarily  omitted  or  at  most  enacted  only  in 
mimicry,  it  is  desirable  to  show  that  in  rude  society  hnrrmn  beings 
have  been  commonly  killed,  as  an  agricultural  ceremony  to  promote 
the  fertility  of  the  fields.  The  following  examples  will  make  this 
plain. 

§  3.  Human  Sacrifices  for  the  Crops. — The  Indians  of  Guayaquil, 
in  Ecuador,  used  to  sacrifice  human  blood  and  the  hearts  of  men 
when  they  sowed  their  fields.  The  people  of  Canar  (now  Cuenca 
in  Ecuador)  used  to  sacrifice  a  hundred  children  annually  at  harvest. 
The  kings  of  Quito,  the  Incas  of  Peru,  and  for  a  long  time  the  Spaniards 
were  unable  to  suppress  the  bloody  rite.  At  a  Mexican  harvest-festival, 
when  the  first-fruits  of  the  season  were  offered  to  the  sun,  a  criminal 
was  placed  between  two  immense  stones,  balanced  opposite  each  other, 
and  was  crushed  by  them  as  they  fell  together.  His  remains  were 
buried,  and  a  feast  and  dance  followed.  This  sacrifice  was  known 


If  the  gentleman  will  stand  beer 
and  brandy 

The  joke  will  soon  be  over. 

But,  if  our  prayer  he  does  not  like, 
The  sword  has  a  right  to  strike.” 


432 


LITYERSES 


CH. 


as  “  the  meeting  of  the  stones.”  We  have  seen  that  the  ancient 
Mexicans  also  sacrificed  human  beings  at  all  the  various  stages  in  the 
growth  of  the  maize,  the  age  of  the  victims  corresponding  to  the  age 
of  the  corn  ;  for  they  sacrificed  new-born  babes  at  sowing,  older  children 
when  the  grain  had  sprouted,  and  so  on  till  it  was  fully  ripe,  when  they 
sacrificed  old  men.  No  doubt  the  correspondence  between  the  ages 
of  the  victims  and  the  state  of  the  corn  was  supposed  to  enhance  the 
efficacy  of  the  sacrifice. 

The  Pawnees  annually  sacrificed  a  human  victim  in  spring  when 
they  sowed  their  fields.  The  sacrifice  was  believed  to  have  been 
enjoined  on  them  by  the  Morning  Star,  or  by  a  certain  bird  which  the 
Morning  Star  had  sent  to  them  as  its  messenger.  The  bird  was  stuffed 
and  preserved  as  a  powerful  talisman.  They  thought  that  an  omission 
of  this  sacrifice  would  be  followed  by  the  total  failure  of  the  crops  of 
maize,  beans,  and  pumpkins.  The  victim  was  a  captive  of  either  sex. 
He  was  clad  in  the  gayest  and  most  costly  attire,  was  fattened  on  the 
choicest  food,  and  carefully  kept  in  ignorance  of  his  doom.  When 
he  was  fat  enough,  they  bound  him  to  a  cross  in  the  presence  of  the 
multitude,  danced  a  solemn  dance,  then  cleft  his  head  with  a  tomahawk 
and  shot  him  with  arrows.  According  to  one  trader,  the  squaws 
then  cut  pieces  of  flesh  from  the  victim’s  body,  with  which  they 
greased  their  hoes  ;  but  this  was  denied  by  another  trader  who  had 
been  present  at  the  ceremony.  Immediately  after  the  sacrifice  the 
people  proceeded  to  plant  their  fields.  A  particular  account  has 
been  preserved  of  the  sacrifice  of  a  Sioux  girl  by  the  Pawnees  in  April 
1837  or  1838.  The  girl  was  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  old  and  had 
been  kept  for  six  months  and  well  treated.  Two  days  before  the 
sacrifice  she  was  led  from  wigwam  to  wigwam,  accompanied  by  the 
whole  council  of  chiefs  and  warriors.  At  each  lodge  she  received  a 
small  billet  of  wood  and  a  little  paint,  which  she  handed  to  the  warrior 
next  to  her.  In  this  way  she  called  at  every  wigwam,  receiving  at 
each  the  same  present  of  wood  and  paint.  On  the  twenty -second  of 
April  she  was  taken  out  to  be  sacrificed,  attended  by  the  warriors, 
each  of  whom  carried  two  pieces  of  wood  which  he  had  received  from 
her  hands.  Her  body  having  been  painted  half  red  and  half  black,  ; 
she  was  attached  to  a  sort  of  gibbet  and  roasted  for  some  time  over 
a  slow  fire,  then  shot  to  death  with  arrows.  The  chief  sacrificer 
next  tore  out  her  heart  and  devoured  it.  While  her  flesh  was  still 
warm  it  was  cut  in  small  pieces  from  the  bones,  put  in  little  baskets, 
and  taken  to  a  neighbouring  corn-field.  There  the  head  chief  took 
a  piece  of  the  flesh  from  a  basket  and  squeezed  a  drop  of  blood  upon 
the  newly-deposited  grains  of  corn.  His  example  was  followed  by 
the  rest,  till  all  the  seed  had  been  sprinkled  with  the  blood  ;  it  was 
then  covered  up  with  earth.  According  to  one  account  the  body  of 
the  victim  was  reduced  to  a  kind  of  paste,  which  was  rubbed  or 
sprinkled  not  only  on  the  maize  but  also  on  the  potatoes,  the  beans, 
and  other  seeds  to  fertilise  them.  By  this  sacrifice  they  hoped  to 
obtain  plentiful  crops. 


XLVII 


HUMAN  SACRIFICES  FOR  THE  CROPS  433 

A  West  African  queen  used  to  sacrifice  a  man  and  woman  in  the 
month  of  Maich.  They  were  killed  with  spades  and  hoes,  and  their 
bodies  buiied  in  the  middle  of  a  field  which  had  just  been  tilled.  At 
Lagos  in  Guinea  it  was  the  custom  annually  to  impale  a  young  girl 
alive  soon  after  the  spiing  equinox  in  order  to  secure  good  crops. 
Along  with  her  were  sacrificed  sheep  and  goats,  which,  with  yams,' 
heads  of  maize,  and  plantains,  were  hung  on  stakes  on  each  side  of 
her.  The  victims  were  bred  up  for  the  purpose  in  the  king’s  seraglio, 
and  their  minds  had  been  so  powerfully  wrought  upon  by  the  fetish 
men  that  they  went  cheerfully  to  their  fate.  A  similar  sacrifice  used 
to  be  annually  offered  at  Benin,  in  Guinea.  The  Marimos,  a  Bechuana 
tribe,  sacrifice  a  human  being  for  the  crops.  The  victim  chosen  is 
generally  a  shoi  t,  stout  man.  He  is  seized  by  violence  or  intoxicated 
and  taken  to  the  fields,  where  he  is  killed  amongst  the  wheat  to  serve 
as  seed  (so  they  phrase  it).  After  his  blood  has  coagulated  in  the 
sun,  it  is  burned  along  with  the  frontal  bone,  the  flesh  attached  to  it, 
and  the  brain  ;  the  ashes  amlhen  scattered  over  the  ground  to  fertilise, 
it. _ The  rest  of  the  body  is  eaten. 

The  Bagobos  of~Mfndanao,  one  of  the  Philippine  Islands  offer  a 
human  sacrifice  before  they  sow  their  rice.  The  victim  is  a  slave,  who 
is  hewn  to  pieces  in  the  forest.  The  natives  of  Bontoc  in  the  interior 
of  Luzon,  one  of  the  Philippine  Islands,  are  passionate  head-hunters. 
Their  principal  seasons  for  head-hunting  are  the  times  of  planting  and 
reaping  the  rice.  In  order  that  the  crop  may  turn  out  well,  every  farm 
must  get  at  least  one  human  head  at  planting  and  one  at  sowing.  The 
head-hunters  go  out  in  twos  or  threes,  lie  in  wait  for  the  victim 
whether  man  or  woman,  cut  off  his  or  her  head,  hands,  and  feet,  and 
bring  them  back  in  haste  to  the  village,  where  they  are  received  with 
great  rejoicings.  The  skulls  are  at  first  exposed  on  the  branches  of 
jtwo  or  three  dead  trees  which  stand  in  an  open  space  of  every  village 
surrounded  by  large  stones  which  serve  as  seats.  The  people  then 
lance  round  them  and  feast  and  get  drunk.  When  the  flesh  has 
iecayed  from  the  head,  the  man  who  cut  it  off  takes  it  home  and 
preserves  it  as  a  relic,  while  his  companions  do  the  same  with  the 
lands  and  the  feet. .  Similar  customs  are  observed  by  the  Apoyaos, 
mother  tribe  in  the  interior  of  Luzon. 

Among  the  Lhota  Naga,  one  of  the  many  savage  tribes  who  inhabit 
:he  deep  rugged  labyrinthine  glens  which  wind  into  the  mountains 
rom  the  rich  valley  of  Brahmapootra,  it  used  to  be  a  common  custom 
0  chop  off  the  heads,  hands,  and  feet  of  people  they  met  with,  and 
hen  to  stick  up  the  severed  extremities  in  their  fields  to  ensure  a  good 
mop  of  grain.  They  bore  no  ill-will  whatever  to  the  persons  upon 
vhom  they  operated  in  this  unceremonious  fashion.  Once  they 
fayed  a  boy  alive,  carved  him  in  pieces,  and  distributed  the  flesh 
imong  all  the  villagers,  who  put  it  into  their  corn-binS  to  avert  bad  luck 
m  ensure  plentiful  crops  of  grain.  The  Gonds  of  India,  a  Dravidian 
ace,  kidnapped  Brahman  boys,  and  kept  them  as  victims  to  be  sacri- 
iced  on  various  occasions.  At  sowing  and  reaping,  after  a  triumphal 


434 


LITYERSES 


CH. 


procession,  one  of  the  lads  was  slain  by  being  punctured  with  a 
poisoned  arrow.  His  blood  was  then  sprinkled  over  the  ploughed 
field  or  the  ripe  crop, "and  his  flesh  was  devoured.  The  Oraons  or 
Uraons  of  Chota  Nagpur  worship  a  goddess  called  Anna  Kuari,  who  can 
give  good  crops  and  make  a  man  rich,  but  to  induce  her  to  do  so  it  is 
necessary  to  offer  human  sacrifices.  In  spite  of  the  vigilance  of  the 
British  Government  these  sacrifices  are  said  to  be  still  secretly  perpe¬ 
trated.  The  victims  are  poor  waifs  and  strays  whose  disappearance 
attracts  no  notice.  April  and  May  are  the  months  when  the  catch- 
poles  are  out  on  the  prowl.  At  that  time  strangers  will  not  go  about 
the  country  alone,  and  parents  will  not  let  their  children  enter  the 
jungle  or  herd  the  cattle.  When  a  catchpole  has  found  a  victim, 
he  cuts  his  throat  and  carries  away  the  upper  part  of  the  ring  finger  and 
the  nose.  The  goddess  takes  up  her  abode  in  the  house  of  any  man 
who  has  offered  her  a  sacrifice,  and  from  that  time  his  fields  yield  a 
double  harvest.  The  form  she  assumes  in  the  house  is  that  of  a  small 
child.  When  the  householder  brings  in  his  unhusked  rice,  he  takes 
the  goddess  and  rolls  her  over  the  heap  to  double  its  size.  But  she 
soon  grows  restless  and  can  only  be  pacified  with  the  blood  of  fresh 
human  victims. 

But  the  best  known  case  of  human  sacrifices,  systematically  offered 
to  ensure  good  crops,  is  supplied  by  the  Khonds  or  Kandhs,  another 
Dravidian  race  in  Bengal.  Our  knowledge  of  them  is  derived  from 
the  accounts  written  by  British  officers  who,  about  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  were  engaged  in  putting  them  down.  The  sacrifices 
were  offered  to  the  Earth  Goddess,  Tari  Pennu  or  Bera  Pennu,  and 
were  believed  to  ensure  good  crops  and  immunity  from  all  disease 
and  accidents.  In  particular,  they  were  considered  necessary  in  the 
cultivation  of  turmeric,  the  Khonds  arguing  that  the  turmeric  could 
not  have  a  deep  red  colour  without  the  shedding  of  blood.  The  victim 
or  Meriah,  as  he  was  called,  was  acceptable  to  the  goddess  only  if  he 
had  been  purchased,  or  had  been  bom  a  victim — that  is,  the  son  oi 
a  victim  father,  or  had  been  devoted  as  a  child  by  his  father  or  guardian. 
Khonds  in  distress  often  sold  their  children  for  victims,  “  considering 
the  beatification  of  their  souls  certain,  and  their  death,  for  the  benefil 
of  mankind,  the  most  honourable  possible.”  A  man  of  the  Panus 
tribe  was  once  seen  to  load  a  Khond  with  curses,  and  finally  to  spii 
in  his  face,  because  the  Khond  had  sold  for  a  victim  his  own  child 
whom  the  Panua  had  wished  to  marry.  A  party  of  Khonds,  who 
saw  this,  immediately  pressed  forward  to  comfort  the  seller  of  hi; 
child,  saying,  “  Your  child  has  died  that  all  the  world  may  live,  anc 
the  Earth  Goddess  herself  will  wipe  that  spittle  from  your  face.’ 
The  victims  were  often  kept  for  years  before  they  were  sacrificed 
Being  regarded  as  consecrated  beings,  they  were  treated  with  extremt 
affection,  mingled  with  deference,  and  were  welcomed  wherever  the} 
went.  A  Meriah  youth,  on  attaining  maturity,  was  generally  giver 
a  wife,  who  was  herself  usually  a  Meriah  or  victim  ;  and  with  he: 
he  received  a  portion  of  land  and  farm-stock.  Their  offspring  wen 


xl vii  HUMAN  SACRIFICES  FOR  THE  CROPS  435 

also  victims.  Human  sacrifices  were  offered  to  the  Earth  Goddess 
jby  tribes,  branches  of  tribes,  or  villages,  both  at  periodical  festivals 
| an(^  on  extraordinary  occasions.  The  periodical  sacrifices  were 
generally  so  arranged  by  tribes  and  divisions  of  tribes  that  each  head 
of  a  family  was  enabled,  at  least  once  a  year,  to  procure  a  shred  of  * 
flesh  for  his  fields,  generally  about  the  time  when  his  chief  crop  was 
laid  down. 

The  mode  of  performing  these  tribal  sacrifices  was  as  follows. 
Ten  or  twelve  days  before  the  sacrifice,  the  victim  was  devoted  by 
cutting  off  his  hair,  which,  until  then,  had  been  kept  unshorn.  Crowds 
of  men  and  women  assembled  to  witness  the  sacrifice  ;  none  might 
be  excluded,  since  the  sacrifice  was  declared  to  be  for  all  mankind. 
Tt  was  preceded  by  several  days  of  wild  revelry  and  gross  debauchery. 
On  the  day  before  the  sacrifice  the  victim,  dressed  in  a  new  garment, 
was  led  forth  from  the  village  in  solemn  procession,  with  music  and 
dancing,  to  the  Meriah  grove,  a  clump  of  high  forest  trees  standing 
a  little  way  from  the  village  and  untouched  by  the  axe.  There  they 
tied  him  to  a  post,  which  was  sometimes  placed  between  two  plants 
of  the  sankissar  shrub.  He  was  then  anointed  with  oil,  ghee,  and 
turmeric,  and  adorned  with  flowers  ]  and  “  a  species  of  reverence, 
which  it  is  not  easy  to  distinguish  from  adoration,”  was  paid  to  him 
throughout  the  day.  A  great  struggle  now  arose  to  obtain  the  smallest 
relic  from  his  person  ;  a  particle  of  the  turmeric  paste  with  which 
(he  was  smeared,  or  a  drop  of  his  spittle,  was  esteemed  of  sovereign 
virtue,  especially  by  the  women.  The  crowd  danced  round  the  post 
to  music,  and,  addressing  the  earth,  said,  “  O  God,  we  offer  this  sacrifice 
to  you  ;  give  us  good  crops,  seasons,  and  health  ”  ;  then  speaking  to  the 
-victim  they  said,  We  bought  you  with  a  price,  and  did  not  seize  you  ; 
now  we  sacrifice  you  according  to  custom,  and  no  sin  rests  with  us.” 

On  the  last  morning  the  orgies,  which  had  been  scarcely  interrupted 
during  the  night,  were  resumed,  and  continued  till  noon,  when  they 
ceased,  and  the  assembly  proceeded  to  consummate  the  sacrifice. 
The  victim  was  again  anointed  with  oil,  and  each  person  touched 
the  anointed  part,  and  wiped  the  oil  on  his  own  head.  In  some  places 
they  took  the  victim  in  procession  round  the  village,  from  door  to 
loor,  where  some  plucked  hair  from  his  head,  and  others  begged  for 
1  drop  of  his  spittle,  with  which  they  anointed  their  heads.  As  the 
vdetim  might  not  be  bound  nor  make  any  show  of  resistance,  the  bones 
t)f  his  arms  and,  if  necessary,  his  legs  were  broken  ;  but  often  this 
precaution  was  rendered  unnecessary  by  stupefying  him  with  opium. 
Hie  mode  of  putting  him  to  death  varied  in  different  places.  One 
)f  the  commonest  modes  seems  to  have  been  strangulation,  or  squeez¬ 
ing  to  death.  The  branch  of  a  green  tree  was  cleft  several  feet  down 
!-he  middle  ;  the  victim’s  neck  (in  other  places,  his  chest)  was  inserted 
n  the  cleft,  which  the  priest,  aided  by  his  assistants,  strove  with  all 
iis  force  to  close.  Then  he  wounded  the  victim  slightly  with  his 
ixe,  whereupon  the  crowd  rushed  at  the  wretch  and  hewed  the  flesh 
rom  the  bones,  leaving  the  head  and  bowels  untouched.  Sometimes 


LITYERSES 


CH. 


436 


he  W3.s  cut  up  alive.  Iu  Chinna  Kimedy  he  was  dragged,  along  the 
fields,  surrounded  by  the  crowd,  who,  avoiding  his  head  and  intestines, 
hacked  the  flesh  from  his  body  with  their  knives  till  he  died.  Another 
very  common  mode  of  sacrifice  in  the  same  district  was  to  fasten 
the  victim  to  the  proboscis  of  a  wooden  elephant,  which  revolved 
on  a  stout  post,  and,  as  it  whirled  round,  the  crowd  cut  the  flesh  from 
the  victim  while  life  remained.  In  some  villages  Major  Campbell 
found  as  many  as  fourteen  of  these  wooden  elephants,  which  had  been 
used  at  sacrifices.  In  one  district  the  victim  was  put  to  death  slowly 
by  fire.  A  low  stage  was  formed,  sloping  on  either  side  like  a  roof ; 
upon  it  they  laid  the  victim,  his  limbs  wound  round  with  cords  to 
confine  his  struggles.  Fires  were  then  lighted  and  hot  brands  applied, 
to  make  him  roll  up  and  down  the  slopes  of  the  stage  as  long  as  possible  ; 
for  the  more  tears  he  shed  the  more  abundant  would  be  the  supply 
of  rain.  Next  day  the  body  was  cut  to  pieces. 

The  flesh  cut  from  the  victim  was  instantly  taken  home  by  the 
persons  who  had  been  deputed  by  each  village  to  bring  it.  To  secure 
its  rapid  arrival,  it  was  sometimes  forwarded  by  relays  of  men,  and 
conveyed  with  postal  fleetness  fifty  or  sixty  miles.  In  each  village 
all  who  stayed  at  home  fasted  rigidly  until  the  flesh  arrived..  The 
bearer  deposited  it  in  the  place  of  public  assembly,  where  it  was 
received  by  the  priest  and  the  heads  of  families,  the  priest  divided 
it  into  two  portions,  one  of  which  he  offered  to  the  Earth  Goddess 
by  burying  it  in  a  hole  in  the  ground  with  his  back  turned,  and  without 
looking.  Then  each  man  added  a  little  earth  to  bury  it,  and  the 
priest  poured  water  on  the  spot  from  a  hill  gourd.  The  other  portion 
of  flesh  he  divided  into  as  many  shares  as  there  were  heads  of  houses 
present.  Each  head  of  a  house  rolled  his  shred  of  flesh  in  leaves, 
and  buried  it  in  his  favourite  field,  placing  it  in  the  earth  behind  his 
back  without  looking.  In  some  places  each  man  carried  his  portion 
of  flesh  to  the  stream  which  watered  his  fields,  and  there  hung  it  on 
a  pole.  For  three  days  thereafter  no  house  was  swept  ;  and,  in  one: 
district,  strict  silence  was  observed,  no  fire  might  be  given  out,  no 
wood  cut,  and  no  strangers  received.  The  remains  of  the  human 
victim  (namely,  the  head,  bowels,  and  bones)  were  watched  by  strong 
parties  the  night  after  the  sacrifice  ;  and  next  morning  they  were 
burned,  along  with  a  whole  sheep,  on  a  funeral  pile.  The  ashes  were 
scattered  over  the  fields,  laid  as  paste  over  the  houses  and  granaries, 
or  mixed  with  the  new  corn  to  preserve  it  from  insects.  Sometimes, 
however,  the  head  and  bones  were  buried,  not  burnt.  After  the 
suppression  of  the  human  sacrifices,  inferior  victims  were  substituted 
in  some  places  ;  for  instance,  in  the  capital  of  Chinna  Kimedy  a  goaf 
took  the  place  of  a  human  victim.  Others  sacrifice  a  buffalo. .  The^ 
tie  it  to  a  wooden  post  in  a  sacred  grove,  dance  wildly  round  it  with 
brandished  knives,  then,  falling  on  the  living  animal,  hack  it  to  shrede 
and  tatters  in  a  few  minutes,  fighting  and  struggling  with  each  othei 
for  every  particle  of  flesh.  As  soon  as  a  man  has  secured  a  piece  ht 
makes  off  with  it  at  full  speed  to  bury  it  in  his  fields,  according  tc 


XL vii  HUMAN  SACRIFICES  FOR  THE  CROPS  437 

ancient  custom,  before  the  sun  has  set,  and  as  some  of  them  have  far 

i 

to  go  they  must  run  very  fast.  All  the  women  throw  clods  of  earth 
at  the  rapidly  retreating  figures  of  the  men,  some  of  them  taking  very 
good  aim.  Soon  the  sacred  grove,  so  lately  a  scene  of  tumult,  is  silent 
and  deserted  except  for  a  few  people  who  remain  to  guard  all  that  is 
left  of  the  buffalo,  to  wit,  the  head,  the  bones,  and  the  stomach,  which 
are  burned  with  ceremony  at  the  foot  of  the  stake. 

In  these  Khond  sacrifices  the  Meriahs  are  represented  by  our 
authorities  as  victims  offered  to  propitiate  the  Earth  Goddess.  But 
irom  the  treatment  of  the  victims  both  before  and  after  death  it  appears 
that  the  custom  cannot  be  explained  as  merely  a  propitiatory  sacrifice. 
A  part  of  the  flesh  certainly  was  offered  to  the  Earth  Goddess,  but 
the  rest  was  buried  by  each  householder  in  his  fields,  and  the  ashes 
of  the  other  parts  of  the  body  were  scattered  over  the  fields,  laid  as 
paste  on  the  granaries,  or  mixed  with  the  new  corn.  These  latter 
customs  imply  that  to  the  body  of  the  Meriah  there  was  ascribed  a 
direct  or  intrinsic  power  of  making  the  crops  to  grow,  quite  independ¬ 
ent  of  the  indirect  efficacy  which  it  might  have  as  an  offering  to  secure 
the  good-will  of  the  deity.  In  other  words,  the  flesh  and  ashes  of 
the  victim  were  believed  to  be  endowed  with  a  magical  or  physical 
power  oFfertilising  the  land.  The  same  intrinsic  power  was  ascribed" 
to  the  blood  and  tears  of  the  Meriah,  his  blood  causing  the  redness 
of  the  turmeric  and  his  tears  producing  rain  ;  for  it  can  hardly  be 
doubted  that,  originally  at  least,  the  tears  were  supposed  to  bring 
down  the  rain,*not  merely  to  prognosticate  it.  Similarly  the  custom 
of  pouring  water  on  the  buried  flesh  of  the  Meriah  was  no  doubt  a 
rain-charm.  Again,  magical  power  as  an  attribute  of  the  Meriah 
appears  in  the  sovereign  virtue  believed  to  reside  in  anything  that 
came  from  his  person,  as  his  hair  or  spittle.  The  ascription  of  such 
power  to  the  Meriah  indicates  that  he  was  much  more  than  a  mere 
man  sacrificed  to  propitiate  a  deity.  Once  more,  the  extreme  rever¬ 
ence  paid  him  points  to  the  same  conclusion.  Major  Campbell  speaks 
of  the  Meriah  as  “  being  regarded  as  something  more  than  mortal, ” 
and  Major  Macpherson  says,  “  A  species  of  reverence,  which  it  is  not 
easy  to  distinguish  from  adoration,  is  paid  to  him/’  In  short,  the 
Meriah  seems  to  have  been  regarded  as  divine.  As  such,  he  may 
originally  have  represented  the  Earth  Goddess  or,  perhaps,  a  deity 
of  vegetation  ;  though  in  later  times  he  came  to  be  regarded  rather 
as  a  victim  offered  to  a  deity  than  as  himself  an  incarnate  god.  This 
later  view  of  the  Meriah  as  a  victim  rather  than  a  divinity  may  perhaps 
have  received  undue  emphasis  from  the  European  writers  who  have 
described  the  Khond  religion.  Habituated  to  the  later  idea  of  sacrifice 
as  an  offering  made  to  a  god  for  the  purpose  of  conciliating  his  favour, 
European  observers  are  apt  to  interpret  all  religious  slaughter  in  this 
sense,  and  to  suppose  that  wherever  such  slaughter  takes  place,  there 
must  necessarily  be  a  deity  to  whom  the  carnage  is  believed  by  the 
slayers  to  be  acceptable.  Thus  their  preconceived  ideas  may  uncon¬ 
sciously  colour  and  warp  their  descriptions  of  savage  rites. 


43§ 


LITYERSES 


CH. 


The  same  custom  of  killing  the  representative  of  a  god,  of  which 
strong  traces  appear  in  the  Khond  sacrifices,  may  perhaps  be  detected 
in  some  of  the  other  human  sacrifices  described  above.  Thus  the 
ashes  of  the  slaughtered  Marimo  were  scattered  over  the  fields  ;  the 
blood  of  the  Brahman  lad  was  put  on  the  crop  and  held  ;  the  flesh  of 
the  slain  Naga  was  stowed  in  the  corn-bin  ;  and  the  blood  of  the 
Sioux  girl  was  allowed  to  trickle  on  the  seed.  Again,  the  identification 
of  the  victim  with  the  corn,  in  other  words,  the  view  that  he  is  an 
embodiment  or  spirit  of  the  corn,  is  brought  out  in  the  pains  which 
seem  to  be  taken  to  secure  a  physical  correspondence  between  him 
and  the  natural  object  which  he  embodies  or  represents.  Thus  the 
Mexicans  killed  young  victims  for  the  young  com  and  old  ones  for 
the  ripe  corn ;  the  Marimos  sacrifice,  as  “  seed,”  a  short,  fat  man, 
the  shortness  of  his  stature  corresponding  to  that  of  the  young  corn, 
his  fatness  to  the  condition  which  it  is  desired  that  the  crops  may 
attain  ;  and  the  Pawnees  fattened  their  victims  probably  with  the 
same  view.  Again,  the  identification  of  the  victim  with  the  corn 
comes  out  in  the  African  custom  of  killing  him  with  spades  and  hoes, 1 
and  the  Mexican  custom  of  grinding  him,  like  corn,  between  two  stones. 

One  more  point  in  these  savage  customs  deserves  to  be  noted. 
The  Pawnee  chief  devoured  the  heart  of  the  Sioux  girl,  and  the  Marimos 
and  Gonds  ate  the  victim’s  flesh.  If,  as  we  suppose,  the  victim  was 
regarded  as  divine,  it  follows  that  in  eating  his  flesh  his  worshippers 
believed  themselves  to  be  partaking  of  the  body  of  tfigp:  god. 

§  4.  The  Corn-spirit  slain  in  his  Human  Representatives. — The 
barbarous  rites  just  described  offer  analogies  to  the  harvest  customs 
of  Europe.  Thus  the  fertilising  virtue  ascribed  to  the  corn-spirit  is 
shown  equally  in  the  savage  custom  of  mixing  the  victim’s  blood  or 
ashes  with  the  seed-com  and  the  European  custom  of  mixing  the 
grain  from  the  last  sheaf  with  the  young  corn  in  spring.  Again,  the 
identification  of  the  person  with  the  corn  appears  alike  in  the  savage 
custom  of  adapting  the  age  and  stature  of  the  victim  to  the  age  and 
stature,  whether  actual  or  expected,  of  the  crop  ;•  in  the  Scotch  and 
Styrian  rules  that  when  the  corn-spirit  is  conceived  as  the  Maiden 
the  last  corn  shall  be  cut  by  a  young  maiden,  but  when  it  is  conceived 
as  the  Corn-mother  it  shall  be  cut  by  an  old  woman ;  in  the  warning  given 
to  old  women  in  Lorraine  to  save  themselves  when  the  Old  Woman 
is  being  killed,  that  is,  when  the  last  com  is  being  threshed  ;  and  in 
the  Tyrolese  expectation  that  if  the  man  who  gives  the  last  stroke 
at  threshing  is  tall,  the  next  year’s  com  will  be  tall  also.  Further, 
the  same  identification  is  implied  in  the  savage  custom  of  killing  the 
representative  of  the  corn-spirit  with  hoes  or  spades  or  by  grinding 
him  between  stones,  and  in  the  European  custom  of  pretending  to 
kill  him  with  the  scythe  or  the  flail.  Once  more  the  Khond  custom 
of  pouring  water  on  the  buried  flesh  of  the  victim  is  parallel  to  the 
European  customs  of  pouring  water  on  the  personal  representative 
of  the  corn-spirit  or  plunging  him  into  a  stream.  Both  the  Khond 
and  the  European  customs  are  rain-charms. 


XLVII 


CORN-SPIRIT  SLAIN  IN  REPRESENTATIVES 


439 


To  return  now  to  the  Lityerses  story.  It  has  been  shown  that 
in  rude  society  human  beings  have  been  commonly  killed  to  promote 
the  growth  of  the  crops.  There  is  therefore  no  improbability  in  the 
supposition  that  they  may  once  have  been  killed  for  a  like  purpose 
in  Phrygia  and  Europe  ;  and  when  Phrygian  legend  and  European 
folk-custom,  closely  agreeing  with  each  other,  point  to  the  conclusion 
that  men  were  so  slain,  we  are  bound,  provisionally  at  least,  to  accept 
the  conclusion.  Further,  both  the  Lityerses  story  and  European 
harvest-customs  agree  in  indicating  that  the  victim  was  put  to  death 
3s  a  representative  of  the  corn-spirit,  and  this  indication  is  in  harmony 
withTEe  view  which  some  savages  appear  to  take  of  the  victim  slain 
to  make  the  crops  flourish^  On  the  whole,  then,  we  may  fairly  suppose 
that  both  in  Phrygia  and  in  Europe  the  representative  of  the  corn- 
spirit  was  annually  killed  upon  the  harvest-held.  Grounds  have  been 
already  shown  for  believing  that  similarly  in  Europe  the  representa¬ 
tive  of  the  tree-spirit  was  annually  slain.  The  proofs  of  these  two 
remarkable  and  closely  analogous  customs  are  entirely  independent 
of  each  other.  Their  coincidence  seems  to  furnish  fresh  presumption 
in  favour  of  both. 

To  the  question,  How  was  the  representative  of  the  corn-spirit 
chosen  ?  one  answer  has  been  already  given.  Both  the  Lityerses 
story  and  European  folk-custom  show  that  passing  strangers  were 
regarded  as  manifestations  of  the  corn-spirit  escaping  from  the  cut 
or  threshed  corn,  and  as  such  were  seized  and  slain.  But  this  is  not 
the  only  answer  which  the  evidence  suggests.  According  to  the 
Phrygian  legend  the  victims  of  Lityerses  were  not  simply  passing 
strangers,  but  persons  whom  he  had  vanquished  in  a  reaping  contest 
and  afterwards  wrapt  up  in  corn-sheaves  and  beheaded.  This  suggests 
that  the  representative  of  the  corn-spirit  may  have  been  selected 
by  means  of  a  competition  on  the  harvest-field,  in  which  the  van¬ 
quished  competitor  was  compelled  to  accept  the  fatal  honour.  The 
'  supposition  is  countenanced  by  European  harvest-customs.  We  have 
seen  that  in  Europe  there  is  sometimes  a  contest  amongst  the  reapers 
to  avoid  being  last,  and  that  the  person  who  is  vanquished  in  this 
competition,  that  is,  who  cuts  the  last  corn,  is  often  roughly  handled. 
It  is  true  we  have  not  found  that  a  pretence  is  made  of  killing  him  ; 
but  on  the  other  hand  we  have  found  that  a  pretence  is  made  of  killing 
the  man  who  gives  the  last  stroke  at  threshing,  that  is,  who  is  van¬ 
quished  in  the  threshing  contest.  Now,  since  it  is  in  the  character 
of  representative  of  the  corn-spirit  that  the  thresher  of  the  last  corn 
is  slain  in  mimicry,  and  since  the  same  representative  character 
attaches  (as  we  have  seen)  to  the  cutter  and  binder  as  well  as  to  the 
thresher  of  the  last  corn,  and  since  the  same  repugnance  is  evinced 
by  harvesters  to  be  last  in  any  one  of  these  labours,  we  may  conjecture 
that  a  pretence  has  been  commonly  made  of  killing  the  reaper  and 
binder  as  well  as  the  thresher  of  the  last  com,  and  that  in  ancient  times 
this  killing  was  actually  carried  out.  This  conjecture  is  corroborated 
by  the  common  superstition  that  whoever  cuts  the  last  corn  must 


440 


LITYERSES 


CH. 


die  soon.  Sometimes  it  is  thought  that  the  person  who  binds  the 
last  sheaf  on  the  field  will  die  in  the  course  of  next  year.  The  reason 
for  fixing  on  the  reaper,  binder,  or  thresher  of  the  last  corn  as  the 
representative  of  the  corn-spirit  may  be  this.  The  corn-spirit  is 
supposed  to  lurk  as  long  as  he  can  in  the  corn,  retreating  before  the 
reapers,  the  binders,  and  the  threshers  at  their  work.  But  when 
he  is  forcibly  expelled  from  his  refuge  in  the  last  corn  cut  or  the  last 
sheaf  bound  or  the  last  grain  threshed,  he  necessarily  assumes  some 
other  form  than  that  of  the  corn-stalks,  which  had  hitherto  been  his 
garment  or  body.  And  what  form  can  the  expelled  corn-spirit  assume 
more  naturally  than  that  of  the  person  who  stands  nearest  to  the 
corn  from  which  he  (the  corn-spirit)  has  just  been  expelled  ?  But  the 
person  in  question  is  necessarily  the  reaper,  binder,  or  thresher  of 
the  last  corn.  He  or  she,  therefore,  is  seized  and  treated  as  the  corn- 
spirit  himself. 

Thus  the  person  who  was  killed  on  the  harvest-field  as  the  repre¬ 
sentative  of  the  corn-spirit  may  have  been  either  a  passing  stranger  or 
the  harvester  who  was  last  at  reaping,  binding,  or  threshing.  But 
there  is  a  third  possibility,  to  which  ancient  legend  and  modern 
folk-custom  alike  point.  (^Lityerses  not  only  put  strangers  to  death  ; 
he  was  himself  slain,  and  apparently  in  the  same  way  as  he  had  slain 
others,  namely,  by  being  wrapt  in  a  corn-sheaf,  beheaded,  and  cast 
into  the  river  ;  and  it  is  implied  that  this  happened  to  Lityerses  on 
his  own  land.  Similarly  in  modern  harvest-customs  the  pretence  of 
killing  appears  to  be  carried  out  quite  as  often  on  the  person  of  the 
master  (farmer  or  squire)  as  on  that  of  strangers.  Now  when  we 
remember  that  Lityerses  was  said  to  have  been  a  son  of  the  King  of 
Phrygia,  and  that  in  one  account  he  is  himself  called  a  king,  and 
when  we  combine  with  this  the  tradition  that  he  was  put  to  death, 
apparently  as  a  representative  of  the  corn-spirit,  we  are  led  to  conjec¬ 
ture  that  we  have  here  another  trace  of  the  custom  of  annually  slaying 
one  of  those  divine  or  priestly  kings  who  are  known  to  have  held 
ghostly  sway  in  many  parts  of  Western  Asia  and  particularly  in 
Phrygia.  The  custom  appears,  as  we  have  seen,  to  have  been  so 
far  modified  in  places  that  the  king’s  son  was  slain  in  the  king’s  stead. 
Of  the  custom  thus  modified  the  story  of  Lityerses  would  be,  in  one 
version  at  least,  a  reminiscence. 

Turning  now  to  the  relation  of  the  Phrygian  Lityerses  to  the 
Phrygian  Attis,  it  may  be  remembered  that  at  Pessinus — the  seat  of 
a  priestly  kingship — the  high-priest  appears  to  have  been  annually 
slain  in  the  character  oTWttis.  a  god  of  vegetation,  and  that  Attis  was 
described  by  an  ancient  authority  as  77  a  reaped  ear  of  corn.”  Thus 
Attis,  as  an  embodiment  of  the  corn-spirit,  annually  slain  in  the 
person  of  his  representative,  might  be  thought  to  be  ultimately 
identical  with  Lityerses,  the  latter  being  simply  the  rustic  prototype 
out  of  which  the  state  religion  of  Attis  was  developed.  It  may  have 
been  so  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  analogy  of  European  folk- 
custom  warns  us  that  amongst  the  same  people  two  distinct  deities 


xlvii  CORN-SPIRIT  SLAIN  IN  REPRESENTATIVES 


441 


of  vegetation  may  have  their  separate  personal  representatives,  both 
of  whom  are  slain  in  the  character  of  gods  at  different  times  of  the 
year.  For  in  Europe,  as  we  have  seen,  it  appears  that  one  man  was 
commonly  slain  in  the  character  of  the  tree-spirit  in  spring,  and 
another  in  the  character  of  the  corn-spirit  in  autumn.  It  may  have 
been  so  in  Phrygia  also.  Attis  was  especially  a  tree-god,  and  his 
connexion  with  corn  may  have  been  only  such  an  extension  of  the 
power  of  a  tree-spirit  as  is  indicated  in  customs  like  the  Harvest- 
May.  Again,  the  representative  of  Attis  appears  to  have  been  slain 
in  spring  ;  whereas  Lityerses  must  have  been  slain  in  summer  or 
autumn,  according  to  the  time  of  the  harvest  in  Phrygia.  On  the 
whole,  then,  while  we  are  not  justified  in  regarding  Lityerses  as  the 
prototype  of  Attis,  the  two  may  be  regarded  as  parallel  products  of 
the  same  religious  idea,  and  may  have  stood  to  each  other  as  in 
Europe  the  Old  Man  of  harvest  stands  to  the  Wild  Man,  the  Leaf  Man, 
and  so  forth,  of  spring.  Both  were  spirits  or  deities  of  vegetation, 
and  the  personal  representatives  of  both  were  annually  slain.  But 
whereas  the  Attis  worship  became  elevated  into  the  dignity  of  a  state 
religion  and  spread  to  Italy,  the  rites  of  Lityerses  seem  never  to  have 
passed  the  limits  of  their  native  Phrygia,  and  always  retained  their 
character  of  rustic  ceremonies  performed  by  peasants  on  the  harvest- 
field.  At  most  a  few  villages  may  have  clubbed  together,  as  amongst 
the  Khonds,  to  procure  a  human  victim  to  be  slain  as  representative 
of  the  corn-spirit  for  their  common  benefit.  Such  victims  may  have 
been  drawn  from  the  families  of  priestly  kings  or  kinglets,  which  would 
account  for  the  legendary  character  of  Lityerses  as  the  son  of  a  Phrygian 
king  or  as  himself  a  king.  When  villages  did  not  so  club  together,  each 
village  or  farm  may  have  procured  its  own  representative  of  the 
corn-spirit  by  dooming  to  death  either  a  passing  stranger  or  the 
harvester  who  cut,  bound,  or  threshed  the  last  sheaf.  Perhaps  in 
the  olden  time  the  practice  of  head-hunting  as  a  means  of  promoting 
the  growth  of  the  corn  may  have  been  as  common  among  the  rude 
inhabitants  of  Europe  and  Western  Asia  as  it  still  is,  or  was  till  lately, 
among  the  primitive  agricultural  tribes  of  Assam,  Burma,  the  Philip¬ 
pine  Islands,  and  the  Indian  Archipelago.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to 
add  that  in  Phrygia,  as  in  Europe,  the  old  barbarous  custom  of  killing 
a  man  on  the  harvest-field  or  the  threshing-floor  had  doubtless  passed 
into  a  mere  pretence  long  before  the  classical  era,  and  was  probably 
regarded  by  the  reapers  and  threshers  themselves  as  no  more  than 
a  rough  jest  which  the  license  of  a  harvest-home  permitted  them  to 
play  off  on  a  passing  stranger,  a  comrade,  or  even  on  their  master 
himself. 

I  have  dwelt  on  the  Lityerses  song  at  length  because  it  affords 
so  many  points  of  comparison  with  European  and  savage  folk-custom. 
The  other  harvest  songs  of  Western  Asia  and  Egypt,  to  which  atten¬ 
tion  has  been  called  above,  may  now  be  dismissed  much  more  briefly. 
The  similarity  of  the  Bithynian  Bormus  to  the  Phrygian  Lityerses 
helps  to  bear  out  the  interpretation  which  has  been  given  of  the  latter. 


442 


LITYERSES 


CH. 


Bormus,  whose  death  or  rather  disappearance  was  annually  mourned 
by  the  reapers  in  a  plaintive  song,  was,  like  Lityerses,  a  king’s  son  or 
at  least  the  son  of  a  wealthy  and  distinguished  man.  The  reapers 
whom  he  watched  were  at  work  on  his  own  fields,  and  he  disappeared 
in  going  to  fetch  water  for  them  ;  according  to  one  version  of  the 
story  he  was  carried  off  by  the  nymphs,  doubtless  the  nymphs  of  the 
spring  or  pool  or  river  whither  he  went  to  draw  water.  Viewed  in 
the  light  of  the  Lityerses  story  and  of  European  folk-custom,  this 
disappearance  of  Bormus  may  be  a  reminiscence  of  the  custom  of 
binding  the  farmer  himself  in  a  corn-sheaf  and  throwing  him  into  the 
water.  The  mournful  strain  which  the  reapers  sang  was  probably  a 
lamentation  over  the  death  of  the  corn-spirit,  slain  either  in  the  cut 
corn  or  in  the  person  of  a  human  representative  ;  and  the  call  which 
they  addressed  to  him  may  have  been  a  prayer  that  he  might  return 
in  fresh  vigour  next  year. 

The  Phoenician  Linus  song  was  sung  at  the  vintage,  at  least  in 
the  west  of  Asia  Minor,  as  we  learn  from  Homer  ;  and  this,  combined 
with  the  legend  of  Syleus,  suggests  that  in  ancient  times  passing 
strangers  were  handled  by  vintagers  and  vine-diggers  in  much  the 
same  way  as  they  are  said  to  have  been  handled  by  the  reaper 
Lityerses.  The  Lydian  Syleus,  so  ran  the  legend,  compelled  passers-by 
to  dig  for  him  in  his  vineyard,  till  Hercules  came  and  killed  him  and 
dug  up  his  vines  by  the  roots.  This  seems  to  be  the  outline  of  a 
legend  like  that  of  Lityerses  ;  but  neither  ancient  writers  nor  modern 
folk-custom  enable  us  to  fill  in  the  details.  But,  further,  the  Linus 
song  was  probably  sung  also  by  Phoenician  reapers,  for  Herodotus 
compares  it  to  the  Maneros  song,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  a  lament 
raised  by  Egyptian  reapers  over  the  cut  corn.  Further,  Linus  was 
identified  with  Adonis,  and  Adonis  has  some  claims  to  be  regarded 
as  especially  a  corn-deity.  Thus  the  Linus  lament,  as  sung  at  harvest, 
wrould  be  identical  with  the  Adonis  lament ;  each  would  be  the 
lamentation  raised  by  reapers  over  the  dead  spirit  of  the  corn.  But 
whereas  Adonis,  like  Attis,  grew  into  a  stately  figure  of  mythology, 
adored  and  mourned  in  splendid  cities  far  beyond  the  limits  of  his 
Phoenician  home,  Linus  appears  to  have  remained  a  simple  ditty 
sung  by  reapers  and  vintagers  among  the  corn-sheaves  and  the  vines. 
The  analogy  of  Lityerses  and  of  folk-custom,  both  European  and 
savage,  suggests  that  in  Phoenicia  the  slain  corn-spirit — the  dead 
Adonis — may  formerly  have  been  represented  by  a  human  victim ; 
and  this  suggestion  is  possibly  supported  by  the  Harran  legend  that 
Tammuz  (Adonis)  was  slain  by  his  cruel  lord,  who  ground  his  bones 
in  a  mill  and  scattered  them  to  the  wind.  For  in  Mexico,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  human  victim  at  harvest  was  crushed  between  two  stones  ; 
and  both  in  Africa  and  India  the  ashes  or  other  remains  of  the  victim 
were  scattered  over  the  fields.  But  the  Harran  legend  may  be  only 
a  mythical  way  of  expressing  the  grinding  of  corn  in  the  mill  and  the 
scattering  of  the  seed.  It  seems  worth  suggesting  that  the  mock 
king  who  was  annually  killed  at  the  Babylonian  festival  of  the  Sacaea 


XL vii  CORN-SPIRIT  SLAIN  IN  REPRESENTATIVES 


443 


on  the  sixteenth  day  of  the  month  Lous  may  have  represented  Tammuz 
himself.  For  the  historian  Berosus,  who  records  the  festival  and  its 
date,  probably  used  the  Macedonian  calendar,  since  he  dedicated  his 
history  to  Antiochus  Soter  ;  and  in  his  day  the  Macedonian  month 
Lous  appears  to  have  corresponded  to  the  Babylonian  month  Tammuz. 
If  this  conjecture  is  right,  the  view  that  the  mock  king  at  the  Sacaea 
was  slain  in  the  character  of  a  god  would  be  established. 

There  is  a  good  deal  more  evidence  that  in  Egypt  the  slain  corn- 
spirit — the  dead  Osiris — was  represented  by  a  human  victim,  whom 
the  reapers  slew  on  the  harvest-field,  mourning  his  death  in  a  dirge, 
to  which  the  Greeks,  through  a  verbal  misunderstanding,  gave  the 
name  of  Maneros.  For  the  legend  of  Busiris  seems  to  preserve  a 
reminiscence  of  human  sacrifices  once  offered  by  the  Egyptians  in 
connexion  with  the  worship  of  Osiris.  Busiris  was  said  to  have  been 
an  Egyptian  king  who  sacrificed  all  strangers  on  the  altar  of  Zeus. 
The  origin  of  the  custom  was  traced  to  a  dearth  which  afflicted  the 
land  of  Egypt  for  nine  years.  A  Cyprian  seer  informed  Busiris  that 
the  dearth  would  cease  if  a  man  were  annually  sacrificed  to  Zeus.  So 
Busiris  instituted  the  sacrifice.  But  when  Hercules  came  to  Egypt, 
and  was  being  dragged  to  the  altar  to  be  sacrificed,  he  burst  his  bonds 
and  slew  Busiris  and  his  son.  Here  then  is  a  legend  that  in  Egypt  a 
human  victim  was  annually  sacrificed  to  prevent  the  failure  of  the 
crops,  and  a  belief  is  implied  that  an  omission  of  the  sacrifice  would 
have  entailed  a  recurrence  of  that  infertility  which  it  was  the  object 
of  the  sacrifice  to  prevent.  So  the  Pawnees,  as  we  have  seen,  believed 
that  an  omission  of  the  human  sacrifice  at  planting  would  have  been 
followed  by  a  total  failure  of  their  crops.  The  name  Busiris  was  in 
reality  the  name  of  a  city,  pe-Asar,  “  the  house  of  Osiris/’  the  city 
being  so  called  because  it  contained  the  grave  of  Osiris.  Indeed  some 
high  modern  authorities  believe  that  Busiris  was  the  original  home  of 
Osiris,  from  which  his  worship  spread  to  other  parts  of  Egypt.  The 
human  sacrifices  were  said  to  have  been  offered  at  his  grave,  and  the 
victims  were  red-haired  men,  whose  ashes  were  scattered  abroad  by 
means  of  winno wing-fans.  This  tradition  of  human  sacrifices  offered 
at  the  tomb  of  Osiris  is  confirmed  by  the  evidence  of  the  monuments. 

In  the  light  of  the  foregoing  discussion  the  Egyptian  tradition  of 
Busiris  admits  of  a  consistent  and  fairly  probable  explanation.  Osiris, 
the  corn-spirit,  was  annually  represented  at  harvest  by  a  stranger, 
whose  red  hair  made  him  a  suitable  representative  of  the  ripe  corn. 
This  man,  in  his  representative  character,  was  slain  on  the  harvest- 
field,  and  mourned  by  the  reapers,  who  prayed  at  the  same  time  that 
the  corn-spirit  might  revive  and  return  ( mdd-ne-rha ,  Maneros)  with} 
renewed  vigour  in  the  following  year.  Finally,  the  victim,  or  some 
part  of  him,  was  burned,  and  the  ashes  scattered  by  winnowing-fans 
over  the  fields  to  fertilise  them.  Here  the  choice  of  the  victim  on  the 
ground  of  his  resemblance  to  the  corn  which  he  was  to  represent  agrees 
with  the  Mexican  and  African  customs  already  described.  Similarly 
the  woman  who  died  in  the  character  of  the  Corn-mother  at  the  Mexican 


444 


LITYERSES 


CH. 


midsummer  sacrifice  had  her  face  painted  red  and  yellow  in  token  of 
the  colours  of  the  corn,  and  she  wore  a  pasteboard  mitre  surmounted 
by  waving  plumes  in  imitation  of  the  tassel  of  the  maize.  On  the 
other  hand,  at  the  festival  of  the  Goddess  of  the  White  Maize  the 
Mexicans  sacrificed  lepers.  The  Romans  sacrificed  red-haired  puppies 
in  spring  to  avert  the  supposed  blighting  influence  of  the  Dog-star, 
believing  that  the  crops  would  thus  grow  ripe  and  ruddy.  The  heathen 
of  Harran  offered  to  the  sun,  moon,  and  planets  human  victims  who 
were  chosen  on  the  ground  of  their  supposed  resemblance  to  the 
heavenly  bodies  to  which  they  were  sacrificed  ;  for  example,  the 
priests,  clothed  in  red  and  smeared  with  blood,  offered  a  red-haired, 
red-cheeked  man  to  “  the  red  planet  Mars  ”  in  a  temple  which  was 
painted  red  and  draped  with  red  hangings.  These  and  the  like  cases 
of  assimilating  the  victim  to  the  god,  or  to  the  natural  phenomenon 
which  he  represents,  are  based  ultimately  on  the  principle  of  homoeo¬ 
pathic  or  imitative  magic,  the  notion  being  that  the  object  aimed  at 
will  be  most  readily  attained  by  means  of  a  sacrifice  which  resembles 
the  effect  that  it  is  designed  to  bring  about. 

The  story  that  the  fragments  of  Osiris’s  body  were  scattered  up 
and  down  the  land,  and  buried  by  Isis  on  the  spots  where  they  lay, 
may  very  well  be  a  reminiscence  of  a  custom,  like  that  observed  by  the 
Khonds,  of  dividing  the  human  victim  in  pieces  and  burying  the  pieces, 
often  at  intervals  of  many  miles  from  each  other,  in  the  fields. 

Thus,  if  I  am  right,  the  key  to  the  mysteries  of  Osiris  is  furnished 
by  the  melancholy  cry  of  the  Egyptian  reapers,  which  down  to  Roman 
times  could  be  heard  year  after  year  sounding  across  the  fields,  announ¬ 
cing  the  death  of  the  corn-spirit,  the  rustic  prototype  of  Osiris.  Similar 
cries,  as  we  have  seen,  were  also  heard  on  all  the  harvest -fields  of 
Western  Asia.  By  the  ancients  they  are  spoken  of  as  songs  ;  but  to 
judge  from  the  analysis  of  the  names  Linus  and  Maneros,  they  probably 
consisted  only  of  a  few  words  uttered  in  a  prolonged  musical  note 
which  could  be  heard  at  a  great  distance.  Such  sonorous  and  long- 
drawn  cries,  raised  by  a  number  of  strong  voices  in  concert,  must  have 
had  a  striking  effect,  and  could  hardly  fail  to  arrest  the  attention  of 
any  wayfarer  who  happened  to  be  within  hearing.  The  sounds, 
repeated  again  and  again,  could  probably  be  distinguished  with 
tolerable  ease  even  at  a  distance  ;  but  to  a  Greek  traveller  in  Asia  or 
Egypt  the  foreign  words  would  commonly  convey  no  meaning,  and  he 
might  take  them,  not  unnaturally,  for  the  name  of  some  one  (Maneros, 
Linus,  Lityerses,  Bormus)  upon  whom  the  reapers  were  calling.  And 
if  his  journey  led  him  through  more  countries  than  one,  as  Bithynia 
and  Phrygia,  or  Phoenicia  and  Egypt,  while  the  corn  was  being  reaped, 
he  would  have  an  opportunity  of  comparing  the  various  harvest  cries 
of  the  different  peoples.  Thus  we  can  readily  understand  why  these 
harvest  cries  were  so  often  noted  and  compared  with  each  other  by 
the  Greeks.  Whereas,  if  they  had  been  regular  songs,  they  could  not 
have  been  heard  at  such  distances,  and  therefore  could  not  have 
attracted  the  attention  of  so  many  travellers  ;  and,  moreover,  even  if 


xlvii  CORN-SPIRIT  SLAIN  IN  REPRESENTATIVES 


445 

the  wayfarer  were  within  hearing  of  them,  he  could  not  so  easily  have 
picked  out  the  words. 

Down  to  recent  times  Devonshire  reapers  uttered  cries  of  the  same 
sort,  and  performed  on  the  field  a  ceremony  exactly  analogous  to  that 
in  which,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  the  rites  of  Osiris  originated.  The  cry 
and  the  ceremony  are  thus  described  by  an  observer  who  wrote  in  the 
first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  "  After  the  wheat  is  all  cut,  on 
most  farms  in  the  north  of  Devon,  the  harvest  people  have  a  custom 
of  ‘  crying  the  neck.’  I  believe  that  this  practice  is  seldom  omitted  on 
any  large  farm  in  that  part  of  the  country.  It  is  done  in  this  way. 
An  old  man,  or  some  one  else  well  acquainted  with  the  ceremonies  used 
on  the  occasion  (when  the  labourers  are  reaping  the  last  field  of  wheat), 
goes  round  to  the  shocks  and  sheaves,  and  picks  out  a  little  bundle  of 
all  the  best  ears  he  can  find  ;  this  bundle  he  ties  up  very  neat  and 
trim,  and  plats  and  arranges  the  straws  very  tastefully.  This  is  called 
‘  the  neck  ’  of  wheat,  or  wheaten-ears.  After  the  field  is  cut  out,  and 
the  pitcher  once  more  circulated,  the  reapers,  binders,  and  the  women 
stand  round  in  a  circle.  The  person  with  f  the  neck  ’  stands  in  the 
centre,  grasping  it  with  both  his  hands.  He  first  stoops  and  holds 
it  near  the  ground,  and  all  the  men  forming  the  ring  take  off  their  hats, 
stooping  and  holding  them  with  both  hands  towards  the  ground. 
They  then  all  begin  at  once  in  a  very  prolonged  and  harmonious  tone 
to  cry  ‘  The  neck  !  ’  at  the  same  time  slowly  raising  themselves  up¬ 
right,  and  elevating  their  arms  and  hats  above  their  heads  ;  the  person 
with  ‘  the  neck  ’  also  raising  it  on  high.  This  is  done  three  times. 
They  then  change  their  cry  to  f  Wee  yen  !  ’ — '  Way  yen  !  ’ — which 
they  sound  in  the  same  prolonged  and  slow  manner  as  before,  with 
singular  harmony  and  effect,  three  times.  This  last  cry  is  accompanied 
by  the  same  movements  of  the  body  and  arms  as  in  crying  ‘  the  neck.’ 

.  .  .  After  having  thus  repeated  ‘  the  neck  *  three  times,  and  ‘  wee 
yen  ’  or  ‘  way  yen  ’  as  often,  they  all  burst  out  into  a  kind  of  loud  and 
joyous  laugh,  flinging  up  their  hats  and  caps  into  the  air,  capering 
about  and  perhaps  kissing  the  girls.  One  of  them  then  gets  ‘  the 
neck  ’  and  runs  as  hard  as  he  can  down  to  the  farmhouse,  where  the 
dairymaid,  or  one  of  the  young  female  domestics,  stands  at  the  door 
prepared  with  a  pail  of  water.  If  he  who  holds  ‘  the  neck  '  can  manage 
to  get  into  the  house,  in  any  way  unseen,  or  openly,  by  any  other  way 
than  the  door  at  which  the  girl  stands  with  the  pail  of  water,  then  he 
may  lawfully  kiss  her  ;  but,  if  otherwise,  he  is  regularly  soused  with  the 
contents  of  the  bucket.  On  a  fine  still  autumn  evening  the  ‘  crying  of 
the  neck  '  has  a  wonderful  effect  at  a  distance,  far  finer  than  that  of 
the  Turkish  muezzin,  which  Lord  Byron  eulogises  so  much,  and  which 
he  says  is  preferable  to  all  the  bells  in  Christendom.  I  have  once  or 
twice  heard  upwards  of  twenty  men  cry  it,  and  sometimes  joined  by 
an  equal  number  of  female  voices.  About  three  years  back,  on  some 
high  grounds,  where  our  people  were  harvesting,  I  heard  six  or  seven 
necks  ’  cried  in  one  night,  although  I  know  that  some  of  them  were 
four  miles  off.  They  are  heard  through  the  quiet  evening  air  at  a 


LITYERSES 


CH 


446 


considerable  distance  sometimes.”  Again,  Mrs.  Bray  tells  how, 
travelling  in  Devonshire,  “  she  saw  a  party  of  reapers  standing  in  a 
circle  on  a  rising  ground,  holding  their  sickles  aloft.  One  in  the  middle 
held  up  some  ears  of  corn  tied  together  with  flowers,  and  the  party 
shouted  three  times  (what  she  writes  as)  ‘  Arnack,  arnack,  arnack,  we 
haven,  we  haven,  we  haven  .’  They  went  home,  accompanied  by  women 
and  children  carrying  boughs  of  flowers,  shouting  and  singing.  The 
manservant  who  attended  Mrs.  Bray  said  ‘  it  was  only  the  people 
making  their  games,  as  they  always  did,  to  the  spirit  of  harvest.’  ” 
Here,  as  Miss  Burne  remarks,  “  ‘  arnack,  we  haven  !  '  is  obviously  in 
the  Devon  dialect,  ‘  a  neck  (or  nack)  !  we  have  un  !  ’  ” 

Another  account  of  this  old  custom,  written  at  Truro  in  1839,  runs 
thus  :  “  Now,  when  all  the  corn  was  cut  at  Heligan,  the  farming  men 
and  maidens  come  in  front  of  the  house,  and  bring  with  them  a  small 
sheaf  of  corn,  the  last  that  has  been  cut,  and  this  is  adorned  with 
ribbons  and  flowers,  and  one  part  is  tied  quite  tight,  so  as  to  look  like 
a  neck.  Then  they  cry  out  ‘  Our  (my)  side,  my  side/  as  loud  as  they 
can  ;  then  the  dairymaid  gives  the  neck  to  the  head  farming-man. 
He  takes  it,  and  says,  very  loudly  three  times,  ‘  I  have  him,  I  have 
him,  I  have  him.’  Then  another  farming-man  shouts  very  loudly, 

*  What  have  ye  ?  what  have  ye  ?  what  have  ye  ?  ’  Then  the  first 
says,  ‘  A  neck,  a  neck,  a  neck/  And  when  he  has  said  this,  all  the 
people  make  a  very  great  shouting.  This  they  do  three  times,  and 
after  one  famous  shout  go  away  and  eat  supper,  and  dance,  and  sing 
songs.”  According  to  another  account,  “  all  went  out  to  the  field 
when  the  last  corn  was  cut,  the  ‘  neck  ’  was  tied  with  ribbons  and 
plaited,  and  they  danced  round  it,  and  carried  it  to  the  great  kitchen, 
where  by-and-by  the  supper  was.  The  words  were  as  given  in  the 
previous  account,  and  ‘  Hip,  hip,  hack,  heck,  I  have  ’ee,  I  have  ’ee, 

I  have  ’ee.’  It  was  hung  up  in  the  hall.”  Another  account  relates 
that  one  of  the  men  rushed  from  the  field  with  the  last  sheaf,  while  1 
the  rest  pursued  him  with  vessels  of  water,  which  they  tried  to  throw 
over  the  sheaf  before  it  could  be  brought  into  the  barn. 

In  the  foregoing  customs  a  particular  bunch  of  ears,  generally  the 
last  left  standing,  is  conceived  as  the  neck  of  the  corn-spirit,  who  is 
consequently  beheaded  when  the  bunch  is  cut  down.  Similarly  in 
Shropshire  the  name  “  neck,”  or  "  the  gander’s  neck,”  used  to  be 
commonly  given  to  the  last  handful  of  ears  left  standing  in  the  middle 
of  the  field  when  all  the  rest  of  the  corn  was  cut.  It  was  plaited 
together,  and  the  reapers,  standing  ten  or  twenty  paces  off,  threw  their 
sickles  at  it.  Whoever  cut  it  through  was  said  to  have  cut  off  the 
gander’s  neck.  The  “  neck  ”  was  taken  to  the  farmer’s  wife,  who  was 
supposed  to  keep  it  in  the  house  for  good  luck  till  the  next  harvest 
came  round.  Near  Treves,  the  man  who  reaps  the  last  standing  corn 
“  cuts  the  goat’s  neck  off.”  At  Faslane,  on  the  Gareloch  (Dumbarton¬ 
shire),  the  last  handful  of  standing  corn  was  sometimes  called  the 
“  head.”  At  Aurich,  in  East  Friesland,  the  man  who  reaps  the  last 
corn  “  cuts  the  hare’s  tail  off.”  In  mowing  down  the  last  corner  of  a 


xlviii  ANIMAL  EMBODIMENTS  OF  THE  CORN-SPIRIT  447 

field  French  reapers  sometimes  call  out,  “  We  have  the  cat  by  the 
tail."  In  Bresse  (Bourgogne)  the  last  sheaf  represented  the  fox. 
Beside  it  a  score  of  ears  were  left  standing  to  form  the  tail,  and  each 
reaper,  going  back  some  paces,  threw  his  sickle  at  it.  He  who  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  severing  it  “  cut  off  the  fox’s  tail,”  and  a  cry  of  "  You  cou 
cou  !  ”  was  raised  in  his  honour.  These  examples  leave  no  room  to 
doubt  the  meaning  of  the  Devonshire  and  Cornish  expression  “  the 
neck,”  as  applied  to  the  last  sheaf.  The  corn-spirit  is  conceived  in 
human  or  animal  form,  and  the  last  standing  corn  is  part  of  its  body— 
its  neck,  its  head,  or  its  tail.  Sometimes,  as  we  have  seen,  the  last  corn 
is  regarded  as  the  navel-string.  Lastly,  the  Devonshire  custom  of 
drenching  with  water  the  person  who  brings  in  “  the  neck  ”  is  a  rain- 
charm,  such  as  we  have  had  many  examples  of.  Its  parallel  in  the 
mysteries  of  Osiris  was  the  custom  of  pouring  water  on  the  image  of 
Osiris  or  on  the  person  who  represented  him. 


CHAPTER  XLVIII 

THE  CORN-SPIRIT  AS  AN  ANIMAL 

§  i.  Animal  Embodiments  of  the  Corn-spirit.  -In  some  of  the  examples 
which  I  have  cited  to  establish  the  meaning  of  the  term  “  neck  ”  as 
applied  to  the  last  sheaf,  the  corn-spirit  appears  in  animal  form  as  a 
gander,  a  goat,  a  hare,  a  cat,  and  a  fox.  This  introduces  us  to  a  new 
aspect  of  the  corn-spirit,  which  we  must  now  examine.  By  doing  so 
we  shall  not  only  have  fresh  examples  of  killing  the  god,  but  may 
hope  also  to  clear  up  some  points  which  remain  obscure  in  the  myths 
and  worship  of  Adonis,  Attis,  Osiris,  Dionysus,  Demeter,  and  Virbius. 

Amongst  the  many  animals  whose  forms  the  corn-spirit  is  supposed 
to  take  are  the  wolf,  dog,  hare,  fox,  cock,  goose,  quail,  cat,  goat,  cow 
(ox,  bull),  pig,  and  horse.  In  one  or  other  of  these  shapes  the  corn- 
spirit  is  often  believed  to  be  present  in  the  corn,  and  to  be  caught  or 
killed  in  the  last  sheaf.  As  the  corn  is  being  cut  the  animal  flees 
before  the  reapers,  and  if  a  reaper  is  taken  ill  on  the  field,  he  is  sup¬ 
posed  to  have  stumbled  unwittingly  on  the  corn-spirit,  who  has  thus 
punished  the  profane  intruder.  It  is  said  “  The  Rye- wolf  has  got  hold 
of  him,”  “  The  Harvest-goat  has  given  him  a  push.”  The  person 
who  cuts  the  last  corn  or  binds  the  last  sheaf  gets  the  name  of  the 
animal,  as  the  Rye-wolf,  the  Rye-sow,  the  Oats-goat,  and  so  forth, 
and  retains  the  name  sometimes  for  a  year.  Also  the  animal  is  fre¬ 
quently  represented  by  a  puppet  made  out  of  the  last  sheaf  or  of 
wood,  flowers,  and  so  on,  which  is  carried  home  amid  rejoicings  on 
the  last  harvest-waggon.  Even  where  the  last  sheaf  is  not  made  up 
in  animal  shape,  it  is  often  called  the  Rye-wolf,  the  Hare,  Goat,  and 
so  forth.  Generally  each  kind  of  crop  is  supposed  to  have  its  special 
animal,  which  is  caught  in  the  last  sheaf,  and  called  the  Rye-wolf, 


448  THE  CORN-SPIRIT  AS  AN  ANIMAL  ch. 

the  Barley-wolf,  the  Oats-wolf,  the  Pea-wolf,  or  the  Potato-wolf, 
according  to  the  crop  \  but  sometimes  the  figure  of  the  animal  is 
only  made  up  once  for  all  at  getting  in  the  last  crop  of  the  whole 
harvest.  Sometimes  the  creature  is  believed  to  be  killed  by  the  last 
stroke  of  the  sickle  or  scythe.  But  oftener  it  is  thought  to  live  so 
long  as  there  is  corn  still  unthreshed,  and  to  be  caught  in  the  last 
sheaf  threshed.  Hence  the  man  who  gives  the  last  stroke  with  the 
flail  is  told  that  he  has  got  the  Corn-sow,  the  Threshing-dog,  or  the 
like.  When  the  threshing  is  finished,  a  puppet  is  made  in  the  form  of 
the  animal,  and  this  is  carried  by  the  thresher  of  the  last  sheaf  to  a 
neighbouring  farm,  where  the  threshing  is  still  going  on.  This  again 
shows  that  the  corn-spirit  is  believed  to  live  wherever  the  com  is  still 
being  threshed.  Sometimes  the  thresher  of  the  last  sheaf  himself 
represents  the  animal  ;  and  if  the  people  of  the  next  farm,  who  are 
still  threshing,  catch  him,  they  treat  him  like  the  animal  he  represents, 
by  shutting  him  up  in  the  pig-sty,  calling  him  with  the  cries  commonly 
addressed  to  pigs,  and  so  forth.  These  general  statements  will  now 
be  illustrated  by  examples. 

§  2.  The  Corn-spirit  as  a  Wolf  or  a  Dog  — We  begin  with  the  corn- 
spirit  conceived  as  a  wolf  or  a  dog.  This  conception  is  common  in 
France,  Germany,  and  Slavonic  countries.  Thus,  when  the  wind  sets 
the  corn  in  wave-like  motion  the  peasants  often  say,  “  The  Wolf  is 
going  over,  or  through,  the  0001,”  “  The  Rye-wolf  is  rushing  over  the 
field,”  “  The  Wolf  is  in  the  corn,”  “  The  mad  Dog  is  in  the  corn,”  “  The 
big  Dog  is  there.”  When  children  wish  to  go  into  the  corn-fields  to 
pluck  ears  or  gather  the  blue  corn-flowers,  they  are  warned  not  to 
do  so,  for  “  The  big  Dog  sits  in  the  corn,”  or  “The  Wolf  sits  in  the 
corn,  and  will  tear  you  in  pieces,”  “The  Wolf  will  eat  you.”  The 
wolf  against  whom  the  children  are  warned  is  not  a  common  wolf, 
for  he  is  often  spoken  of  as  the  Corn-wolf,  Rye-wolf,  or  the  likej 
thus  they  say,  “  The  Rye-wolf  will  come  and  eat  you  up,  children,” 
“  The  Rye-wolf  will  carry  you  off,”  and  so  forth.  Still  he  has  all  the 
outward  appearance  of  a  wolf.  For  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Feilenhof 
(East  Prussia),  when  a  wolf  was  seen  running  through  a  field,  the 
peasants  used  to  watch  whether  he  carried  his  tail  in  the  air  or  dragged 
it  on  the  ground.  If  he  dragged  it  on  the  ground,  they  went  after 
him,  and  thanked  him  for  bringing  them  a  blessing,  and  even  set 
tit-bits  before  him.  But  if  he  carried  his  tail  high,  they  cursed  him 
and  tried  to  kill  him.  Here  the  wolf  is  the  corn-spirit  whose  fertilising 
power  is  in  his  tail. 

Both  dog  and  wolf  appear  as  embodiments  of  the  corn-spirit  in 
harvest-customs.  Thus  in  some  parts  of  Silesia  the  person  who  cuts 
or  binds  the  last  s  eaf  is  called  the  Wheat-dog  or  the  Peas-pug.  But 
it  is  in  the  harvest  -customs  of  the  north-east  of  France  that  the  idea 
of  the  Corn-dog  c  )mes  out  most  clearly.  Thus  when  a  harvester, 
through  sickness,  weariness,  or  laziness,  cannot  or  will  not  keep  up 
with  the  reaper  in  front  of  him,  they  say,  “  The  White  Dog  passed 
near  him,”  “He  has  the  White  Bitch,”  or  “The  White  Bitch  has 


Islviii  THE  CORN-SPIRIT  AS  A  WOLF  OR  A  DOG  449 

bitten  him.”  ^  In  the  Vosges  the  Harvest-May  is  called  the  “  Dog  of 
•the  harvest,  and  the  person  who  cuts  the  last  handful  of  hay  or 
■vheat  is  said  to  “kill  the  Dog.”  About  Lons-le-Saulnier,  in  the 
fura,  the  last  sheaf  is  called  the  Bitch.  In  the  neighbourhood  of 
/erdun  the  regular  expression  for  finishing  the  reaping  is,  “  They 
ire  going  to  kill  the  Dog  ”  ;  and  at  Epinal  they  say,  according  to  the 
la-op, ^  “  We  will  kill  the  Wheat-dog,  or  the  Rye-dog,  or  the  Potato- 
log.”  In  Lorraine  it  is  said  of  the  man  who  cuts  the  last  corn,  “  He 
s  killing  the  Dog  of  the  harvest.”  At  Dnx,  in  the  Tyrol,  the  man 
vho  gives  the  last  stroke  at  threshing  is  said  to  “  strike  down  the 
)og  ”  ;  and  at  Ahnebergen,  near  Stade,  he  is  called,  according  to 
he  crop,  Corn-pug,  Rye-pug,  Wheat-pug. 

So  with  the  wolf.  In  Silesia,  when  the  reapers  gather  round  the 
last  patch  of  standing  corn  to  reap  it  they  are  said  to  be  about  “  to 
atch  the  Wolf.”  In  various  parts  of  Mecklenburg,  where  the  belief 
n  the  Corn-wolf  is  particularly  prevalent,  every  one  fears  to  cut  the 
last  corn,  because  they  say  that  the  Wolf  is  sitting  in  it  ;  hence  every 
eaper  exerts  himself  to  the  utmost  in  order  not  to  be* the  last,  and 
very  woman  similarly  fears  to  bind  the  last  sheaf  because  “the 
Volf  is  in  it.”  So  both  among  the  reapers  and  the  binders  there  is 
1  competition  not  to  be  the  last  to  finish.  And  in  Germany  generally 
t  appears  to  be  a  common  saying  that  “  the  Wolf  sits  in  the  last 
heaf.”  In  some  places  they  call  out  to  the  reaper,  “  Beware  of  the 
Volf  ”  ;  or  they  say,  “  He  is  chasing  the  Wolf  out  of  the  corn.”  In 
Mecklenburg  the  last  bunch  of  standing  corn  is  itself  commonly  called 
he  Wolf,  and  the  man  who  reaps  it  “  has  the  Wolf,”  the  animal 
>eing  described  as  the  Rye-wolf,  the  Wheat-wolf,  the  Barley-wolf, 
nd  so  on  according  to  the  particular  crop.  The  reaper  of  the  last 
orn  is  himself  called  Wolf  or  the  Rye-wolf,  if  the  crop  is  rye,  and  in 
nany  parts  of  Mecklenburg  he  has  to  support  the  character  by  pre¬ 
ending  to  bite  the  other  harvesters  or  by  howling  like  a  wolf.  The 
ast  sheaf  of  corn  is  also  called  the  Wolf  or  the  Rye-wolf  or  the  Oats- 
voli  according  to  the  crop,  and  of  the  woman  who  binds  it  they  say, 
The  Wolf  is  biting  her,”  “  She  has  the  Wolf,”  “  She  must  fetch  the 
Volf  ”  (out  of  the  corn).  Moreover,  she  herself  is  called  Wolf ;  they 
ry  out  to  her,  “  Thou  art  the  Wolf,”  and  she  has  to  bear  the  name 
or  a  whole  year  ;  sometimes,  according  to  the  crop,  she  is  called 
he  Rye-wolf  or  the  Potato-wolf.  In  the  island  of  Riigen  not  only 
5  the  woman  who  binds  the  last  sheaf  called  Wolf,  but  when  she 
omes  home  she  bites  the  lady  of  the  house  and  the  stewardess,  for 
diich  she  receives  a  large  piece  of  meat.  Yet  nobody  likes  to  be 
he  Wolf.  The  same  woman  may  be  Rye-wolf,  Wheat- wolf,  and 
)ats-wolf,  if  she  happens  to  bind  the  last  sheaf  df  rye,  wheat,  and 
ats.  At  Buir,  in  the  district  of  Cologne,  it  was  fo  merly  the  custom 
0  give  to  the  last  sheaf  the  shape  of  a  wolf.  It  was  kept  in  the  barn 
hi  all  the  corn  was  threshed.  Then  it  was  brought  to  the  farmer 
nd  he  had  to  sprinkle  it  with  beer  or  brandy.  At  Brunshaupten  in 
lecklenburg  the  young  woman  who  bound  the  last  sheaf  of  wheat 


THE  CORN-SPIRIT  AS  AN  ANIMAL 


CH. 


450 


used  to  take  a  handful  of  stalks  out  of  it  and  make  “  the  Wheat-wolf  ” 
with  them  ;  it  was  the  figure  of  a  wolf  about  two  feet  long  and  half 
a  foot  high,  the  legs  of  the  animal  being  represented  by  stiff  stalks 
and  its  tail  and  mane  by  wheat-ears.  This  Wheat-wolf  she  carried 
back  at  the  head  of  the  harvesters  to  the  village,  where  it  was  set 
up  on  a  high  place  in  the  parlour  of  the  farm  and  remained  there  for 
a  long  time.  In  many  places  the  sheaf  called  the  Wolf  is  made  up 
in  human  form  and  dressed  in  clothes.  This  indicates  a  confusion 
of  ideas  between  the  corn-spirit  conceived  in  human  and  in  animal 
form.  Generally  the  Wolf  is  brought  home  on  the  last  waggon  with 
joyful  cries.  Hence  the  last  waggon-load  itself  receives  the  name  of 
the  Wolf. 

Again,  the  Wolf  is  supposed  to  hide  himself  amongst  the  cut  corn 
in  the  granary,  until  he  is  driven  out  of  the  last  bundle  by  the  strokes 
of  the  flail.  Hence  at  Wanzleben,  near  Magdeburg,  after  the  threshing 
the  peasants  go  in  procession,  leading  by  a  chain  a  man  who  is  enveloped 
in  the  threshed-out  straw  and  is  called  the  Wolf.  He  represents  the 
corn-spirit  who  has  been  caught  escaping  from  the  threshed  corn. 
In  the  district  of  Treves  it  is  believed  that  the  Corn-wolf  is  killed 
at  threshing.  The  men  thresh  the  last  sheaf  till  it  is  reduced  to  chopped 
straw.  In  this  way  they  think  that  the  Corn-wolf,  who  was  lurking 
in  the  last  sheaf,  has  been  certainly  killed. 

In  France  also  the  Corn-wolf  appears  at  harvest.  Thus  they 
call  out  to  the  reaper  of  the  last  corn,  “You  will  catch  the  Wolf." 
Near  Chambery  they  form  a  ring  round  the  last  standing  corn,  and 
cry,  “  The  Wolf  is  in  there."  In  Finisterre,  when  the  reaping  draws 
near  an  end,  the  harvesters  cry,  “  There  is  the  Wolf  ;  we  will  catch 
him."  Each  takes  a  swath  to  reap,  and  he  who  finishes  first  calls 
out,  “Eve  caught  the  Wolf."  In  Guyenne,  when  the  last  corn  has 
been  reaped,  they  lead  a  wether  all  round  the  field.  It  is  called  “  the 
Wolf  of  the  field."  Its  horns  are  decked  with  a  wreath  of  flowers  and 
corn-ears,  and  its  neck  and  body  are  also  encircled  with  garlands  and 
ribbons.  All  the  reapers  march,  singing,  behind  it.  Then  it  is  killed 
on  the  field.  In  this  part  of  France  the  last  sheaf  is  called  the  cou j ou¬ 
tage,  which,  in  the  patois,  means  a  wether.  Hence  the  killing  of  the 
wether  represents  the  death  of  the  corn-spirit,  considered  as  present 
in  the  last  sheaf  ;  but  two  different  conceptions  of  the  corn-spirit — 
as  a  wolf  and  as  a  wether — are  mixed  up  together. 

Sometimes  it  appears  to  be  thought  that  the  Wolf,  caught  in  the 
last  corn,  lives  during  the  winter  in  the  farmhouse,  ready  to  renew 
his  activity  as  corn-spirit  in  the  spring.  Hence  at  midwinter,  when  the 
lengthening  days  begin  to  herald  the  approach  of  spring,  the  Wolf 
makes  his  appearance  once  more.  In  Poland  a  man,  with  a  wolf’s 
skin  thrown  over  his  head,  is  led  about  at  Christmas  ;  or  a  stuffed  wolf 
is  carried  about  by  persons  who  collect  money.  There  are  facts  which 
point  to  an  old  custom  of  leading  about  a  man  enveloped  in  leaves  and 
called  the  Wolf,  while  his  conductors  collected  money. 

§  3.  The  Corn-spirit  as  a  Cock. — Another  form  which  the  com- 


XL  VIII 


THE  CORN-SPIRIT  AS  A  COCK 


45i 


spirit  often  assumes  is  that  of  a  cock.  In  Austria  children  are  warned 
against  straying  in  the  corn-fields,  because  the  Corn-cock  sits  there, 
and  will  peck  their  eyes  out.  In  North  Germany  they  say  that  “  the 
Cock  sits  in  the  last  sheaf  ”  ;  and  at  cutting  the  last  corn  the  reapers 
cry,  “  Now  we  will  chase  out  the  Cock.”  When  it  is  cut  they  say, 
“We  have  caught  the  Cock.”  At  Braller,  in  Transylvania,  when  the 
reapers  come  to  the  last  patch  of  corn,  they  cry,  “  Here  we  shall  catch 
the  Cock.”  At  Fiirstenwalde,  when  the  last  sheaf  is  about  to  be 
bound,  the  master  releases  a  cock,  which  he  has  brought  in  a  basket, 
and  lets  it  run  over  the  field.  All  the  harvesters  chase  it  till  they 
catch  it.  Elsewhere  the  harvesters  all  try  to  seize  the  last  corn  cut ; 
he  who  succeeds  in  grasping  it  must  crow,  and  is  called  Cock.  Among 
the  Wends  it  is  or  used  to  be  customary  for  the  farmer  to  hide  a  live 
cock  under  the  last  sheaf  as  it  lay  on  the  field  ;  and  when  the  corn 
was  being  gathered  up,  the  harvester  who  lighted  upon  this  sheaf 
had  a  right  to  keep  the  cock,  provided  he  could  catch  it.  This  formed 
the  close  of  the  harvest-festival  and  was  known  as  “  the  Cock-catching,” 
and  the  beer  which  was  served  out  to  the  reapers  at  this  time  went 
by  the  name  of  “  Cock-beer.”  The  last  sheaf  is  called  Cock,  Cock- 
sheaf,  Harvest-cock,  Harvest-hen,  Autumn-hen.  A  distinction  is 
made  between  a  Wheat-cock,  Bean-cock,  and  so  on,  according  to  the 
crop.  At  Wiinschensuhl,  in  Thiiringen,  the  last  sheaf  is  made  into 
the  shape  of  a  cock,  and  called  the  Harvest-cock.  A  figure  of  a  cock, 
made  of  wood,  pasteboard,  ears  of  corn,  or  flowers,  is  borne  in  front  of 
the  harvest-waggon,  especially  in  Westphalia,  where  the  cock  carries 
in  his  beak  fruits  of  the  earth  of  all  kinds.  Sometimes  the  image  of 
the  cock  is  fastened  to  the  top  of  a  May-tree  on  the  last  harvest-waggon. 
Elsewhere  a  live  cock,  or  a  figure  of  one,  is  attached  to  a  harvest- 
crown  and  carried  on  a  pole.  In  Galicia  and  elsewhere  this  live  cock 
is  fastened  to  the  garland  of  corn-ears  or  flowers,  which  the  leader 
of  the  women-reapers  carries  on  her  head  as  she  marches  in  front 
of  the  harvest  procession.  In  Silesia  a  live  cock  is  presented  to  the 
master  on  a  plate.  The  harvest-supper  is  called  Harvest-cock, 
Stubble-cock,  etc.,  and  a  chief  dish  at  it,  at  least  in  some  places,  is  a 
cock.  If  a  waggoner  upsets  a  harvest-waggon,  it  is  said  that  “  he  has 
spilt  the  Harvest  cock,”  and  he  loses  the  cock,  that  is,  the  harvest- 
supper.  The  harvest- waggon,  with  the  figure  of  the  cock  on  it,  is 
driven  round  the  farmhouse  before  it  is  taken  to  the  barn.  Then  the 
cock  is  nailed  over  or  at  the  side  of  the  house-door,  or  on  the  gable, 
and  remains  there  till  next  harvest.  In  East  Friesland  the  person 
who  gives  the  last  stroke  at  threshing  is  called  the  Clucking-hen,  and 
grain  is  strewed  before  him  as  if  he  were  a  hen. 

Again,  the  corn-spirit  is  killed  in  the  form  of  a  cock.  In  parts 
of  Germany,  Hungary,  Poland,  and  Picardy  the  reapers  place  a  live 
cock  in  the  corn  which  is  to  be  cut  last,  and  chase  it  over  the  field, 
or  bury  it  up  to  the  neck  in  the  ground  ;  afterwards  they  strike  off 
its  head  with  a  sickle  or  scythe.  In  many  parts  of  Westphalia,  when 
the  harvesters  bring  the  wooden  cock  to  the  farmer,  he  gives  them  a 


CII. 


452  THE  CORN-SPIRIT  AS  AN  ANIMAL 

live  cock,  which  they  kill  with  whips  or  sticks,  or  behead  with  an  old 
sword,  or  throw  into  the  barn  to  the  girls,  or  give  to  the  mistress  to 
cook.  *  If  the  harvest-cock  has  not  been  spilt — that  is,  if  no  waggon 
has  been  upset — the  harvesters  have  the  right  to  kill  the  farmyard 
cock  by  throwing  stones  at  it  or  beheading  it.  Where  this  custom 
has  fallen  into  disuse,  it  is  still  common  for  the  farmer’s  wife  to  make  I 
cockie-leekie  for  the  harvesters,  and  to  show  them  the  head  of  the 
cock  which  has  been  killed  for  the  soup.  In  the  neighbourhood  of 
Klausenburg,  Transylvania,  a  cock  is  buried  on  the  harvest-field  in 
the  earth,  so  that  only  its  head  appears.  A  young  man  then  takes  a 
scythe  and  cuts  off  the  cock’s  head  at  a  single  sweep.  If  he  fails  to 
do  this,  he  is  called  the  Red  Cock  for  a  whole  year,  and  people  fear 
that  next  year’s  crop  will  be  bad.  Near  Udvarhely,  in  Transylvania, 
a  live  cock  is  bound  up  in  the  last  sheaf  and  killed  with  a  spit.  It  is 
then  skinned.  The  flesh  is  thrown  away,  but  the  skin  and  feathers 
are  kept  till  next  year  ;  and  in  spring  the  grain  from  the  last  sheaf  is 
mixed  with  the  feathers  of  the  cock  and  scattered  on  the  field  which 
is  to  be  tilled.  Nothing  could  set  in  a  clearer  light  the  identification 
of  the  cock  with  the  spirit  of  the  corn.  By  being  tied  up  in  the  last 
sheaf  and  killed,  the  cock  is  identified  with  the  corn,  and  its  death 
with  the  cutting  of  the  corn.  By  keeping  its  feathers  till  spring, 
then  mixing  them  with  the  seed-corn  taken  from  the  very  sheaf  in 
which  the  bird  had  been  bound,  and  scattering  the  feathers  together 
with  the  seed  over  the  field,  the  identity  of  the  bird  with  the  corn 
is  again  emphasised,  and  its  quickening  and  fertilising  power,  as  an 
embodiment  of  the  corn-spirit,  is  intimated  in  the  plainest  manner. 
Thus  the  corn-spirit,  in  the  form  of  a  cock,  is  killed  at  harvest,  but  rises 
to  fresh  life  and  activity  in  spring.  Again,  the  equivalence  of  the 
cock  to  the  corn  is  expressed,  hardly  less  plainly,  in  the  custom  of 
burying  the  bird  in  the  ground,  and  cutting  off  its  head  (like  the  ears 
of  corn)  with  the  scythe. 

§  4.  The  Corn-spirit  as  a  Hare. — Another  common  embodiment 
of  the  corn-spirit  is  the  hare.  In  Galloway  the  reaping  of  the  last 
standing  corn  is  called  “  cutting  the  Hare.”  The  mode  of  cutting  it 
is  as  follows.  When  the  rest  of  the  corn  has  been  reaped,  a  handful  is 
left  standing  to  form  the  Hare.  It  is  divided  into  three  parts  and 
plaited,  and  the  ears  are  tied  in  a  knot.  The  reapers  then  retire  a 
few  yards  and  each  throws  his  or  her  sickle  in  turn  at  the  Hare  to  cut 
it  down.  It  must  be  cut  below  the  knot,  and  the  reapers  continue 
to  throw  their  sickles  at  it,  one  after  the  other,  until  one  of  them 
succeeds  in  severing  the  stalks  below  the  knot.  The  Hare  is  then 
carried  home  and  given  to  a  maidservant  in  the  kitchen,  who  places 
it  over  the  kitchen-door  on  the  inside.  Sometimes  the  Hare  used  to 
be  thus  kept  till  the  next  harvest.  In  the  parish  of  Minnigaff,  when  the 
Hare  was  cut,  the  unmarried  reapers  ran  home  with  all  speed,  and  the 
one  who  arrived  first  was  the  first  to  be  married.  In  Germany  also 
one  of  the  names  for  the  last  sheaf  is  the  Hare.  Thus  in  some  parts 
of  Anhalt,  when  the  corn  has  been  reaped  and  only  a  few  stalks  are 


XL  VIII 


THE  CORN-SPIRIT  AS  A  CAT  453 

left  standing',  they  say,  The  Hare  will  soon  come,”  or  the  reapers 
cry  to  each  other,  Look  how  the  Hare  comes  jumping  out/’  In 
East  Piussia  they  say  that  the  Hare  sits  in  the  last  patch  of  standing 
corn,  and  must  be  chased  out  by  the  last  reaper.  The  reapers  hurry 
with  their  work,  each  being  anxious  not  to  have  "  to  chase  out  the 
Hare  ”  ;  for  the  man  who  does  so,  that  is,  who  cuts  the  last  corn,  is 
much  laughed  at.  At  Aurich,  as  we  have  seen,  an  expression  for  cutting 
the  last  corn  is  "  to  cut  off  the  Hare’s  tail.”  "  He  is  killing  the  Hare  ” 
is  commonly  said  of  the  man  who  cuts  the  last  corn  in  Germany, 
Sweden,  Holland,  France,  and  Italy.  In  Norway  the  man  who  is  thus 
said  to  kill  the  Hare  must  give  “  hare’s  blood  ”  in  the  form  of 
brandy  to  his  lellows  to  drink.  In  Lesbos,  when  the  reapers  are  at 
work  in  two  neighbouring  fields,  each  party  tries  to  finish  first  in 
order  to  drive  the  Hare  into  their  neighbour’s  field  ;  the  reapers  who 
succeed  in  doing  so  believe  that  next  year  the  crop  will  be  better.  A 

small  sheaf  of  com  is  made  up  and  kept  beside  the  holy  picture  till 
next  harvest. 

§  5-  The  Corn-spirit  as  a  Cat. — Again,  the  corn-spirit  sometimes 
takes  the  form  of  a  cat.  Near  Kiel  children  are  warned  not  to  go 
into  the  corn-fields  because  "  the  Cat  sits  there.”  In  the  Eisenach 
Oberland  they  are  told  “  The  Corn-cat  will  come  and  fetch  you,”  “  The 
Corn-cat  goes  in  the  corn.”  In  some  parts  of  Silesia  at  mowing  the 
last  corn  they  say,  “  The  Cat  is  caught  ”  ;  and  at  threshing,  the  man 
who  gives  the  last  stroke  is  called  the  Cat.  In  the  neighbourhood  of 
Lyons  the  last  sheaf  and  the  harvest-supper  are  both  called  the  Cat. 
About  Vesoul  when  they  cut  the  last  corn  they  say,  “  We  have  the 
Cat  by  the  tail.  At  Brian^on,  in  Dauphine,  at  the  beginning  of  reap¬ 
ing,  a  cat  is  decked  out  with  ribbons,  flowers,  and  ears  of  corn.  It 
is  called  the  Cat  of  the  ball-skin  ( le  chat  de  peau  de  balle ).  If  a  reaper 
is  wounded  at  his  work,  they  make  the  cat  lick  the  wound.  At  the 
close  of  the  reaping  the  cat  is  again  decked  out  with  ribbons  and  ears 
of  corn  ;  then  they  dance  and  make  merry.  When  the  dance  is  over 
the  girls  solemnly  strip  the  cat  of  its  finery.  At  Gruneberg,  in  Silesia, 
the  reaper  who  cuts  the  last  corn  goes  by  the  name  of  the  Tom-cat. 
He  is  enveloped  in  rye-stalks  and  green  withes,  and  is  furnished  with  a 
long  plaited  tail.  Sometimes  as  a  companion  he  has  a  man  similarly 
dressed,  who  is  called  the  (female)  Cat.  Their  duty  is  to  run  after 
people  whom  they  see  and  to  beat  them  with  a  long  stick.  Near 
Amiens  the  expression  for  finishing  the  harvest  is,  “  They  are  going 
to  kill  the  Cat  ”  ;  and  when  the  last  corn  is  cut  they  kill  a  cat  in  the 
farmyard.  At  threshing,  in  some  parts  of  France,  a  live  cat  is  placed 
under  the  last  bundle  of  corn  to  be  threshed,  and  is  struck  dead  with 
the  flails.  Then  on  Sunday  it  is  roasted  and  eaten  as  a  holiday  dish. 
In  the  Vosges  Mountains  the  close  of  haymaking  01  harvest  is  called 
catching  the  cat,”  “  killing  the  dog,”  or  more  rarely  “  catching  the 
hare.  The  cat,  the  dog,  or  the  hare  is  said  to  be  fat  or  lean  according 
as  the  crop  is  good  or  bad.  The  man  who  cuts  the  last  handful  of  hay 
or  of  wheat  is  said  to  catch  the  cat  or  the  hare  or  to  kill  the  dog. 


454 


THE  CORN-SPIRIT  AS  AN  ANIMAL 


CH. 


§  6.  The  Corn-Spirit  as  a  Goat. — Further,  the  corn-spirit  often 
appears  in  the  form  of  a  goat.  In  some  parts  of  Prussia,  when  the  corn 
bends  before  the  wind,  they  say,  “  The  Goats  are  chasing  each  other,” 

“  The  wind  is  driving  the  Goats  through  the  corn,”  “  The  Goats  are 
browsing  there,”  and  they  expect  a  very  good  harvest.  Again  they 
say,  "The  Oats-goat  is  sitting  in  the  oats-field,”  “The  Corn-goat  is 
sitting  in  the  rye-field.”  Children  are  warned  not  to  go  into  the  corn¬ 
fields  to  pluck  the  blue  corn-flowers,  or  amongst  the  beans  to  pluck 
pods,  because  the  Rye-goat,  the  Corn-goat,  the  Oats-goat,  or  the  Bean- 
goat  is  sitting  or  lying  there,  and  will  carry  them  away  or  kill  them. 
When  a  harvester  is  taken  sick  or  lags  behind  his  fellows  at  their 
work,  they  call  out,  “  The  Harvest-goat  has  pushed  him,”  “  He  has  been 
pushed  by  the  Corn-goat.”  In  the  neighbourhood  of  Braunsberg 
(East  Prussia)  at  binding  the  oats  every  harvester  makes  haste  "  lest 
the  Corn-goat  push  him.”  At  Oefoten,  in  Norway,  each  reaper  has 
his  allotted  patch  to  reap.  When  a  reaper  in  the  middle  has  not 
finished  reaping  his  piece  after  his  neighbours  have  finished  theirs, 
they  say  of  him,  “  He  remains  on  the  island.”  And  if  the  laggard 
is  a  man,  they  imitate  the  cry  with  which  they  call  a  he-goat ;  if  a 
woman,  the  cry  with  which  they  call  a  she-goat.  Near  Straubing, 
in  Lower  Bavaria,  it  is  said  of  the  man  who  cuts  the  last  corn  that 
“  he  has  the  Corn-goat,  or  the  Wheat-goat,  or  the  Oats-goat,”  according 
to  the  crop.  Moreover,  two  horns  are  set  up  on  the  last  heap  of  corn, 
and  it  is  called  “  the  horned  Goat.”  At  Kreutzburg,  East  Prussia, 
they  call  out  to  the  woman  who  is  binding  the  last  sheaf,  “  The  Goat 
is  sitting  in  the  sheaf.”  At  Gablingen,  in  Swabia,  when  the  last  field 
of  oats  upon  a  farm  is  being  reaped,  the  reapers  carve  a  goat  out  of 
wood.  Ears  of  oats  are  inserted  in  its  nostrils  and  mouth,  and  it  is 
adorned  with  garlands  of  flowers.  It  is  set  up  on  the  field  and  called 
the  Oats-goat.  When  the  reaping  approaches  an  end,  each  reaper  1 
hastens  to  finish  his  piece  first ;  he  who  is  the  last  to  finish  gets  the 
Oats-goat.  Again,  the  last  sheaf  is  itself  called  the  Goat.  Thus,  in  | 
the  valley  of  the  Wiesent,  Bavaria,  the  last  sheaf  bound  on  the  field 
is  called  the  Goat,  and  they  have  a  proverb,  “  The  field  must  bear  a 
goat.”  At  Spachbrucken,  in  Hesse,  the  last  handful  of  corn  which  is 
cut  is  called  the  Goat,  and  the  man  who  cuts  it  is  much  ridiculed.  At 
Durrenbuchig  and  about  Mosbach  in  Baden  the  last  sheaf  is  also  called  • 
the  Goat.  Sometimes  the  last  sheaf  is  made  up  in  the  form  of  a  goat,  1 
and  they  say,  “  The  Goat  is  sitting  in  it.”  Again,  the  person  who  cuts 
or  binds  the  last  sheaf  is  called  the  Goat.  Thus,  in  parts  of  Mecklen¬ 
burg  they  call  out  to  the  woman  who  binds  the  last  sheaf,  “  You  are 
the  Harvest-goat.”  Near  Uelzen,  in  Hanover,  the  harvest  festival 
begins  with  “  the  bringing  of  the  Harvest-goat  ”  ;  that  is,  the  woman 
who  bound  the  last  sheaf  is  wrapt  in  straw,  crowned  with  a  harvest- 
wreath,  and  brought  in  a  wheel-barrow  to  the  village,  where  a  round 
dance  takes  place.  About  Luneburg,  also,  the  woman  who  binds  the 
last  corn  is  decked  with  a  crown  of  corn-ears  and  is  called  the  Corn- 
goat.  At  Miinzesheim  in  Baden  the  reaper  who  cuts  the  last  handful 


XLVIII 


THE  CORN-SPIRIT  AS  A  GOAT 


455 


of  corn  or  oats  is  called  the  Corn-goat  or  the  Oats-goat.  In  the  Canton 
St.  Gall,  Switzerland,  the  person  who  cuts  the  last  handful  of  corn  on 
the  field,  or  drives  the  last  harvest-waggon  to  the  barn,  is  called  the 
Corn-goat  or  the  Rye-goat,  or  simply  the  Goat.  In  the  Canton  Thurgau 
he  is  called  Corn-goat ;  like  a  goat  he  has  a  bell  hung  round  his  neck, 
is  led  in  triumph,  and  drenched  with  liquor.  In  parts  of  Styria,  also, 
the  man  who  cuts  the  last  corn  is  called  Corn-goat,  Oats-goat,  or  the 
like.  As  a  rule,  the  man  who  thus  gets  the  name  of  Corn-goat  has  to 
bear  it  a  whole  year  till  the  next  harvest. 

According  to  one  view,  the  corn-spirit,  who  has  been  caught  in  the 
form  of  a  goat  or  otherwise,  lives  in  the  farmhouse  or  barn  over  winter. 
Thus,  each  farm  has  its  own  embodiment  of  the  corn-spirit.  But, 
according  to  another  view,  the  corn-spirit  is  the  genius  or  deity,  not 
of  the  corn  of  one  farm  only,  but  of  all  the  corn.  Hence  when  the 
corn  on  one  farm  is  all  cut,  he  flees  to  another  where  there  is  still  corn 
left  standing.  This  idea  is  brought  out  in  a  harvest-custom  which  was 
formerly  observed  in  Skye.  The  farmer  who  first  finished  reaping 
sent  a  man  or  woman  with  a  sheaf  to  a  neighbouring  farmer  who  had 
not  finished  ;  the  latter  in  his  turn,  when  he  had  finished,  sent  on  the 
sheaf  to  his  neighbour  who  was  still  reaping  ;  and  so  the  sheaf  made 
the  round  of  the  farms  till  all  the  corn  was  cut.  The  sheaf  was  called 
the  goabbir  bhacagh ,  that  is,  the  Cripple  Goat.  The  custom  appears 
not  to  be  extinct  at  the  present  day,  for  it  was  reported  from  Skye 
not  very  many  years  ago.  The  corn-spirit  was  probably  thus  re¬ 
presented  as  lame  because  he  had  been  crippled  by  the  cutting  of  the 
corn.  Sometimes  the  old  woman  who  brings  home  the  last  sheaf  must 
limp  on  one  foot. 

But  sometimes  the  corn-spirit,  in  the  form  of  a  goat,  is  believed  to 
be  slain  on  the  harvest-field  by  the  sickle  or  scythe.  Thus,  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Bernkastel,  on  the  Moselle,  the  reapers  determine 
by  lot  the  order  in  which  they  shall  follow  each  other.  The  first  is 
called  the  fore-reaper,  the  last  the  tail-bearer.  If  a  reaper  overtakes 
the  man  in  front  he  reaps  past  him,  bending  round  so  as  to  leave  the 
slower  reaper  in  a  patch  by  himself.  This  patch  is  called  the  Goat ; 
and  the  man  for  whom  “  the  Goat  is  cut  ”  in  this  way,  is  laughed  and 
jeered  at  by  his  fellows  for  the  rest  of  the  day.  When  the  tail-bearer 
cuts  the  last  ears  of  corn,  it  is  said,  “  He  is  cutting  the  Goat’s  neck  off.” 
In  the  neighbourhood  of  Grenoble,  before  the  end  of  the  reaping,  a 
live  goat  is  adorned  with  flowers  and  ribbons  and  allowed  to  run  about 
the  field.  The  reapers  chase  it  and  try  to  catch  it.  When  it  is  caught, 
the  farmer’s  wife  holds  it  fast  while  the  farmer  cuts  off  its  head.  The 
goat’s  flesh  serves  to  furnish  the  harvest-supper.  A  piece  of  the  flesh 
is  pickled  and  kept  till  the  next  harvest,  when  another  goat  is  killed. 
Then  all  the  harvesters  eat  of  the  flesh.  On  the  same  day  the  skin  of 
the  goat  is  made  into  a  cloak,  which  the  farmer,  who  works  with  his 
men,  must  always  wear  at  harvest-time  if  rain  or  bad  weather  sets  in. 
But  if  a  reaper  gets  pains  in  his  back,  the  farmer  gives  him  the  goat¬ 
skin  to  wear.  The  reason  for  this  seems  to  be  that  the  pains  in  the 


456 


THE  CORN-SPIRIT  AS  AN  ANIMAL 


CH. 


back,  being  inflicted  by  the  corn-spirit,  can  also  be  healed  by  it. 
Similarly,  we  saw  that  elsewhere,  when  a  reaper  is  wounded  at  reaping, 
a  cat,  as  the  representative  of  the  corn-spirit,  is  made  to  lick  the 
wound.  Esthonian  reapers  in  the  island  of  Mon  think  that  the  man 
who  cuts  the  first  ears  of  corn  at  harvest  will  get  pains  in  his  back, 
probably  because  the  corn-spirit  is  believed  to  resent  especially  the 
first  wound  ;  and,  in  order  to  escape  pains  in  the  back,  Saxon  reapers 
in  Transylvania  gird  their  loins  with  the  first  handful  of  ears  which 
they  cut.  Here,  again,  the  corn-spirit  is  applied  to  for  healing  or 
protection,  but  in  his  original  vegetable  form,  not  in  the  form  of  a  goat 
or  a  cat. 

Further,  the  corn-spirit  under  the  form  of  a  goat  is  sometimes 
conceived  as  lurking  among  the  cut  corn  in  the  barn,  till  he  is  driven 
from  it  by  the  threshing-flail.  Thus  in  Baden  the  last  sheaf  to  be 
threshed  is  called  the  Corn-goat,  the  Spelt-goat,  or  the  Oats-goat 
according  to  the  kind  of  grain.  Again,  near  Marktl,  in  Upper  Bavaria, 
the  sheaves  are  called  Straw-goats  or  simply  Goats.  They  are  laid 
in  a  great  heap  on  the  open  field  and  threshed  by  two  rows  of  men 
standing  opposite  each  other,  who,  as  they  ply  their  flails,  sing  a  song 
in  which  they  say  that  they  see  the  Straw-goat  amongst  the  corn¬ 
stalks.  The  last  Goat,  that  is,  the  last  sheaf,  is  adorned  with  a  wreath 
of  violets  and  other  flowers  and  with  cakes  strung  together.  It  is 
placed  right  in  the  middle  of  the  heap.  Some  of  the  threshers  rush 
at  it  and  tear  the  best  of  it  out  ;  others  lay  on  with  their  flails  so 
recklessly  that  heads  are  sometimes  broken.  At  Oberinntal,  in  the 
Tyrol,  the  last  thresher  is  called  Goat.  So  at  Haselberg,  in  West 
Bohemia,  the  man  who  gives  the  last  stroke  at  threshing  oats  is  called 
the  Oats-goat.  At  Tettnang,  in  Wurtemburg,  the  thresher  who  gives 
the  last  stroke  to  the  last  bundle  of  corn  before  it  is  turned  goes  by 
the  name  of  the  He-goat,  and  it  is  said,  “  He  has  driven  the  He-goat 
away.”  The  person  who,  after  the  bundle  has  been  turned,  gives 
the  last  stroke  of  all,  is  called  the  She-goat.  In  this  custom  it  is 
implied  that  the  corn  is  inhabited  by  a  pair  of  corn-spirits,  male  and 
female. 

Further,  the  corn-spirit,  captured  in  the  form  of  a  goat  at  threshing, 
is  passed  on  to  a  neighbour  whose  threshing  is  not  yet  finished.  In 
Franche  Comte,  as  soon  as  the  threshing  is  over,  the  young  people 
set  up  a  straw  figure  of  a  goat  on  the  farmyard  of  a  neighbour  who 
is  still  threshing.  He  must  give  them  wine  or  money  in  return.  At 
Ellwangen,  in  Wurtemburg,  the  effigy  of  a  goat  is  made  out  of  the  last 
bundle  of  corn  at  threshing  ;  four  sticks  form  its  legs,  and  two  its 
horns.  The  man  who  gives  the  last  stroke  with  the  flail  must  carry 
the  Goat  to  the  bam  of  a  neighbour  who  is  still  threshing  and  throw 
it  down  on  the  floor ;  if  he  is  caught  in  the  act,  they  tie  the  Goat  on 
his  back.  A  similar  custom  is  observed  at  Indersdorf,  in  Upper 
Bavaria  ;  the  man  who  throws  the  straw  Goat  into  the  neighbour’s 
barn  imitates  the  bleating  of  a  goat  ;  if  they  catch  him,  they  blacken 
his  face  and  tie  the  Goat  on  his  back.  At  Saveme,  in  Alsace,  when 


xlviii  THE  CORN-SPIRIT  AS  A  BULL,  COW,  OR  OX  457 

a  farmer  is  a  week  or  more  behind  his  neighbours  with  his  threshing, 
they  set  a  real  stuffed  goat  or  fox  before  his  door. 

Sometimes  the  spirit  of  the  corn  in  goat  form  is  believed  to  be 
killed  at  threshing.  In  the  district  of  Traunstein,  Upper  Bavaria, 
they  think  that  the  Oats-goat  is  in  the  last  sheaf  of  oats.  He  is  repre¬ 
sented  by  an  old  rake  set  up  on  end,  with  an  old  pot  for  a  head.  The 
children  are  then  told  to  kill  the  Oats-goat. 

§  7.  The  Corn-spirit  as  a  Bull ,  Cow,  or  Ox. — Another  form  which 
the  corn-spirit  often  assumes  is  that  of  a  bull,  cow,  or  ox.  When  the 
wind  sweeps  over  the  corn  they  say  at  Conit z,  in  West  Prussia,  “  The 
Steer  is  running  in  the  com  ”  ;  when  the  corn  is  thick  and  strong  in 
one  spot,  they  say  in  some  parts  of  East  Prussia,  “  The  Bull  is  lying 
in  the  corn/’  When  a  harvester  has  overstrained  and  lamed  himself, 
they  say  in  the  Graudenz  district  of  West  Prussia,  “  The  Bull  pushed 
him  ”  ;  in  Lorraine  they  say,  “  He  has  the  Bull.”  The  meaning 
of  both  expressions  is  that  he  has  unwittingly  lighted  upon  the  divine 
corn-spirit,  who  has  punished  the  profane  intruder  with  lameness. 
So  near  Chambery  when  a  reaper  wounds  himself  with  his  sickle,  it 
is  said  that  he  has  “  the  wound  of  the  Ox.”  In  the  district  of  Bunzlau 
(Silesia)  the  last  sheaf  is  sometimes  made  into  the  shape  of  a  horned 
ox,  stuffed  with  tow  and  wrapt  in  corn-ears.  This  figure  is  called 
the  Old  Man.  In  some  parts  of  Bohemia  the  last  sheaf  is  made  up 
in  human  form  and  called  the  Buffalo-bull.  These  cases  show  a 
confusion  of  the  human  with  the  animal  shape  of  the  corn-spirit. 
The  confusion  is  like  that  of  killing  a  wether  under  the  name  of  a 
wolf.  All  over  Swabia  the  last  bundle  of  corn  on  the  field  is  called 
the  Cow  ;  the  man  who  cuts  the  last  ears  “  has  the  Cow,”  and  is 
himself  called  Cow  or  Barley-cow  or  Oats-cow,  according  to  the  crop  ; 
at  the  harvest-supper  he  gets  a  nosegay  of  flowers  and  corn-ears  and 
a  more  liberal  allowance  of  drink  than  the  rest.  But  he  is  teased 
and  laughed  at ;  so  no  one  likes  to  be  the  Cow.  The  Cow  was 
sometimes  represented  by  the  figure  of  a  woman  made  out  of  ears 
of  corn  and  corn-flowers.  It  was  carried  to  the  farmhouse  by  the 
man  who  had  cut  the  last  handful  of  corn.  The  children  ran  after 
him  and  the  neighbours  turned  out  to  laugh  at  him,  till  the  farmer 
took  the  Cow  from  him.  Here  again  the  confusion  between  the  human 
and  the  animal  form  of  the  corn-spirit  is  apparent.  In  various  parts  of 
Switzerland  the  reaper  who  cuts  the  last  ears  of  com  is  called  Wheat- 
cow,  Corn-cow,  Oats-cow,  or  Corn-steer,  and  is  the  butt  of  many  a 
joke.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  district  of  Rosenheim,  Upper  Bavaria, 
when  a  farmer  is  later  of  getting  in  his  harvest  than  his  neighbours, 
they  set  up  on  his  land  a  Straw-bull,  as  it  is  called.  This  is  a  gigantic 
figure  of  a  bull  made  of  stubble  on  a  framework  of  wood  and  adorned 
with  flowers  and  leaves.  Attached  to  it  is  a  label  on  which  are  scrawled 
doggerel  verses  in  ridicule  of  the  man  on  whose  land  the  Straw-bull 
is  set  up. 

Again,  the  corn-spirit  in  the  form  of  a  bull  or  ox  is  killed  on  the 
harvest-field  at  the  close  of  the  reaping.  At  Pouilly,  near  Dijon, 


THE  CORN-SPIRIT  AS  AN  ANIMAL 


458 


when  the  last  ears  of  corn  are  about  to  be  cut,  an  ox  adorned  with 
ribbons,  flowers,  and  ears  of  corn  is  led  all  round  the  field,  followed 
by  the  whole  troop  of  reapers  dancing.  Then  a  man  disguised  as 
the  Devil  cuts  the  last  ears  of  corn  and  immediately  slaughters  the 
ox.  Part  of  the  flesh  of  the  animal  is  eaten  at  the  harvest-supper ; 
part  is  pickled  and  kept  till  the  first  day  of  sowing  in  spring.  At 
Pont  a  Mousson  and  elsewhere  on  the  evening  of  the  last  day  of  reaping,  , 
a  calf  adorned  with  flowers  and  ears  of  corn  is  led  thrice  round  the 
farmyard,  being  allured  by  a  bait  or  driven  by  men  with  sticks,  or 
conducted  by  the  farmer’s  wife  with  a  rope.  The  calf  chosen  for 
this  ceremony  is  the  calf  which  was  bom  first  on  the  farm  in  the  spring 
of  the  year.  It  is  followed  by  all  the  reapers  with  their  tools.  Then 
it  is  allowed  to  run  free  ;  the  reapers  chase  it,  and  whoever  catches 
it  is  called  King  of  the  Calf.  Lastly,  it  is  solemnly  killed  ;  at  Lune- 
ville  the  man  who  acts  as  butcher  is  the  Jewish  merchant  of  the  village. 

Sometimes  again  the  com-spirit  hides  himself  amongst  the  cut 
corn  in  the  barn  to  reappear  in  bull  or  cow  form  at  threshing.  Thus 
at  Wurmlingen,  in  Thtiringen,  the  man  who  gives  the  last  stroke  at 
threshing  is  called  the  Cow,  or  rather  the  Barley-cow,  Oats-cow, 
Peas-cow,  or  the  like,  according  to  the  crop.  He  is  entirely  enveloped  1 
in  straw  ;  his  head  is  surmounted  by  sticks  in  imitation  of  horns, 
and  two  lads  lead  him  by  ropes  to  the  well  to  drink.  On  the  way 
thither  he  must  low  like  a  cow,  and  for  a  long  time  afterwards  he 
goes  by  the  name  of  the  Cow.  At  Obermedlingen,  in  Swabia,  when 
the  threshing  draws  near  an  end,  each  man  is  careful  to  avoid  giving 
the  last  stroke.  He  who  does  give  it  “  gets  the  Cow,”  which  is  a 
straw  figure  dressed  in  an  old  ragged  petticoat,  hood,  and  stockings. 

It  is  tied  on  his  back  with  a  straw-rope  ;  his  face  is  blackened,  and 
being  bound  with  straw-ropes  to  a  wheelbarrow  he  is  wheeled  round 
the  village.  Here,  again,  we  meet  with  that  confusion  between  the 
human  and  animal  shape  of  the  corn-spirit  which  we  have  noted  in 
other  customs.  In  Canton  Schaffhausen  the  man  who  threshes  the 
last  corn  is  called  the  Cow  ;  in  Canton  Thurgau,  the  Corn-bull ;  in 
Canton  Zurich,  the  Thresher-cow.  In  the  last-mentioned  district  he 
is  wrapt  in  straw  and  bound  to  one  of  the  trees  in  the  orchard.  At 
Arad,  in  Hungary,  the  man  who  gives  the  last  stroke  at  threshing  is 
enveloped  in  straw  and  a  cow’s  hide  with  the  horns  attached  to  it. 
At  Pessnitz,  in  the  district  of  Dresden,  the  man  who  gives  the  last 
stroke  with  the  flail  is  called  Bull.  He  must  make  a  straw-man  and 
set  it  up  before  a  neighbour’s  window.  Here,  apparently,  as  in  so 
many  cases,  the  corn-spirit  is  passed  on  to  a  neighbour  who  has  not 
finished  threshing.  So  at  Herbrechtingen,  in  Thiiringen,  the  effigy 
of  a  ragged  old  woman  is  flung  into  the  bam  of  the  farmer  who  is  last 
with  his  threshing.  The  man  who  throws  it  in  cries,  “  There  is  the 
Cow  for  you.”  If  the  threshers  catch  him  they  detain  him  over 
night  and  punish  him  by  keeping  him  from  the  harvest-supper.  In 
these  latter  customs  the  confusion  between  the  human  and  the  animal 
shape  of  the  corn-spirit  meets  us  again. 


xl viii  THE  CORN-SPIRIT  AS  A  HORSE  OR  MARE 


459 


Further,  the  corn-spirit  in  bull  form  is  sometimes  believed  to  be 
killed  at  threshing.  At  Auxerre,  in  threshing  the  last  bundle  of  corn, 
they  call  out  twelve  times,  “  We  are  killing  the  Bull.”  In  the  neigh¬ 
bourhood  of  Bordeaux,  where  a  butcher  kills  an  ox  on  the  held  im¬ 
mediately  after  the  close  of  the  reaping,  it  is  said  of  the  man  who 
gives  the  last  stroke  at  threshing  that  “  he  has  killed  the  Bull.”  At 
Chambery  the  last  sheaf  is  called  the  sheaf  of  the  Young  Ox,  and  a 
race  takes  place  to  it  in  which  all  the  reapers  join.  When  the  last 
stroke  is  given  at  threshing  they  say  that  “  the  Ox  is  killed  ”  ;  and 
immediately  thereupon  a  real  ox  is  slaughtered  by  the  reaper  who 
cut  the  last  corn.  The  flesh  of  the  ox  is  eaten  by  the  threshers  at 
supper. 

We  have  seen  that  sometimes  the  young  corn-spirit,  whose  task 
it  is  to  quicken  the  corn  of  the  coming  year,  is  believed  to  be  born 
as  a  Corn-baby  on  the  harvest-field.  Similarly  in  Berry  the  young 
corn-spirit  is  sometimes  supposed  to  be  bom  on  the  field  in  calf  form  ; 
for  when  a  binder  has  not  rope  enough  to  bind  all  the  corn  in  sheaves, 
he  puts  aside  the  wheat  that  remains  over  and  imitates  the  lowing  of 
a  cow.  The  meaning  is  that  “  the  sheaf  has  given  birth  to  a  calf.” 
In  Puy-de-Dome  when  a  binder  cannot  keep  up  with  the  reaper  whom 
he  or  she  follows,  they  say  “  He  (or  she)  is  giving  birth  to  the  Calf.” 
In  some  parts  of  Prussia,  in  similar  circumstances,  they  call  out  to 
the  woman,  “  The  Bull  is  coming,”  and  imitate  the  bellowing  of  a 
bull.  In  these  cases  the  woman  is  conceived  as  the  Corn-cow  or  old 
com-spirit,  while  the  supposed  calf  is  the  Corn-calf  or  young  corn- 
spirit.  In  some  parts  of  Austria  a  mythical  calf  ( Muhkdlbchen )  is 
believed  to  be  seen  amongst  the  sprouting  corn  in  spring  and  to  push 
the  children  ;  when  the  corn  waves  in  the  wind  they  say,  “  The  Calf 
is  going  about.”  Clearly,  as  Mannhardt  observes,  this  calf  of  the 
spring-time  is  the  same  animal  which  is  afterwards  believed  to  be 
killed  at  reaping. 

§  8.  The  Corn-spirit  as  a  Horse  or  Mare. — Sometimes  the  corn-spirit 
appears  in  the  shape  of  a  horse  or  mare.  Between  Kalw  and  Stuttgart, 
when  the  corn  bends  before  the  wind,  they  say,  “  There  runs  the  Horse.” 
At  Bohlingen,  near  Radolfzell  in  Baden,  the  last  sheaf  of  oats  is  called 
the  Oats-stallion.  In  Hertfordshire,  at  the  end  of  the  reaping,  there 
is  or  used  to  be  observed  a  ceremony  called  “  crying  the  Mare.”  The 
last  blades  of  corn  left  standing  on  the  field  are  tied  together  and 
called  the  Mare.  The  reapers  stand  at  a  distance  and  throw  their 
sickles  at  it  ;  he  who  cuts  it  through  “  has  the  prize,  with  acclamations 
and  good  cheer.”  After  it  is  cut  the  reapers  cry  thrice  with  a  loud 
voice,  “  I  have  her  !  ”  Others  answer  thrice,  “  What  have  you  ?  ” 
— ■“  A  Mare  !  a  Mare  !  a  Mare  !  ” — ■“  Whose  is  she  ?  ”  is  next  asked 
thrice.  “A.  B.’s,”  naming  the  owner  thrice.  “  Whither  will  you 
send  her  ?  ” — “  To  C.  D.,”  naming  some  neighbour  who  has  not  reaped 
all  his  corn.  In  this  custom  the  corn-spirit  in  the  form  of  a  mare 
is  passed  on  from  a  farm  where  the  corn  is  all  cut  to  another  farm 
where  it  is  still  standing,  and  where  therefore  the  corn-spirit  may  be 


460  THE  CORN-SPIRIT  AS  AN  ANIMAL  ch. 

supposed  naturally  to  take  refuge.  In  Shropshire  the  custom  is  similar. 
The  farmer  who  finishes  his  harvest  last,  and  who  therefore  cannot 
send  the  Mare  to  any  one  else,  is  said  “  to  keep  her  all  winter.”  The 
mocking  offer  of  the  Mare  to  a  laggard  neighbour  was  sometimes 
responded  to  by  a  mocking  acceptance  of  her  help.  Thus  an  old 
man  told  an  inquirer,  “  While  we  wun  at  supper,  a  mon  cumm'd  wi’ 
a  autar  [halter]  to  fatch  her  away.”  At  one  place  a  real  mare  used  to 
be  sent,  but  the  man  who  rode  her  was  subjected  to  some  rough 
treatment  at  the  farmhouse  to  which  he  paid  his  unwelcome  visit. 

In  the  neighbourhood  of  Lille  the  idea  of  the  corn-spirit  in  horse 
form  is  clearly  preserved.  When  a  harvester  grows  weary  at  his 
work,  it  is  said,  “  He  has  the  fatigue  of  the  Horse.”  The  first  sheaf, 
called  the  “  Cross  of  the  Horse,”  is  placed  on  a  cross  of  boxwood  in 
the  barn,  and  the  youngest  horse  on  the  farm  must  tread  on  it.  The 
reapers  dance  round  the  last  blades  of  corn,  crying,  “  See  the  remains 
of  the  Horse.”  The  sheaf  made  out  of  these  last  blades  is  given  to 
the  youngest  horse  of  the  parish  ( commune )  to  eat.  This  youngest 
horse  of  the  parish  clearly  represents,  as  Mannhardt  says,  the  corn-spirit 
of  the  following  year,  the  Corn-foal,  which  absorbs  the  spirit  of  the 
old  Corn-horse  by  eating  the  last  corn  cut ;  for,  as  usual,  the  old 
corn-spirit  takes  his  final  refuge  in  the  last  sheaf.  The  thresher  of 
the  last  sheaf  is  said  to  “  beat  the  Horse.” 

§  9.  The  Corn-spirit  as  a  Pig  (Boar  or  Sow). — The  last  animal  ; 
embodiment  of  the  corn-spirit  which  we  shall  notice  is  the  pig  (boar 
or  sow).  In  Thuringen,  when  the  wind  sets  the  young  corn  in  motion, 
they  sometimes  say,  “  The  Boar  is  rushing  through  the  corn.”  Amongst 
the  Esthonians  of  the  island  of  Oesel  the  last  sheaf  is  called  the  Rye- 
boar,  and  the  man  who  gets  it  is  saluted  with  a  cry  of  “  You  have 
the  Rye-boar  on  your  back  !  ”  In  reply  he  strikes  up  a  song,  in  which 
he  prays  for  plenty.  At  Kohlerwinkel,  near  Augsburg,  at  the  close 
of  the  harvest,  the  last  bunch  of  standing  corn  is  cut  down,  stalk  by 
stalk,  by  all  the  reapers  in  turn.  He  who  cuts  the  last  stalk  “  gets 
the  Sow,”  and  is  laughed  at.  In  other  Swabian  villages  also  the  1 
man  who  cuts  the  last  corn  “  has  the  Sow,”  or  “  has  the  Rye-sow.” 
At  Bohlingen,  near  Radolfzell  in  Baden,  the  last  sheaf  is  called  the 
Rye-sow  or  the  Wheat-sow,  according  to  the  crop  ;  and  at  Rohrenbach 
in  Baden  the  person  who  brings  the  last  armful  for  the  last  sheaf  is 
called  the  Corn-sow  or  the  Oats-sow.  At  Friedingen,  in  Swabia, 
the  thresher  who  gives  the  last  stroke  is  called  Sow — Barley-sow, 
Corn-sow,  or  the  like,  according  to  the  crop.  At  Onstmettingen  the 
man  who  gives  the  last  stroke  at  threshing  “  has  the  Sow  ”  ;  he  is 
often  bound  up  in  a  sheaf  and  dragged  by  a  rope  along  the  ground. 
And,  generally,  in  Swabia  the  man  who  gives  the  last  stroke  with  the 
flail  is  called  Sow.  He  may,  however,  rid  himself  of  this  invidious 
distinction  by  passing  on  to  a  neighbour  the  straw-rope,  which  is  the 
badge  of  his  position  as  Sow.  So  he  goes  to  a  house  and  throws  the 
straw-rope  into  it,  crying,  “  There,  I  bring  you  the  Sow.”  All  the 
inmates  give  chase  ;  and  if  they  catch  him  they  beat  him,  shut  Em 


XLVIII 


THE  CORN-SPIRIT  AS  A  PIG 


461 

up  for  several  hours  in  the  pig-sty,  and  oblige  him  to  take  the  “  Sow  ” 
away  again.  In  various  parts  of  Upper  Bavaria  the  man  who  gives 
the  last  stroke  at  threshing  must  “  carry  the  Pig  ” — that  is,  either  a 
straw  effigy  of  a  pig  or  merely  a  bundle  of  straw-ropes.  This  he  carries 
to  a  neighbouring  farm  where  the  threshing  is  not  finished,  and  throws 
it  into  the  barn.  If  the  threshers  catch  him  they  handle  him  roughly, 
beating  him,  blackening  or  dirtying  his  face,  throwing  him  into  filth, 
binding  the  Sow  on  his  back,  and  so  on  ;  if  the  bearer  of  the  Sow  is 
a  woman  they  cut  off  her  hair.  At  the  harvest  supper  or  dinner  the 
man  who  “  carried  the  Pig  ”  gets  one  or  more  dumplings  made  in 
the  form  of  pigs.  When  the  dumplings  are  served  up  by  the  maid¬ 
servant,  all  the  people  at  table  cry  “  Suz,  suz,  suz  !  ”  that  being  the 
cry  used  in  calling  pigs.  Sometimes  after  dinner  the  man  who 
“  carried  the  Pig  ”  has  his  face  blackened,  and  is  set  on  a  cart  and 
drawn  round  the  village  by  his  fellows,  followed  by  a  crowd  crying 
“  Suz,  suz,  suz  !  ”  as  if  they  were  calling  swine.  Sometimes,  after 
being  wheeled  round  the  village,  he  is  flung  on  the  dunghill. 

Again,  the  corn-spirit  in  the  form  of  a  pig  plays  his  part  at  sowing¬ 
time  as  well  as  at  harvest.  At  Neuautz,  in  Courland,  when  barley 
is  sown  for  the  first  time  in  the  year,  the  farmer’s  wife  boils  the  chine 
of  a  pig  along  with  the  tail,  and  brings  it  to  the  sower  on  the  field. 
He  eats  of  it,  but  cuts  off  the  tail  and  sticks  it  in  the  field  ;  it  is  believed 
that  the  ears  of  corn  will  then  grow  as  long  as  the  tail.  Here  the  pig 
is  the  corn-spirit,  whose  fertilising  power  is  sometimes  supposed  to 
lie  especially  in  his  tail.  As  a  pig  he  is  put  in  the  ground  at  sowing¬ 
time,  and  as  a  pig  he  reappears  amongst  the  ripe  corn  at  harvest. 
For  amongst  the  neighbouring  Esthonians,  as  we  have  seen,  the  last 
sheaf  is  called  the  Rye-boar.  Somewhat  similar  customs  are  observed 
in  Germany.  In  the  Salza  district,  near  Meiningen,  a  certain  bone 
in  the  pig  is  called  “  the  Jew  on  the  winnowing-fan.”  The  flesh  of 
this  bone  is  boiled  on  Shrove  Tuesday,  but  the  bone  is  put  amongst 
the  ashes  which  the  neighbours  exchange  as  presents  on  St.  Peter’s 
Day  (the  twenty-second  of  February),  and  then  mix  with  the  seed- 
corn.  In  the  whole  of  Hesse,  Meiningen,  and  other  districts,  people 
eat  pea-soup  with  dried  pig-ribs  on  Ash  Wednesday  or  Candlemas. 
The  ribs  are  then  collected  and  hung  in  the  room  till  so  wing- time, 
when  they  are  inserted  in  the  sown  field  or  in  the  seed-bag  amongst 
the  flax  seed.  This  is  thought  to  be  an  infallible  specific  against 
earth-fleas  and  moles,  and  to  cause  the  flax  to  grow  well  and  tall. 

But  the  idea  of  the  corn-spirit  as  embodied  in  pig  form  is  nowhere 
more  clearly  expressed  than  in  the  Scandinavian  custom  of  the 
Yule  Boar.  In  Sweden  and  Denmark  at  Yule  (Christmas)  it  is  the 
custom  to  bake  a  loaf  in  the  form  of  a  boar-pig.  This  is  called  the 
Yule  Boar.  The  corn  of  the  last  sheaf  is  often  used  to  make  it.  All 
through  Yule  the  Yule  Boar  stands  on  the  table.  Often  it  is  kept 
till  the  sowing-time  in  spring,  when  part  of  it  is  mixed  with  the  seed- 
corn  and  part  given  to  the  ploughman  and  plough-horses  or  plough- 
oxen  to  eat,  in  the  expectation  of  a  good  harvest.  In  this  custom 


462  THE  CORN-SPIRIT  AS  AN  ANIMAL  ch. 

the  corn-spirit,  immanent  in  the  last  sheaf,  appears  at  midwinter  in 
the  form  of  a  boar  made  from  the  corn  of  the  last  sheaf ;  and  his 
quickening  influence  on  the  corn  is  shown  by  mixing  part  of  the  Yule 
Boar  with  the  seed-corn,  and  giving  part  of  it  to  the  ploughman  and 
his  cattle  to  eat.  Similarly  we  saw  that  the  Corn-wolf  makes  his 
appearance  at  mid-winter,  the  time  when  the  year  begins  to  verge 
towards  spring.  Formerly  a  real  boar  was  sacrificed  at  Christmas, 
and  apparently  also  a  man  in  the  character  of  the  Yule  Boar.  This, 
at  least,  may  perhaps  be  inferred  from  a  Christmas  custom  still 
observed  in  Sweden.  A  man  is  wrapt  up  in  a  skin,  and  carries  a 
wisp  of  straw  in  his  mouth,  so  that  the  projecting  straws  look  like 
the  bristles  of  a  boar.  A  knife  is  brought,  and  an  old  woman,  with 
her  face  blackened,  pretends  to  sacrifice  him. 

On  Christmas  Eve  in  some  parts  of  the  Esthonian  island  of  Oesel 
they  bake  a  long  cake  with  the  two  ends  turned  up.  It  is  called  the 
Christmas  Boar,  and  stands  on  the  table  till  the  morning  of  New  > 
Year’s  Day,  when  it  is  distributed  among  the  cattle.  In  other  parts 
of  the  island  the  Christmas  Boar  is  not  a  cake  but  a  little  pig  born  in 
March,  which  the  housewife  fattens  secretly,  often  without  the  know-  1 
ledge  of  the  other  members  of  the  family.  On  Christmas  Eve  the 
little  pig  is  secretly  killed,  then  roasted  in  the  oven,  and  set  on  the 
table  standing  on  all-fours,  where  it  remains  in  this  posture  for  several 
days.  In  other  parts  of  the  island,  again,  though  the  Christmas  cake  1 
has  neither  the  name  nor  the  shape  of  a  boar,  it  is  kept  till  the  New 
Year,  when  half  of  it  is  divided  among  all  the  members  and  all  the 
quadrupeds  of  the  family.  The  other  half  of  the  cake  is  kept  till 
sowing-time  comes  round,  when  it  is  similarly  distributed  in  the 
morning  among  human  beings  and  beasts.  In  other  parts  of  Esthonia, 
again,  the  Christmas  Boar,  as  it  is  called,  is  baked  of  the  first  rye  cut 
at  harvest  ;  it  has  a  conical  shape  and  a  cross  is  impressed  on  it 
with  a  pig’s  bone  or  a  key,  or  three  dints  are  made  in  it  with 
a  buckle  or  a  piece  of  charcoal.  It  stands  with  a  light  beside  it  on 
the  table  all  through  the  festal  season.  On  New  Year’s  Day  and 
Epiphany,  before  sunrise,  a  little  of  the  cake  is  crumbled  with  salt 
and  given  to  the  cattle.  The  rest  is  kept  till  the  day  when  the  cattle 
are  driven  out  to  pasture  for  the  first  time  in  spring.  It  is  then  put 
in  the  herdsman’s  bag,  and  at  evening  is  divided  among  the  cattle  to  1 
guard  them  from  magic  and  harm.  In  some  places  the  Christmas 
Boar  is  partaken  of  by  farm-servants  and  cattle  at  the  time  of  the 
barley  sowing,  for  the  purpose  of  thereby  producing  a  heavier  crop. 

§  10.  On  the  Animal  Embodiments  of  the  Corn-spirit. — So  much  for 
the  animal  embodiments  of  the  corn-spirit  as  they  are  presented  to  us 
in  the  folk-customs  of  Northern  Europe.  These  customs  bring  out 
clearly  the  sacramental  character  of  the  harvest-supper.  The  corn- 
spirit  is  conceived  as  embodied  in  an  animal ;  this  divine  animal  is 
slain,  and  its  flesh  and  blood  are  partaken  of  by  the  harvesters. 
Thus,  the  cock,  the  hare,  the  cat,  the  goat,  and  the  ox  are  eaten 
sacramentally  by  the  harvesters,  and  the  pig  is  eaten  sacramentally 


XL viii  ANIMAL  EMBODIMENTS  OF  THE  CORN-SPIRIT  463 

by  ploughmen  in  spring.  Again,  as  a  substitute  for  the  real  flesh  of 
the  divine  being,  bread  or  dumplings  are  made  in  his  image  and  eaten 
sacramentally  ;  thus,  pig-shaped  dumplings  are  eaten  by  the  harvesters, 
and  loaves  made  in  boar-shape  (the  Yule  Boar)  are  eaten  in  spring  by 
the  ploughman  and  his  cattle. 

The  reader  has  probably  remarked  the  complete  parallelism 
between  the  conceptions  of  the  corn-spirit  in  human  and  in  animal 
form.  The  parallel  may  be  here  briefly  resumed.  When  the  corn 
waves  in  the  wind  it  is  said  either  that  the  Corn-mother  or  that  the 
Corn-wolf,  etc.,  is  passing  through  the  corn.  Children  are  warned 
against  straying  in  corn-fields  either  because  the  Corn-mother  or 
because  the  Corn-wolf,  etc.,  is  there.  In  the  last  corn  cut  or  the  last 
sheaf  threshed  either  the  Corn-mother  or  the  Corn-wolf,  etc.,  is 
supposed  to  be  present.  The  last  sheaf  is  itself  called  either  ’the 
Corn-mother  or  the  Corn- wolf,  etc.,  and  is  made  up  in  the  shape 
either  of  a  woman  or  of  a  wolf,  etc.  The  person  who  cuts,  binds,  or 
threshes  the  last  sheaf  is  called  either  the  Old  Woman  or  the  Wolf, 
etc.,  according  to  the  name  bestowed  on  the  sheaf  itself.  As  in  some 
places  a  sheaf  made  in  human  form  and  called  the  Maiden,  the  Mother 
of  the  Maize,  etc.,  is  kept  from  one  harvest  to  the  next  in  order  to 
secure  a  continuance  of  the  corn-spirit’s  blessing,  so  in  some  places 
the  Harvest-cock  and  in  others  the  flesh  of  the  goat  is  kept  for  a  similar 
purpose  from  one  harvest  to  the  next.  As  in  some  places  the  grain 
taken  from  the  Corn-mother  is  mixed  with  the  seed-corn  in  spring  to 
make  the  crop  abundant,  so  in  some  places  the  feathers  of  the  cock, 
and  in  Sweden  the  Yule  Boar,  are  kept  till  spring  and  mixed  with  the 
seed-corn  for  a  like  purpose.  As  part  of  the  Corn-mother  or  Maiden 
is  given  to  the  cattle  at  Christmas  or  to  the  horses  at  the  first  plough- 
ing,  so  part  of  the  Yule  Boar  is  given  to  the  ploughing  horses  or  oxen 
in  spring.  Lastly,  the  death  of  the  corn-spirit  is  represented  by 
killing  or  pretending  to  kill  either  his  human  or  his  animal  representa¬ 
tive  ;  and  the  worshippers  partake  sacramentally  either  of  the  actual 
body  and  blood  of  the  representative  of  the  divinity,  or  of  bread  made 
in  his  likeness. 

Other  animal  forms  assumed  by  the  corn-spirit  are  the  fox,  stag,  roe, 
sheep,  bear,  ass,  mouse,  quail,  stork,  swan,  and  kite.  If  it  is  asked  why 
the  corn-spirit  should  be  thought  to  appear  in  the  form  of  an  animal 
and  of  so  many  different  animals,  we  may  reply  that  to  primitive 
man  the  simple  appearance  of  an  animal  or  bird  among  the  corn  is 
probably  enough  to  suggest  a  mysterious  link  between  the  creature 
and  the  corn  ;  and  when  we  remember  that  in  the  old  days,  before 
fields  were  fenced  in,  all  kinds  of  animals  must  have  been  free  to  roam 
over  them,  we  need  not  wonder  that  the  corn-spirit  should  have  been 
identified  even  with  large  animals  like  the  horse  and  cow,  which  nowa¬ 
days  could  not,  except  by  a  rare  accident,  be  found  straying  in  an 
English  corn-field.  This  explanation  applies  with  peculiar  force  to  the 
very  common  case  in  which  the  animal  embodiment  of  the  corn-spirit 
is  believed  to  lurk  in  the  last  standing  corn.  For  at  harvest  a  number 


464  ANCIENT  DEITIES  OF  VEGETATION  AS  ANIMALS  ch. 

of  wild  animals,  such  as  hares,  rabbits,  and  partridges,  are  commonly 
driven  by  the  progress  of  the  reaping  into  the  last  patch  of  standing 
corn,  and  make  their  escape  from  it  as  it  is  being  cut  down.  So 
regularly  does  this  happen  that  reapers  and  others  often  stand  round 
the  last  patch  of  corn  armed  with  sticks  or  guns,  with  which  they  kill 
the  animals  as  they  dart  out  of  their  last  refuge  among  the  stalks. 
Now,  primitive  man,  to  whom  magical  changes  of  shape  seem  per¬ 
fectly  credible,  finds  it  most  natural  that  the  spirit  of  the  corn,  driven 
from  his  home  in  the  ripe  grain,  should  make  his  escape  in  the  form 
of  the  animal  which  is  seen  to  rush  out  of  .the  last  patch  of  corn  as  it 
falls  under  the  scythe  of  the  reaper.  Thus  the  identification  of  the 
corn-spirit  with  an  animal  is  analogous  to  the  identification  of  him 
with  a  passing  stranger.  As  the  sudden  appearance  of  a  stranger 
near  the  harvest-field  or  threshing-floor  is,  to  the  primitive  mind, 
enough  to  identify  him  as  the  spirit  of  the  corn  escaping  from  the  cut 
or  threshed  corn,  so  the  sudden  appearance  of  an  animal  issuing  from 
the  cut  corn  is  enough  to  identify  it  with  the  corn-spirit  escaping  from 
his  ruined  home.  The  two  identifications  are  so  analogous  that  they 
can  hardly  be  dissociated  in  any  attempt  to  explain  them.  Those 
who  look  to  some  other  principle  than  the  one  here  suggested  for  the 
explanation  of  the  latter  identification  are  bound  to  show  that  their 
theory  covers  the  former  identification  also. 


CHAPTER  XLIX 

ANCIENT  DEITIES  OF  VEGETATION  AS  ANIMALS 


§  i.  Dionysus,  the  Goat  and  the  Bull. — However  we  may  explain  it,  the 
fact  remains  that  in  peasant  folk-lore  the  corn-spirit  is  very  commonly 
conceived  and  represented  in  animal  form.  May  not  this  fact  explain 
the  relation  in  which  certain  animals  stood  to  the  ancient  deities  of 
vegetation,  Dionysus,  Demeter,  Adonis,  Attis,  and  Osiris  ? 

To  begin  with  Dionysus.  We  have  seen  that  he  was  represented 
sometimes  as  a  goat  and  sometimes  as  a  bull.  As  a.  goat  he  can 
hardly  be  separated  from  the  minor  divinities,  the  Pans,  Satyrs,  and 
Silenuses,  all  of  whom  are  closely  associated  with  him  and  are  repre¬ 
sented  more  or  less  completely  in  the  form  of  goats.  Thus,  Pan  was 
regularly  portrayed  in  sculpture  and  painting  with  the  face  and  legs 
of  a  goat.  The  Satyrs  were  depicted  with  pointed  goat-ears,  and 
sometimes  with  sprouting  horns  and  short  tails.  They  were  some¬ 
times  spoken  of  simply  as  goats  ;  and  in  the  drama  their  parts  were 
played  by  men  dressed  in  goatskins.  Silenus  is  represented  in  art 
clad  in  a  goatskin.  Further,  the  Fauns,  the  Italian  counterpart  of 
the  Greek  Pans  and  Satyrs,  are  described  as  being  half  goats,  with 
goat-feet  and  goat-horns.  Again,  all  these  minor  goat-formed 
divinities  partake  onore  or  less  clearly  of  the  character  of  woodland 


xlix  DIONYSUS,  THE  GOAT  AND  THE  BULL  465 

deities.  Thus,  Pan  was  called  by  the  Arcadians  the  Lord  of  the  Wood. 
The  Silenuses  kept  company  with  the  tree-nymphs.  The  Fauns  are 
expressly  designated  as  woodland  deities  ;  and  their  character  as  such 
is  still  further  brought  out  by  their  association,  or  even  identification, 
with  Silvanus  and  the  Silvanuses,  who,  as  their  name  of  itself  indicates, 
are  spirits  of  the  woods.  Lastly,  the  association  of  the  Satyrs  with 
the  Silenuses,  Fauns,  and  Silvanuses  proves  that  the  Satyrs  also  were 
woodland  deities.  These  goat-formed  spirits  of  the  woods  have  their 
counterparts  in  the  folk-lore  of  Northern  Europe.  Thus,  the  Russian 
wood-spirits,  called  Ljeschie  (from  Ijes,  “  wood  ”),  are  believed  to 
appear  partly  in  human  shape,  but  with  the  horns,  ears,  and  legs  of 
goats.  The  Ljeschi  can  alter  his  stature  at  pleasure  ;  when  he  walks 
in  the  wood  he  is  as  tall  as  the  trees  *  when  he  walks  in  the  meadows 
he  is  no  higher  than  the  grass.  Some  of  the  Ljeschie  are  spirits  of  the 
corn  as  well  as  of  the  wood  ;  before  harvest  they  are  as  tall  as  the 
corn-stalks,  but  after  it  they  shrink  to  the  height  of  the  stubble. 
This  brings  out  what  we  have  remarked  before — the  close  connexion 
between  tree-spirits  and  corn-spirits,  and  shows  how  easily  the  former 
may  melt  into  the  latter.  Similarly  the  Fauns,  though  wood-spirits, 
were  believed  to  foster  the  growth  of  the  crops.  We  have  already 
seen  how  often  the  corn-spirit  is  represented  in  folk-custom  as  a  goat. 
On  the  whole,  then,  as  Mannhardt  argues,  the  Pans,  Satyrs,  and 
Fauns  perhaps  belong  to  a  widely  diffused  class  of  wood-spirits  con¬ 
ceived  in  goat-form.  The  fondness  of  goats  for  straying  in  woods  and 
nibbling  the  bark  of  trees,  to  which  indeed  they  are  most  destructive, 
is  an  obvious  and  perhaps  sufficient  reason  why  wood-spirits  should  so 
often  be  supposed  to  take  the  form  of  goats.  The  inconsistency  of  a 
god  of  vegetation  subsisting  upon  the  vegetation  which  he  personifies 
is  not  one  to  strike  the  primitive  mind.  Such  inconsistencies  arise 
when  the  deity,  ceasing  to  be  immanent  in  the  vegetation,  comes  to  be 
regarded  as  its  owner  or  lord  ;  for  the  idea  of  owning  the  vegetation 
naturally  leads  to  that  of  subsisting  on  it.  Sometimes  the  corn-spirit, 
originally  conceived  as  immanent  in  the  corn,  afterwards  comes  to  be 
regarded  as  its  owner,  who  lives  on  it  and  is  reduced  to  poverty  and 
want  by  being  deprived  of  it.  Hence  he  is  often  known  as  “  the  Poor 
Man”  or  “the  Poor  Woman.”  Occasionally  the  last  sheaf  is  left 
standing  on  the  field  for  "  the  Poor  Old  Woman  ”  'or  for  “  the  Old 
Rye- woman.” 

Thus  the  representation  of  wood-spirits  in  the  form  of  goats  appears 
to  be  both  widespread  and,  to  the  primitive  mind,  natural.  Therefore 
when  we  find,  as  we  have  done,  that  Dionysus — a  tree-god — is  some¬ 
times  represented  in  goat-form,  we  can  hardly  avoid  concluding  that 
this  representation  is  simply  a  part’ of  his  proper  character  as  a  tree- 
?od  and  is  not  to  be  explained  by  the  fusion  of  two  distinct  and  in¬ 
dependent  worships,  in  one  of  which  he  originally  appeared  as  a  tree- 
?°d  and  in  the  other  as  a  goat. 

Dionysus  was  also  figured,  as  we  have  seen,  in  tl  3  shape  of  a  bull, 
^fter  what  has  gone  before  we  are  naturally  led  t  expect  that  his 

2  H 


466  ANCIENT  DEITIES  OF  VEGETATION  AS  ANIMALS  ch. 

bull  form  must  have  been  only  another  expression  for  his  character  as 
a  deity  of  vegetation,  especially  as  the  bull  is  a  common  embodiment 
of  the  com -spirit  in  Northern  Europe  ,  and  the  close  association  of 
Dionysus  with  Demeter  and  Persephone  in  the  mysteries  of  Eleusis 
shows  that  he  had  at  least  strong  agricultural  affinities. 

The  probability  of  this  view  will  be  somewhat  increased  if  it  can 
be  shown  that  in  other  rites  than  those  of  Dionysus  the.  ancients  slew 
an  ox  as  a  representative  of  the  spirit  of  vegetation.  This  they  appear 
to  have  done  in  the  Athenian  sacrifice  known  as  “  the  murder  of  the 
ox  ’ ’  (bouphonia) .  It  took  place  about  the  end  of  June  or  beginning 
of  July,  that  is,  about  the  time  when  the  threshing  is  nearly  over  in 
Attica.  According  to  tradition  the  sacrifice  was  instituted  to  procure 
a  cessation  of  drought  and  dearth  which  had  afflicted  the  land.  The 
ritual  was  as  follows.  Barley  mixed  with  wheat,  or  cakes  made  of 
them,  were  laid  upon  the  bronze  altar  of  Zeus  Polieus  on  the  Acropolis.; 
Oxen  were  driven  round  the  altar,  and  the  ox  which  went  up  to  the 
altar  and  ate  the  offering  on  it  was  sacrificed.  The  axe  and  knife  with 
which  the  beast  was  slain  had  been  previously  wetted  with  water 
brought  by  maidens  called  “  water-carriers.”  The  weapons  were  then 
sharpened  and  handed  to  the  butchers,  one  of  whom  felled  the  ox  with 
the  axe  and  another  cut  its  throat  with  the  knife.  As  soon  as  he 
had  felled  the  ox,  the  former  threw  the  axe  from  him  and  fled  ;  and 
the  man  who  cut  the  beast’s  throat  apparently  imitated  his  example. 
Meantime  the  ox  was  skinned  and  all  present  partook  of  its  flesh. 
Then  the  hide  was  stuffed  with  straw  and  sewed  up  ;  next  the  stuffed 
animal  was  set  on  its  feet  and  yoked  to  a  plough  as  if  it  were  ploughing. 
A  trial  then  took  place  in  an  ancient  law-court  presided  over  by  the 
King  (as  he  was  called)  to  determine  who  had  murdered  the  ox.  The 
maidens  who  had  brought  the  water  accused  the  men  who  had  sharpened 
the  axe  and  knife  ;  the  men  who  had  sharpened  the  axe  and  knife]; 
blamed  the  men  who  had  handed  these  implements  to  the  butchers 
the  men  who  had  handed  the  implements  to  the  butchers  blamed  the 
butchers  ;  and  the  butchers  laid  the  blame  on  the  axe  and  knife, 
which  were  accordingly  found  guilty,  condemned,  and  cast  into  the 

sea. 

The  name  of  this  sacrifice, — ■“  the  murder  of  the  ox,” — the  pains 
taken  by  each  person  who  had  a  hand  in  the  slaughter  to  lay  the  blame] 
on  some  one  else,  together  with  the  formal  trial  and  punishment  o: 
the  axe  or  knife  or  both,  prove  that  the  ox  was  here  regarded  not  merel) 
as  a  victim  offered  to  a  god,  but  as  itself  a  sacred  creature,  the  slaughtei 
of  which  was  sacrilege  or  murder.  This  is  borne  out  by  a  statement 
of  Varro  that  to  kill  an  ox  was  formerly  a  capital  crime  in  Attica.  Th< 
mode  of  selecting  the  victim  suggests  that  the  ox  which  tasted  the  con 
was  viewed  as  the  corn-deity  taking  possession  of  his  own.  Thi; 
interpretation  is  supported  by  the  following  custom.  In  Beauce,  ii 
the  district  of  Orleans,  on  the  twenty-fourth  or  twenty-fifth  of  Apri 
they  make  a  straw  man  called  “  the  great  mondard .”  For  they  sa? 
that  the  old  mondard  is  now  dead  and  it  is  necessary  to  make  a  nev 


XLIX 


DIONYSUS,  THE  GOAT  AND  THE  BULL  467 

one.  The  straw  man  is  carried  in  solemn  procession  up  and  down 
the  village  and  at  last  is  placed  upon  the  oldest  apple-tree.  There  he 
remains  till  the  apples  are  gathered,  when  he  is  taken  down  and  thrown 
into  the  water,  or  he  is  burned  and  his  ashes  cast  into  water.  But  the 
person  who  plucks  the  first  fruit  from  the  tree  succeeds  to  the  title  of 
the  gieat  mondard.  Here  the  straw  figure,  called  “  the  great 
mondard  and  placed  on  the  oldest  apple-tree  in  spring,  represents  the 
spirit  of  the  tree,  who,  dead  in  winter,  revives  when  the  apple-blossoms 
appear  on  the  boughs.  Thus  the  person  who  plucks  the  first  fruit 
from  the  tree  and  thereby  receives  the  name  of  "  the  great  mondard  ” 
must  be  regarded  as  a  representative  of  the  tree-spirit.  Primitive 
peoples  are  usually  reluctant  to  taste  the  annual  first-fruits  of  any 
crop,  until  some  ceremony  has  been  performed  which  makes  it  safe 
and  pious  for  them  to  do  so.  The  reason  of  this  reluctance  appears 
to  be  a  belief  that  the  first-fruits  either  belong  to  or  actually  contain  a 
divinity.  Therefore  when  a  man  or  animal  is  seen  boldly  to  appropriate 
the  sacred  first-fruits,  he  or  it  is  naturally  regarded  as  the  divinity 
himself  in  human  or  animal  form  taking  possession  of  his  own.  The 
time  of  the  Athenian  sacrifice,  which  fell  about  the  close  of  the  threshing, 
suggests  that  the  wheat  and  barley  laid  upon  the  altar  were  a  harvest 
offering ;  and  the  sacramental  character  of  the  subsequent  repast- 
all  partaking  of  the  flesh  of  the  divine  animal — would  make  it  parallel 
to  the  harvest-suppers  of  modern  Europe,  in  which,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  flesh  of  the  animal  which  stands  for  the  corn-spirit  is  eaten  by  the 
harvesters.  Again,  the  tradition  that  the  sacrifice  was  instituted  in 
order  to  put  an  end  to  drought  and  famine  is  in  favour  of  taking  it  as 
a  harvest  festival.  The  resurrection  of  the  corn-spirit,  enacted  by 
setting  up  the  stuffed  ox  and  yoking  it  to  the  plough,  may  be  compared 
with  the  resurrection  of  the  tree-spirit  in  the  person  of  his  representa¬ 
tive,  the  Wild  Man. 

The  ox  appears  as  a  representative  of  the  corn-spirit  in  other  parts 
of  the  world.  At  Great  Bassam,  in  Guinea,  two  oxen  are  slain  annuahy 
to  procure  a  good  harvest.  If  the  sacrifice  is  to  be  effectual,  it  is 
necessary  that  the  oxen  should  weep.  So  all  the  women  of  the  village 
sit  in  front  of  the  beasts,  chanting,  “  The  ox  will  weep  ;  yes,  he  will 
weep  !  ”  From  time  to  time  one  of  the  women  walks  round  the  beasts, 
throwing  manioc  meal  or  palm  wine  upon  them,  especially  into  their 
eyes.  When  tears  roll  down  from  the  eyes  of  the  oxen,  the  people 
dance,  singing,  "  The  ox  weeps  !  the  ox  weeps  !  ”  Then  two  men 
seize  the  tails  of  the  beasts  and  cut  them  off  at  one  blow.  It  is  believed 
that  a  great  misfortune  will  happen  in  the  course  of  the  year  if  the 
tails  are  not  severed  at  one  blow.  The  oxen  are  afterwards  killed, 
and  their  flesh  is  eaten  by  the  chiefs.  Here  the  tears  of  the  oxen,  like 
those  of  the  human  victims  amongst  the  Khonds  and  the  Aztecs,  are 
probably  a  rain-cha.rm.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  virtue  of  the 
corn-spirit,  embodied  in  animal  form,  is  sometimes  supposed  to  reside 
in  the  tail,  and  that  the  last  handful  of  corn  is  sometimes  conceived 
as  the  tail  of  the  corn-spirit.  In  the  Mithraic  religion  this  conception 


468  ANCIENT  DEITIES  OF  VEGETATION  AS  ANIMALS  ch. 

is  graphically  set  forth  in  some  of  the  numerous  sculptures  which 
j-eprgsent  Mithras  kneeling  on  the  back  of  a  bull  and  plunging  a  knife 
into  its  flank  \  for  on  certain  of  these  monuments  the  tail  of  the  bull  ■ 
ends  in  three  stalks  of  com,  and  in  one  of  them  corn-stalks  instead  of 
blood  are  seen  issuing  from  the  wound  inflicted  by  the  knife.  Such 
representations  certainly  suggest  that  the  bull,  whose  sacrifice  appears 
to  have  formed  a  leading  feature  in  the  Mithraic  ritual,  was  conceived, 
in  one  at  least  of  its  aspects,  as  an  incarnation  of  the  corn-spirit. 

Still  more  clearly  does  the  ox  appear  as  a  personification  of  the 
corn-spirit  in  a  ceremony  which  is  observed  in  all  the  provinces  and 
districts  of  China  to  welcome  the  approach  of  spring.  On  the  first 
day  of  spring,  usually  on  the  third  or  fourth  of  February,  which  is  also 
the  beginning  of  the  Chinese  New  Year,  the  governor  or  prefect  of  the 
city  goes  in  procession  to  the  east  gate  of  the  city,  and  sacrifices  to  the 
Divine  Husbandman,  who  is  represented  with  a  bull’s  head  on  the 
body  of  a  man.  A  large  effigy  of  an  ox,  cow,  or  buffalo  has  been 
prepared  for  the  occasion,  and  stands  outside  of  the  east  gate,  with 
agricultural  implements  beside  it.  The  figure  is  made  of  differently- 
coloured  pieces  of  paper  pasted  on  a  framework  either  by  a  blind  man 
or  according  to  the  directions  of  a  necromancer.  The  colours  of  the 
paper  prognosticate  the  character  of  the  coming  year  ;  if  red  prevails, 
there  will  be  many  fires  ;  if  white,  there  will  be  floods  and  rain  ;  and 
so  with  the  other  colours.  The  mandarins  walk  slowly  round  the  ox, 
beating  it  severely  at  each  step  with  rods  of  various  hues.  It  is  filled  ( 
with  five  kinds  of  grain,  which  pour  forth  when  the  effigy  is  broken 
by  the  blows  of  the  rods.  The  paper  fragments  are  then  set  on  fire, 
and  a  scramble  takes  place  for  the  burning  fragments,  because  the 
people  believe  that  whoever  gets  one  of  them  is  sure  to  be  fortunate 
throughout  the  year.  A  live  buffalo  is  next  killed,  and  its  flesh  is 
divided  among  the  mandarins.  According  to  one  account,  the  effigy 
of  the  ox  is  made  of  clay,  and,  after  being  beaten  by  the  governor,  is 
stoned  by  the  people  till  they  break  it  in  pieces,  “  from  which  they 
expect  an  abundant  year."  Here  the  com-spirit  appears  to  be  plainly 
represented  by  the  corn-filled  ox,  whose  fragments  may  therefore  be 
supposed  to  bring  fertility  with  them. 

On  the  whole  we  may  perhaps  conclude  that  both  as  a  goat  and  as 
a  bull  Dionysus  was  essentially  a  god  of  vegetation.  The  Chinese  and 
European  customs  which  I  have  cited  may  perhaps  shed  light  on  the 
custom  of  rending  a  live  bull  or  goat  at  the  rites  of  Dionysus.  The 
animal  was  torn  in  fragments,  as  the  Khond  victim  was  cut  in  pieces, 
in  order  that  the  worshippers  might  each  secure  a  portion  of  the  life- 
giving  and  fertilising  influence  of  the  god.  The  flesh  was  eaten  raw 
as  a  sacrament,  and  we  may  conjecture  that  some  of  it  was  taken  home 
to  be  buried  in  the  fields,  or  otherwise  employed  so  as  to  convey  to  the 
fruits  of  the  earth  the  quickening  influence  of  the  god  of  vegetation. 
The  resurrection  of  Dionysus,  related  in  his  myth,  may  have  been 
enacted  in  his  rites  by  stuffing  and  setting  up  the  slain  ox,  as  was  done 
at  the  Athenian  bouphonia. 


XLIX 


469 


DEMETER,  THE  PIG  AND  THE  HORSE 

§  2.  Demeter ,  the  Pig  and  the  Horse. — Passing  next  to  the  corn- 
goddess  Demeter,  and  remembering  that  in  European  folk-lore  the  pig 
is  a  common  embodiment  of  the  corn-spirit,  we  may  now  ask  whether 
the  pig,  which  was  so  closely  associated  with  Demeter,  may  not  have 
been  originally  the  goddess  herself  in  animal  form  ?  The  pig  was 
sacred  to  her  ;  in  art  she  was  portrayed  carrying  or  accompanied  by 
a  pig  ,  and  the  pig  was  regularly  sacrificed  in  her  mysteries,  the  reason 
assigned  being  that  the  pig  injures  the  corn  and  is  therefore  an  enemy 
of  the  goddess.  But  after  an  animal  has  been  conceived  as  a  god,  or 
a  god  as  an  animal,  it  sometimes  happens,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the 
god  sloughs  off  his  animal  form  and  becomes  purely  anthropomorphic  ; 
and  that  then  the  animal,  which  at  first  had  been  slain  in  the  character 
of  the  god,  comes  to  be  viewed  as  a  victim  offered  to  the  god  on  the 
ground  of  its  hostility  to  the  deity  ;  in  short,  the  god  is  sacrificed  to 
himself  on  the  ground  that  he  is  his  own  enemy,  this  happened  to 
Dionysus,  and  it  may  have  happened  to  Demeter  also.  And  in  fact 
the  rites  of  one  of  her  festivals,  the  Thesmophoria,  bear  out  the  view 
that  originally  the  pig  was  an  embodiment  of  the  corn-goddess  herself, 
either  Demeter  or  her  daughter  and  double  Persephone.  The  Attic 
Thesmophoria  was  an  autumn  festival,  celebrated  by  women  alone  in 
October,  and  appears  to  have  represented  with  mourning  rites  the 
descent  of  Persephone  (or  Demeter)  into  the  lower  world,  and  with 
joy  her  return  from  the  dead.  Hence  the  name  Descent  or  Ascent 
variously  applied  to  the  first,  and  the  name  Kalligeneia  (fair-born) 
applied  to  the  third  day  of  the  festival.  Now  it  was  customary  at  the 
Thesmophoria  to  throw  pigs,  cakes  of  dough,  and  branches  of  pine- 
trees  into  “  the  chasms  of  Demeter  and  Persephone,"  which  appear 
to  have  been  sacred  caverns  or  vaults.  In  these  caverns  or  vaults 
there  were  said  to  be  serpents,  which  guarded  the  caverns  and  con¬ 
sumed  most  of  the  flesh  of  the  pigs  and  dough-cakes  which  were  thrown 
in.  Afterwards— apparently  at  the  next  annual  festival— the  decayed 
remains  of  the  pigs,  the  cakes,  and  the  pine-branches  were  fetched  by 
women  called  "  drawers,"  who,  after  observing  rules  of  ceremonial 
purity  for  three  days,  descended  into  the  caverns,  and,  frightening 
away  the  serpents  by  clapping  their  hands,  brought  up  the  remains 
and  placed  them  on  the  altar.  Whoever  got  a  piece  of  the  decayed 
flesh  and  cakes,  and  sowed  it  with  the  seed-corn  in  his  held,  was  believed 
to  be  sure  of  a  good  crop. 

To  explain  the  rude  and  ancient  ritual  of  the  Thesmophoria  the 
following  legend  was  told.  At  the  moment  when  Pluto  carried  off 
Persephone,  a  swineherd  called  Eubuleus  chanced  to  be  herding  his 
swine  on  the  spot,  and  his  herd  was  engulfed  in  the  chasm  down 
which  Pluto  vanished  with  Persephone.  Accordingly  at  the  Thesmo¬ 
phoria  pigs  were  annually  thrown  into  caverns  to  commemorate  the 
disappearance  of  the  swine  of  Eubuleus.  It  follows  from  this  that 
the  casting  of  the  pigs  into  the  vaults  at  the  Thesmophoria  formed 
part  of  the  dramatic  representation  of  Persephone’s  descent  into  the 
lower  world  ;  and  as  no  image  of  Persephone  appears  to  have  been 


470  ANCIENT  DEITIES  OF  VEGETATION  AS  ANIMALS  ch. 

thrown  in,  we  may  infer  that  the  descent  of  the  pigs  was  not  so  much 
an  accompaniment  of  her  descent  as  the  descent  itself,  in  short,  that 
the  pigs  were  Persephone.  Afterwards  when  Persephone  or  Demeter 
(for  the  two  are  equivalent)  took  on  human  form,  a  reason  had  to 
be  found  for  the  custom  of  throwing  pigs  into  caverns  at  her  festival ; 
and  this  was  done  by  saying  that  when  Pluto  carried  off  Persephone 
there  happened  to  be  some  swine  browsing  near,  which  were  swallowed 
up  along  with  her.  The  story  is  obviously  a  forced  and  awkward 
attempt  to  bridge  over  the  gulf  between  the  old  conception  of  the 
corn-spirit  as  a  pig  and  the  new  conception  of  her  as  an  anthropo¬ 
morphic  goddess.  A  trace  of  the  older  conception  survived  in  the 
legend  that  when  the  sad  mother  was  searching  for  traces  of  the 
vanished  Persephone  the  footprints  of  the  lost  one  were  obliterated 
by  the  footprints  of  a  pig  ;  originally,  we  may  conjecture,  the  foot¬ 
prints  of  the  pig  were  the  footprints  of  Persephone  and  of  Demeter 
herself.  A  consciousness  of  the  intimate  connexion  of  the  pig  with 
the  corn  lurks  in  the  legend  that  the  swineherd  Eubuleus  was  a  brother 
of  Triptolemus,  to  whom  Demeter  first  imparted  the  secret  of  the  i 
corn.  Indeed,  according  to  one  version  of  the  story,  Eubuleus  himself  , 
received,  jointly  with  his  brother  Triptolemus,  the  gift  of  the  corn 
from  Demeter  as  a  reward  for  revealing  to  her  the  fate  of  Persephone. 
Further,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  at  the  Thesmophoria  the  women  appear 
to  have  eaten  swine’s  flesh.  The  meal,  if  I  am  right,  must  have 
been  a  solemn  sacrament  or  communion,  the  worshippers  partaking 
of  the  body  of  the  god. 

As  thus  explained,  the  Thesmophoria  has  its  analogies  in  the 
folk-customs  of  Northern  Europe  which  have  been  already  described. 
Just  as  at  the  Thesmophoria — an  autumn  festival  in  honour  of  the 
corn-goddess— swine’s  flesh  was  partly  eaten,  partly  kept  in  caverns 
till  the  following  year,  when  it  was  taken  up  to  be  sown  with  the 
seed-corn  in  the  fields  for  the  purpose  of  securing  a  good  crop  ;  so 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Grenoble  the  goat  killed  on  the  harvest- 
field  is  partly  eaten  at  the  harvest-supper,  partly  pickled  and  kept 
till  the  next  harvest ;  so  at  Pouilly  the  ox  killed  on  the  harvest-field 
is  partly  eaten  by  the  harvesters,  partly  pickled  and  kept  till  the 
first  day  of  sowing  in  spring,  probably  to  be  then  mixed  with  the  seed, 
or  eaten  by  the  ploughmen,  or  both  ;  so  at  Udvarhely  the  feathers  ■ 
of  the  cock  which  is  killed  in  the  last  sheaf  at  harvest  are  kept  till 
spring,  and  then  sown  with  the  seed  on  the  field  ;  so  in  Hesse  and 
Meiningen  the  flesh  of  pigs  is  eaten  on  Ash  Wednesday  or  Candlemas, 
and  the  bones  are  kept  till  sowing-time,  when  they  are  put  into  the 
field  sown  or  mixed  with  the  seed  in  the  bag  ;  so,  lastly,  the  corn 
from  the  last  sheaf  is  kept  till  Christmas,  made  into  the  Yule  Boar,  and 
afterwards  broken  and  mixed  with  the  seed-corn  at  sowing  in  spring. 
Thus,  to  put  it  generally,  the  corn-spirit  is  killed  in  animal  form  in 
autumn  ;  part  of  his  flesh  is  eaten  as  a  sacrament  by  his  worshippers ; 
and  part  of  it  is  kept  till  next  sowing-time  or  harvest  as  a  pledge  and 
security  for  the  continuance  or  renewal  of  the  corn-spirit’s  energies. 


XLIX 


ATTIS,  ADONIS,  AND  THE  PIG 


47i 


If  persons  of  fastidious  taste  should  object  that  the  Greeks  never 
could  have  conceived  Demeter  and  Persephone  to  be  embodied  in 
the  form  of  pigs,  it  may  be  answered  that  in  the  cave  of  Phigalia  in 
Arcadia  the  Black  Demeter  was  portrayed  with  the  head  and  mane 
of  a  horse  on  the  body  of  a  woman.  Between  the  portrait  of  a  goddess 
as  a  pig,  and  the  portrait  of  her  as  a  woman  with  a  horse’s  head, 
there  is  little  to  choose  in  respect  of  barbarism.  The  legend  told  of 
the  Phigalian  Demeter  indicates  that  the  horse  was  one  of  the  animal 
forms  assumed  in  ancient  Greece,  as  in  modern  Europe,  by  the  corn- 
spirit.  It  was  said  that  in  her  search  for  her  daughter,  Demeter 
assumed  the  form  of  a  mare  to  escape  the  addresses  of  Poseidon, 
and  that,  offended  at  his  importunity,  she  withdrew  in  dudgeon  to 
a  cave  not  far  from  Phigalia  in  the  highlands  of  Western  Arcadia. 
There,  robed  in  black,  she  tarried  so  long  that  the  fruits  of  the  earth 
were  perishing,  and  mankind  would  have  died  of  famine  if  Pan  had 
not  soothed  the  angry  goddess  and  persuaded  her  to  quit  the  cave. 
In  memory  of  this  event,  the  Phigalians  set  up  an  image  of  the  Black 
Demeter  in  the  cave  ;  it  represented  a  woman  dressed  in  a  long  robe, 
with  the  head  and  mane  of  a  horse.  The  Black  Demeter,  in  whose 
absence  the  fruits  of  the  earth  perish,  is  plainly  a  mythical  expression 
for  the  bare  wintry  earth  stripped  of  its  summer  mantle  of  green. 

§  3.  Attis,  Adonis,  and  the  Pig. — Passing  now  to  Attis  and  Adonis, 
we  may  note  a  few  facts  which  seem  to  show  that  these  deities  of 
vegetation  had  also,  like  other  deities  of  the  same  class,  their  animal 
embodiments.  The  worshippers  of  Attis  abstained  from  eating  the 
flesh  of  swine.  This  appears  to  indicate  that  the  pig  was  regarded 
as  an  embodiment  of  Attis.  And  the  legend  that  Attis  was  killed 
by  a  boar  points  in  the  same  direction.  For  after  the  examples  of 
the  goat  Dionysus  and  the  pig  Demeter  it  may  almost  be  laid  down 
as  a  rule  that  an  animal  which  is  said  to  have  injured  a  god  was 
originally  the  god  himself.  Perhaps  the  cry  of  “  Hyes  Attes  !  Hyes 
Attes  !  ”  which  was  raised  by  the  worshippers  of  Attis  may  be  neither 
more  nor  less  than  “  Pig  Attis  !  Pig  Attis  !  ” — hyes  being  possibly  a 
Phrygian  form  of  the  Greek  hys,  “  a  pig.” 

In  regard  to  Adonis,  his  connexion  with  the  boar  was  not  always 
explained  by  the  story  that  he  had  been  killed  by  the  animal.  According 
to  another  storv,  a  boar  rent  with  his  tusk  the  bark  of  the  tree  in  which 
the  infant  Adonis  was  born.  According  to  yet  another  story,  he  perished 
at  the  hands  of  Hephaestus  on  Mount  Lebanon  while  he  was  hunting 
wild  boars.  These  variations  in  the  legend  serve  to  show  that,  while 
the  connexion  of  the  boar  with  Adonis  was  certain,  the  reason  of  the 
connexion  was  not  understood,  and  that  consequently  different  stories 
were  devised  to  explain  it.  Certainly  the  pig  ranked  as  a  sacred 
animal  among  the  Syrians.  At  the  great  religious  metropolis  of 
Hierapolis  on  the  Euphrates  pigs  were  neither  sacrificed  nor  eaten, 
and  if  a  man  touched  a  pig  he  was  unclean  for  the  rest  of  the  day. 
Some  people  said  this  was  because  the  pigs  were  unclean  ;  others 
said  it  was  because  the  pigs  were  sacred.  This  difference  of  opinion 


472  ANCIENT  DEITIES  OF  VEGETATION  AS  ANIMALS  ch. 

points  to  a  hazy  state  of  religious  thought  in  which  the  ideas  of  sanctity 
and  uncleanness  are  not  yet  sharply  distinguished,  both  being  blent 
in  a  sort  of  vaporous  solution  to  which  we  give  the  name  of  taboo. 
It  is  quite  consistent  with  this  that  the  pig  should  have  been  held  !j 
to  be  an  embodiment  of  the  divine  Adonis,  and  the  analogies  of 
Dionysus  and  Demeter  make  it  probable  that  the  story  of  the  hostility 
of  the  animal  to  the  god  was  only  a  late  misapprehension  of  the  old 
view  of  the  god  as  embodied  in  a  pig.  The  rule  that  pigs  were  not 
sacrificed  or  eaten  by  worshippers  of  Attis  and  presumably  of  Adonis 
does  not  exclude  the  possibility  that  in  these  rituals  the  pig  was 
slain  on  solemn  occasions  as  a  representative  of  the  god  and  consumed 
sacramentally  by  the  worshippers.  Indeed,  the  sacramental  killing 
and  eating  of  an  animal  implies  that  the  animal  is  sacred,  and  that, 
as  a  general  rule,  it  is  spared. 

The  attitude  of  the  Jews  to  the  pig  was  as  ambiguous  as  that  of  j 
the  heathen  Syrians  towards  the  same  animal.  The  Greeks  could  not 
decide  whether  the  Jews  worshipped  swine  or  abominated  them.  On  | 
the  one  hand  they  might  not  eat  swine  ;  but  on  the  other  hand  they 
might  not  kill  them.  And  if  the  former  rule  speaks  for  the  uncleanness, 
the  latter  speaks  still  more  strongly  for  the  sanctity  of  the  animal. 
For  whereas  both  rules  may,  and  one  rule  must,  be  explained  on  the 
supposition  that  the  pig  was  sacred  ;  neither  rule  must,  and  one  rule 
cannot,  be  explained  on  the  supposition  that  the  pig  was  unclean. 
If,  therefore,  we  prefer  the  former  supposition,  we  must  conclude 
that,  originally  at  least,  the  pig  was  revered  rather  than  abhorred 
by  the  Israelites.  We  are  confirmed  in  this  opinion  by  observing 
that  down  to  the  time  of  Isaiah  some  of  the  Jews  used  to  meet  secretly 
in  gardens  to  eat  the  flesh  of  swine  and  mice  as  a  religious  rite. 
Doubtless  this  was  a  very  ancient  ceremony,  dating  from  a  time  tj 
when  both  the  pig  and  the  mouse  were  venerated  as  divine,  and 
when  their  flesh  was  partaken  of  sacramentally  on  rare  and  solemn 
occasions  as  the  body  and  blood  of  gods.  And  in  general  it  may 
perhaps  be  said  that  all  so-called  unclean  animals  were  originally 
sacred  ;  the  reason  for  not  eating  them  was  that  they  were  divine. 

§  4.  Osiris,  the  Pig  and  the  Bull. — In  ancient  Egypt,  within 
historical  times,  the  pig  occupied  the  same  dubious  position  as  in 
Syria  and  Palestine,  though  at  first  sight  its  uncleanness  is  more 
prominent  than  its  sanctity.  The  Egyptians  are  generally  said  by 
Greek  writers  to  have  abhorred  the  pig  as  a  foul  and  loathsome  animal. 

If  a  man  so  much  as  touched  a  pig  in  passing,  he  stepped  into  the 
river  with  all  his  clothes  on,  to  wash  off  the  taint.  To  drink  pig’s 
milk  was  believed  to  cause  leprosy  to  the  drinker.  Swineherds, 
though  natives  of  Egypt,  were  forbidden  to  enter  any  temple,  and 
they  were  the  only  men  who  were  thus  excluded.  No  one  would 
give  his  daughter  in  marriage  to  a  swineherd,  or  marry  a  swineherd’s 
daughter  ;  the  swineherds  married  among  themselves.  Yet  once  a 
year  the  Egyptians  sacrificed  pigs  to  the  moon  and  to  Osiris,  and  ' 
not  only  sacrificed  them,  but  ate  of  their  flesh,  though  on  any  other 


XLIX 


OSIRIS,  THE  PIG  AND  THE  BULL 


473 


day  of  the  year  they  would  neither  sacrifice  them  nor  taste  of  their 
flesh.  Those  who  were  too  poor  to  offer  a  pig  on  this  day  baked 
cakes  of  dough,  and  offered  them  instead.  This  can  hardly  be 
explained  except  by  the  supposition  that  the  pig  was  a  sacred  animal 
which  was  eaten  sacramentally  by  his  worshippers  once  a  year. 

The  view  that  in  Egypt  the  pig  was  sacred  is  borne  out  by  the  very 
facts  which,  to  moderns,  might  seem  to  prove  the  contrary.  Thus  the 
Egyptians  thought,  as  we  have  seen,  that  to  drink  pig’s  milk  produced 
leprosy.  But  exactly  analogous  views  are  held  by  savages  about  the 
animals  and  plants  which  they  deem  most  sacred.  Thus  in  the  island 
of  Wetar  (between  New  Guinea  and  Celebes)  people  believe  themselves 
to  be  variously  descended  from  wild  pigs,  serpents,  crocodiles,  turtles, 
dogs,  and  eels  ;  a  man  may  not  eat  an  animal  of  the  kind  from  which 
he  is  descended  ;  if  he  does  so,  he  will  become  a  leper,  and  go  mad. 
Amongst  the  Omaha  Indians  of  North  America  men  whose  totem  is 
the  elk  believe  that  if  they  ate  the  flesh  of  the  male  elk  they  would 
break  out  in  boils  and  white  spots  in  different  parts  of  their  bodies. 
In  the  same  tribe  men  whose  totem  is  the  red  maize  think  that  if  they 
ate  red  maize  they  would  have  running  sores  all  round  their  mouths. 
The  Bush  negroes  of  Surinam,  who  practise  totemism,  believe  that 
if  they  ate  the  capiai  (an  animal  like  a  pig)  it  would  give  them  leprosy  ; 
perhaps  the  capiai  is  one  of  their  totems.  The  Syrians,  in  antiquity, 
who  esteemed  fish  sacred,  thought  that  if  they  ate  fish  their  bodies 
would  break  out  in  ulcers,  and  their  feet  and  stomach  would  swell  up. 
The  Chasas  of  Orissa  believe  that  if  they  were  to  injure  their  totemic 
animal  they  would  be  attacked  by  leprosy  and  their  line  would  die 
out.  These  examples  prove  that  the  eating  of  a  sacred  animal  is  often 
believed  to  produce  leprosy  or  other  skin-diseases  ;  so  far,  therefore, 
they  support  the  view  that  the  pig  must  have  been  sacred  in  Egypt, 
since  the  effect  of  drinking  its  milk  was  believed  to  be  leprosy. 

Again,  the  rule  that,  after  touching  a  pig,  a  man  had  to  wash  him¬ 
self  and  his  clothes,  also  favours  the  view  of  the  sanctity  of  the  pig. 
For  it  is  a  common  belief  that  the  effect  of  contact  with  a  sacred  object 
must  be  removed,  by  washing  or  otherwise,  before  a  man  is  free  to 
mingle  with  his  fellows.  Thus  the  Jews  wash  their  hands  after  reading 
the  sacred  scriptures.  Before  coming  forth  from  the  tabernacle  after 
the  sin-offering  the  high  priest  had  to  wash  himself,  and  put  off  the 
garments  which  he  had  worn  in  the  holy  place.  It  was  a  rule  of  Greek 
ritual  that,  in  offering  an  expiatory  sacrifice,  the  sacrificer  should  not 
touch  the  sacrifice,  and  that,  after  the  offering  was  made,  he  must 
wash  his  body  and  his  clothes  in  a  river  or  spring  before  he  could  enter 
a  city  or  his  own  house.  The  Polynesians  felt  strongly  the  need  of 
ridding  themselves  of  the  sacred  contagion,  if  it  may  be  so  called, 
which  they  caught  by  touching  sacred  objects.  Various  ceremonies 
were  performed  for  the  purpose  of  removing  this  contagion.  We  have 
seen,  for  example,  how  in  Tonga  a  man  who  happened  to  touch  a 
sacred  chief,  or  anything  personally  belonging  to  him,  had  to  perform 
a  certain  ceremony  before  he  could  feed  himself  with  his  hands  ; 


474  ANCIENT  DEITIES  OF  VEGETATION  AS  ANIMALS  ch. 

otherwise  it  was  believed  that  he  would  swell  up  and  die,  or  at  least 
be  afflicted  with  scrofula  or  some  other  disease.  We  have  seen,  too, 
what  fatal  effects  are  supposed  to  follow,  and  do  actually  follow,  from 
contact  with  a  sacred  object  in  New  Zealand.  In  short,  primitive 
man  believes  that  what  is  sacred  is  dangerous  ;  it  is  pervaded  by  a 
sort  of  electrical  sanctity  which  communicates  a  shock  to,  even  if  it 
does  not  kill,  whatever  comes  in  contact  with  it.  Hence  the  savage 
is  unwilling  to  touch  or  even  to  see  that  which  he  deems  peculiarly 
holy.  Thus  Bechuanas,  of  the  Crocodile  clan,  think  it  “  hateful  and 
unlucky  ”  to  meet  or  see  a  crocodile  ;  the  sight  is  thought  to  cause 
inflammation  of  the  eyes.  Yet  the  crocodile  is  their  most  sacred 
object  ;  they  call  it  their  father,  swear  by  it,  and  celebrate  it  in  their 
festivals.  The  goat  is  the  sacred  animal  of  the  Madenassana  Bushmen  ; 
yet  “  to  look  upon  it  would  be  to  render  the  man  for  the  time  impure, 
as  well  as  to  cause  him  undefined  uneasiness.”  The  Elk  clan,  among 
the  Omaha  Indians,  believe  that  even  to  touch  the  male  elk  would  be 
followed  by  an  eruption  of  boils  and  white  spots  on  the  body.  Members 
of  the  Reptile  clan  in  the  same  tribe  think  that  if  one  of  them  touches 
or  smells  a  snake  it  will  make  his  hair  white.  In  Samoa  people  whose 
god  was  a  butterfly  believed  that  if  they  caught  a  butterfly  it  would 
strike  them  dead.  Again,  in  Samoa  the  reddish-seared  leaves  of  the 
banana-tree  were  commonly  used  as  plates  for  handing  food  ;  but  if 
any  member  of  the  Wild  Pigeon  family  had  used  banana  leaves  for 
this  purpose,  it  was  supposed  that  he  would  suffer  from  rheumatic 
swellings  or  an  eruption  all  over  the  body  like  chicken-pox.  The 
Mori  clan  of  the  Bhils  in  Central  India  worship  the  peacock  as  their 
totem  and  make  offerings  of  grain  to  it ;  yet  members  of  the  clan 
believe  that  were  they  even  to  set  foot  on  the  tracks  of  a  peacock  they 
would  afterwards  suffer  from  some  disease,  and  if  a  woman  sees  a 
peacock  she  must  veil  her  face  and  look  away.  Thus  the  primitive 
mind  seems  to  conceive  of  holiness  as  a  sort  of  dangerous  virus, 
which  a  prudent  man  will  shun  as  far  as  possible,  and  of  which,  if  he 
should  chance  to  be  infected  by  it,  he  will  carefully  disinfect  himself  by 
some  form  of  ceremonial  purification. 

In  the  light  of  these  parallels  the  beliefs  and  customs  of  the 
Egyptians  touching  the  pig  are  probably  to  be  explained  as  based  upon 
an  opinion  of  the  extreme  sanctity  rather  than  of  the  extreme  un¬ 
cleanness  of  the  animal ;  or  rather,  to  put  it  more  correctly,  they 
imply  that  the  animal  was  looked  on,  not  simply  as  a  filthy  and  dis¬ 
gusting  creature,  but  as  a  being  endowed  with  high  supernatural 
powers,  and  that  as  such  it  was  regarded  with  that  primitive  sentiment 
of  religious  awe  and  fear  in  which  the  feelings  of  reverence  and  abhor¬ 
rence  are  almost  equally  blended.  The  ancients  themselves  seem  to 
have  been  aware  that  there  was  another  side  to  the  horror  with  which 
swine  seemed  to  inspire  the  Egyptians.  For  the  Greek  astronomer 
and  mathematician  Eudoxus,  who  resided  fourteen  months  in  Egypt 
and  conversed  with  the  priests,  was  of  opinion  that  the  Egyptians 
spared  the  pig,  not  out  of  abhorrence,  but  from  a  regard  to  its  utility 


XLIX 


OSIRIS,  THE  PIG  AND  THE  BULL 


475 


in  agriculture  ;  for,  according  to  him,  when  the  Nile  had  subsided, 
herds  of  swine  were  turned  loose  over  the  fields  to  tread  the  seed  down 
into  the  moist  earth.  But  when  a  being  is  thus  the  object  of  mixed 
and  implicitly  contradictory  feelings,  he  may  be  said  to  occupy  a 
position  of  unstable  equilibrium.  In  course  of  time  one  of  the  con¬ 
tradictory  feelings  is  likely  to  prevail  over  the  other,  and  according 
as  the  feeling  which  finally  predominates  is  that  of  reverence  or  ab¬ 
horrence,  the  being  who  is  the  object  of  it  will  rise  into  a  god  or  sink 
into  a  devil.  The  latter,  on  the  whole,  was  the  fate  of  the  pig  in  Egypt. 
For  in  historical  times  the  fear  and  horror  of  the  pig  seem  certainly  to 
have  outweighed  the  reverence  and  worship  of  which  he  may  once 
have  been  the  object,  and  of  which,  even  in  his  fallen  state,  he  never 
quite  lost  trace.  He  came  to  be  looked  on  as  an  embodiment  of  Set 
or  Typhon,  the  Egyptian  devil  and  enemy  of  Osiris.  For  it  was  in 
the  shape  of  a  black  pig  that  Typhon  injured  the  eye  of  the  god  Horus, 
who  burned  him  and  instituted  the  sacrifice  of  the  pig,  the  sun-god 
Ra  having  declared  the  beast  abominable.  Again,  the  story  that 
Typhon  was  hunting  a  boar  when  he  discovered  and  mangled  the  body 
of  Osiris,  and  that  this  was  the  reason  why  pigs  were  sacrificed  once  a 
year,  is  clearly  a  modernised  version  of  an  older  story  that  Osiris,  like 
Adonis  and  Attis,  was  slain  or  mangled  by  a  boar,  or  by  Typhon  in 
the  form  of  a  boar.  Thus,  the  annual  sacrifice  of  a  pig  to  Osiris  might 
naturally  be  interpreted  as  vengeance  inflicted  on  the  hostile  animal 
that  had  slain  or  mangled  the  god.  But,  in  the  first  place,  when  an 
animal  is  thus  killed  as  a  solemn  sacrifice  once  and  once  only  in  the 
year,  it  generally  or  always  means  that  the  animal  is  divine,  that  he  is 
spared  and  respected  the  rest  of  the  year  as  a  god  and  slain,  when  he 
is  slain,  also  in  the  character  of  a  god.  In  the  second  place,  the 
examples  of  Dionysus  and  Demeter,  if  not  of  Attis  and  Adonis,  have 
taught  us  that  the  animal  which  is  sacrificed  to  a  god  on  the  ground 
that  he  is  the  god’s  enemy  may  have  been,  and  probably  was,  originally 
the  god  himself.  Therefore,  the  annual  sacrifice  of  a  pig  to  Osiris, 
coupled  with  the  alleged  hostility  of  the  animal  to  the  god,  tends  to 
show,  first,  that  originally  the  pig  was  a  god,  and,  second,  that  he  was 
Osiris.  At  a  later  age,  when  Osiris  became  anthropomorphic  and  his 
original  relation  to  the  pig  had  been  forgotten,  the  animal  was  first 
distinguished  from  him,  and  afterwards  opposed  as  an  enemy  to  him 
by  mythologists  who  could  think  of  no  reason  for  killing  a  beast  in 
connexion  with  the  worship  of  a  god  except  that  the  beast  was  the 
god’s  enemy  ;  or,  as  Plutarch  puts  it,  not  that  which  is  dear  to  the 
gods,  but  that  which  is  the  contrary,  is  fit  to  be  sacrificed.  At  this 
later  stage  the  havoc  which  a  wild  boar  notoriously  makes  amongst 
the  corn  would  supply  a  plausible  reason  for  regarding  him  as  the  foe 
of  the  corn-spirit,  though  originally,  if  I  am  right,  the  very  freedom 
with  which  the  boar  ranged  at  will  through  the  corn  led  people  to 
identify  him  with  the  corn-spirit,  to  whom  he  was  afterwards  opposed 
as  an  enemy. 

The  view  which  identifies  the  pig  with  Osiris  derives  not  a  little 


476  ANCIENT  DEITIES  OF  VEGETATION  AS  ANIMALS  ch. 

support  from  the  sacrifice  of  pigs  to  him  on  the  very  day  on  which, 
according  to  tradition,  Osiris  himself  was  killed  ;  for  thus  the  killing 
of  the  pig  was  the  annual  representation  of  the  killing  of  Osiris,  just 
as  the  throwing  of  the  pigs  into  the  caverns  at  the  Thesmophoria 
was  an  annual  representation  of  the  descent  of  Persephone  into  the 
lower  world  ;  and  both  customs  are  parallel  to  the  European  practice 
of  killing  a  goat,  cock,  and  so  forth,  at  harvest  as  a  representative 
of  the  corn-spirit. 

Again,  the  theory  that  the  pig,  originally  Osiris  himself,  afterwards 
came  to  be  regarded  as  an  embodiment  of  his  enemy  Typhon,  is  sup¬ 
ported  by  the  similar  relation  of  red-haired  men  and  red  oxen  to  Typhon. 
For  in  regard  to  the  red-haired  men  who  were  burned  and  whose 
ashes  were  scattered  with  winnowing-fans,  we  have  seen  fair  grounds 
for  believing  that  originally,  like  the  red-haired  puppies  killed  at 
Rome  in  spring,  they  were  representatives  of  the  corn-spirit  himself, 
that  is,  of  Osiris,  and  were  slain  for  the  express  purpose  of  making 
the  corn  turn  red  or  golden.  Yet  at  a  later  time  these  men  were 
explained  to  be  representatives,  not  of  Osiris,  but  of  his  enemy  Typhon,  i 
and  the  killing  of  them  was  regarded  as  an  act  of  vengeance  inflicted 
on  the  enemy  of  the  god.  Similarly,  the  red  oxen  sacrificed  by  the 
Egyptians  were  said  to  be  offered  on  the  ground  of  their  resemblance 
to  Typhon  ;  though  it  is  more  likely  that  originally  they  were  slain 
on  the  ground  of  their  resemblance  to  the  corn-spirit  Osiris.  We  have 
seen  that  the  ox  is  a  common  representative  of  the  corn-spirit  and  is 
slain  as  such  on  the  harvest-field. 

Osiris  was  regularly  identified  with  the  bull  Apis  of  Memphis  and 
the  bull  Mnevis  of  Heliopolis.  But  it  is  hard  to  say  whether  these 
bulls  were  embodiments  of  him  as  the  corn-spirit,  as  the  red  oxen 
appear  to  have  been,  or  whether  they  were  not  in  origin  entirely 
distinct  deities  who  came  to  be  fused  with  Osiris  at  a  later  time.  The 
universality  of  the  worship  of  these  two  bulls  seems  to  put  them  on 
a  different  footing  from  the  ordinary  sacred  animals  whose  worships 
were  purely  local.  But  whatever  the  original  relation  of  Apis  to 
Osiris  may  have  been,  there  is  one  fact  about  the  former  which  ought 
not  to  be  passed  over  in  a  disquisition  on  the  custom  of  killing  a  god. 
Although  the  bull  Apis  was  worshipped  as  a  god  with  much  pomp 
and  profound  reverence,  he  was  not  suffered  to  live  beyond  a  certain 
length  of  time  which  was  prescribed  by  the  sacred  books,  and  on  the 
expiry  of  which  he  was  drowned  in  a  holy  spring.  The  limit,  accord¬ 
ing  to  Plutarch,  was  twenty-five  years  ;  but  it  cannot  always  have 
been  enforced,  for  the  tombs  of  the  Apis  bulls  have  been  discovered 
in  modern  times,  and  from  the  inscriptions  on  them  it  appears  that 
in  the  twenty-second  dynasty  two  of  the  holy  steers  lived  more  than 
twenty-six  years. 

§  5.  Virbins  and  the  Horse. — We  are  now  in  a  position  to  hazard 
a  conjecture  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  tradition  that  Virbius,  the  first 
of  the  divine  Kings  of  the  Wood  at  Aricia,  had  been  killed  in  the 
character  of  Hippolytus  by  horses.  Having  found,  first,  that  spirits 


XLIX 


VIRBIUS  AND  THE  HORSE 


477 


of  the  corn  are  not  infrequently  represented  in  the  form  of  horses ; 
and,  second,  that  the  animal  which  in  later  legends  is  said  to  have 
injured  the  god  was  sometimes  originally  the  god  himself,  we  may 
conjecture  that  the  horses  by  which  Virbius  or  Hippolytus  was  said 
to  have  been  slain  were  really  embodiments  of  him  as  a  deity  of  vegeta¬ 
tion.  The  myth  that  he  had  been  killed  by  horses  was  probably 
invented  to  explain  certain  features  in  his  worship,  amongst  others 
the  custom  of  excluding  horses  from  his  sacred  grove.  For  myth 
changes  while  custom  remains  constant ;  men  continue  to  do  what 
their  fathers  did  before  them,  though  the  reasons  on  which  their 
fathers  acted  have  been  long  forgotten.  The  history  of  religion  is  a 
long  attempt  to  reconcile  old  custom  with  new  reason,  to  find  a  sound 
theory  for  an  absurd  practice.  In  the  case  before  us  we  may  be  sure 
that  the  myth  is  more  modern  than  the  custom  and  by  no  means 
represents  the  original  reason  for  excluding  horses  from  the  grove. 
From  their  exclusion  it  might  be  inferred  that  horses  could  not  be 
the  sacred  animals  or  embodiments  of  the  god  of  the  grove.  But 
the  inference  would  be  rash.  The  goat  was  at  one  time  a  sacred 
animal  or  embodiment  of  Athena,  as  may  be  inferred  from  the  practice 
of  representing  the  goddess  clad  in  a  goat-skin  (aegis).  Yet  the  goat 
was  neither  sacrificed  to  her  as  a  rule,  nor  allowed  to  enter  her  great 
sanctuary,  the  Acropolis  at  Athens.  The  reason  alleged  for  this  was 
that  the  goat  injured  the  olive,  the  sacred  tree  of  Athena.  So  far, 
therefore,  the  relation  of  the  goat  to  Athena  is  parallel  to  the  relation 
of  the  horse  to  Virbius,  both  animals  being  excluded  from  the  sanctuary 
on  the  ground  of  injury  done  by  them  to  the  god.  But  from  Varro 
we  learn  that  there  was  an  exception  to  the  rule  which  excluded  the 
goat  from  the  Acropolis.  Once  a  year,  he  says,  the  goat  was  driven 
on  to  the  Acropolis  for  a  necessary  sacrifice.  Now,  as  has  been  re¬ 
marked  before,  when  an  animal  is  sacrificed  once  and  once  only  in 
the  year,  it  is  probably  slain,  not  as  a  victim  offered  to  the  god,  but 
as  a  representative  of  the  god  himself.  Therefore  we  may  infer  that 
if  a  goat  was  sacrificed  on  the  Acropolis  once  a  year,  it  was  sacrificed 
in  the  character  of  Athena  herself ;  and  it  may  be  conjectured  that 
the  skin  of  the  sacrificed  animal  was  placed  on  the  statue  of  the  goddess 
and  formed  the  aegis,  which  would  thus  be  renewed  annually. 
Similarly  at  Thebes  in  Egypt  rams  were  sacred  and  were  not  sacrificed. 
But  on  one  day  in  the  year  a  ram  was  killed,  and  its  skin  was  placed 
on  the  statue  of  the  god  Ammon.  Now,  if  we  knew  the  ritual  of  the 
Arician  grove  better,  we  might  find  that  the  rule  of  excluding  horses 
from  it,  like  the  rule  of  excluding  goats  from  the  Acropolis  at  Athens, 
was  subject  to  an  annual  exception,  a  horse  being  once  a  year  taken 
into  the  grove  and  sacrificed  as  an  embodiment  of  the  god  Virbius. 
By  the  usual  misunderstanding  the  horse  thus  killed  would  come  in 
time  to  be  regarded  as  an  enemy  offered  up  in  sacrifice  to  the  god 
whom  he  had  injured,  like  the  pig  which  was  sacrificed  to  Demeter 
and  Osiris  or  the  goat  which  was  sacrificed  to  Dionysus,  and  possibly 
to  Athena.  It  is  so  easy  for  a  writer  to  record  a  rule  without  noticing 


478  ANCIENT  DEITIES  OF  VEGETATION  AS  ANIMALS  ch. 

an  exception  that  we  need  not  wonder  at  finding  the  rule  of  the  Arician 
grove  recorded  without  any  mention  of  an  exception  such  as  I  suppose. 
If  we  had  had  only  the  statements  of  Athenaeus  and  Pliny,  we  should 
have  known  only  the  rule  which  forbade  the  sacrifice  of  goats  to  Athena 
and  excluded  them  from  the  Acropolis,  without  being  aware  of  the 
important  exception  which  the  fortunate  preservation  of  Varro’s  work 
has  revealed  to  us. 

The  conjecture  that  once  a  year  a  horse  may  have  been  sacrificed 
in  the  Arician  grove  as  a  representative  of  the  deity  of  the  grove 
derives  some  support  from  the  similar  sacrifice  of  a  horse  which  took 
place  once  a  year  at  Rome.  On  the  fifteenth  of  October  in  each  year 
a  chariot-race  was  run  on  the  Field  of  Mars.  Stabbed  with  a  spear, 
the  right-hand  horse  of  the  victorious  team  was  then  sacrificed  to 
Mars  for  the  purpose  of  ensuring  good  crops,  and  its  head  was  cut 
off  and  adorned  with  a  string  of  loaves.  Thereupon  the  inhabitants 
of  two  wards — the  Sacred  Way  and  the  Subura — contended  with  each 
other  who  should  get  the  head.  If  the  people  of  the  Sacred  Way 
got  it,  they  fastened  it  to  a  wall  of  the  king’s  house  ;  if  the  people 
of  the  Subura  got  it,  they  fastened  it  to  the  Mamilian  tower.  The 
horse’s  tail  was  cut  off  and  carried  to  the  king’s  house  with  such  speed 
that  the  blood  dripped  on  the  hearth  of  the  house.  Further,  it  appears 
that  the  blood  of  the  horse  was  caught  and  preserved  till  the  twenty- 
first  of  April,  when  the  Vestal  Virgins  mixed  it  with  the  blood  of  the 
unborn  calves  which  had  been  sacrificed  six  days  before.  The  mixture 
was  then  distributed  to  shepherds,  and  used  by  them  for  fumigating 

their  flocks.  ? 

In  this  ceremony  the  decoration  of  the  horse’s  head  with  a  string 
of  loaves,  and  the  alleged  object  of  the  sacrifice,  namely,  to  procure 
a  good  harvest,  seem  to  indicate  that  the  horse  was  killed  as  one  of 
those  animal  representatives  of  the  corn-spirit  of  which  we  have  found 
so  many  examples.  The  custom  of  cutting  off  the  horse’s  tail  is  like 
the  African  custom  of  cutting  off  the  tails  of  the  oxen  and  sacrificing 
them  to  obtain  a  good  crop.  In  both  the  Roman  and  the  African 
custom  the  animal  apparently  stands  for  the  corn-spirit,  and  its 
fructifying  power  is  supposed  to  reside  especially  in  its  tail.  The 
latter  idea  occurs,  as  we  have  seen,  in  European  folk-lore.  Again, 
the  practice  of  fumigating  the  cattle  in  spring  with  the  blood  of  the 
horse  may  be  compared  with  the  practice  of  giving  the  Old  Wife, 
the  Maiden,  or  the  clyack  sheaf  as  fodder  to  the  horses  in  spring  or 
the  cattle  at  Christmas,  and  giving  the  Yule  Boar  to  the  ploughing 
oxen  or  horses  to  eat  in  spring.  All  these  usages  aim  at  ensuring 
the  blessing  of  the  corn-spirit  on  the  homestead  and  its  inmates  and 
storing  it  up  for  another  year. 

The  Roman  sacrifice  of  the  October  horse,  as  it  was  called,  carries 
us  back  to  the  early  days  when  the  Subura,  afterwards  a  low  and 
squalid  quarter  of  the  great  metropolis,  was  still  a  separate  village, 
whose  inhabitants  engaged  in  a  friendly  contest  on  the  harvest-field 
with  their  neighbours  of  Rome,  then  a  little  rural  town.  The  Field 


L 


VIRBIUS  AND  THE  HORSE 


479 


of  Mars  on  which  the  ceremony  took  place  lay  beside  the  Tiber,  and 
formed  part  of  the  king’s  domain  down  to  the  abolition  of  the  monarchy. 
For  tradition  ran  that  at  the  time  when  the  last  of  the  kings  was 
driven  from  Rome  the  corn  stood  ripe  for  the  sickle  on  the  crown 
lands  beside  the  river  ;  but  no  one  would  eat  the  accursed  grain  and 
it  was  flung  into  the  river  in  such  heaps  that,  the  water  being  low 
with  the  summer  heat,  it  formed  the  nucleus  of  an  island.  The  horse 
sacrifice  was  thus  an  old  autumn  custom  observed  upon  the  king’s 
corn-fields,  at  the  end  of  the  harvest.  The  tail  and  blood  of  the  horse, 
as  the  chief  parts  of  the  corn-spirit’s  representative,  were  taken  to 
the  king’s  house  and  kept  there  ;  just  as  in  Germany  the  harvest- 
cock  is  nailed  on  the  gable  or  over  the  door  of  the  farmhouse  ;  and 
as  the  last  sheaf,  in  the  form  of  the  Maiden,  is  carried  home  and  kept 
over  the  fireplace  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland.  Thus  the  blessing 
of  the  corn-spirit  was  brought  to  the  king’s  house  and  hearth  and, 
through  them,  to  the  community  of  which  he  was  the  head.  Similarly 
in  the  spring  and  autumn  customs  of  Northern  Europe  the  Maypole 
is  sometimes  set  up  in  front  of  the  house  of  the  mayor  or  burgomaster, 
and  the  last  sheaf  at  harvest  is  brought  to  him  as  the  head  of  the 
village.  But  while  the  tail  and  blood  fell  to  the  king,  the  neighbouring 
village  of  the  Subura,  which  no  doubt  once  had  a  similar  ceremony 
of  its  own,  was  gratified  by  being  allowed  to  compete  for  the  prize  of 
the  horse’s  head.  The  Mamilian  tower,  to  which  the  Suburans  nailed 
the  horse’s  head  when  they  succeeded  in  carrying  it  off,  appears  to 
have  been  a  peel-tower  or  keep  of  the  old  Mamilian  family,  the  magnates 
of  the  village.  The  ceremony  thus  performed  on  the  king’s  fields 
and  at  his  house  on  behalf  of  the  whole  town  and  of  the  neighbouring 
village  presupposes  a  time  when  each  township  performed  a  similar 
ceremony  on  its  own  fields.  In  the  rural  districts  of  Latium  the 
villages  may  have  continued  to  observe  the  custom,  each  on  its  own 
land,  long  after  the  Roman  hamlets  had  merged  their  separate  harvest- 
homes  in  the  common  celebration  on  the  king’s  lands.  There  is  no 
intrinsic  improbability  in  the  supposition  that  the  sacred  grove  of 
Aricia,  like  the  Field  of  Mars  at  Rome,  may  have  been  the  scene  of 
a  common  harvest  celebration,  at  which  a  horse  was  sacrificed  with 
the  same  rude  rites  on  behalf  of  the  neighbouring  villages.  The  horse 
would  represent  the  fructifying  spirit  both  of  the  tree  and  of  the  corn, 
for  the  two  ideas  melt  into  each  other,  as  we  see  in  customs  like  the 
Harvest-May. 


CHAPTER  L 

EATING  THE  GOD 

§  i.  The  Sacrament  of  First-Fruits. — We  have  now  seen  that  the 
corn-spirit  is  represented  sometimes  in  human,  sometimes  in  animal 
form,  and  that  in  both  cases  he  is  killed  in  the  person  of  his  repre- 


EATING  THE  GOD 


CH. 


480 


sentative  and  eaten  sacramentally.  To  find  examples  of  actually 
killing  the  human  representative  of  the  corn-spirit  we  had  naturally 
to  go  to  savage  races  ;  but  the  harvest-suppers  of  our  European 
peasants  have  furnished  unmistakable  examples  of  the  sacramental 
eating  of  animals  as  representatives  of  the  corn-spirit.  But  further, 
as  might  have  been  anticipated,  the  new  corn  is  itself  eaten  sacra¬ 
mentally,  that  is,  as  the  body  of  the  corn-spirit.  In  Wermland, 
Sweden,  the  farmer’s  wife  uses  the  grain  of  the  last  sheaf  to  bake  a 
loaf  in  the  shape  of  a  little  girl ;  this  loaf  is  divided  amongst  the  whole 
household  and  eaten  by  them.  Here  the  loaf  represents  the  corn- 
spirit  conceived  as  a  maiden  ;  just  as  in  Scotland  the  corn-spirit  is 
similarly  conceived  and  represented  by  the  last  sheaf  made  up  in  the 
form  of  a  woman  and  bearing  the  name  of  the  Maiden.  As  usual,  the 
corn-spirit  is  believed  to  reside  in  the  last  sheaf  ;  and  to  eat  a  loaf 
made  from  the  last  sheaf  is,  therefore,  to  eat  the  corn-spirit  itself. 
Similarly  at  La  Palisse,  in  France,  a  man  made  of  dough  is  hung  upon 
the  fir-tree  which  is  carried  on  the  last  harvest-waggon.  The  tree 
and  the  dough-man  are  taken  to  the  mayor’s  house  and  kept  there  till 
the  vintage  is  over.  Then  the  close  of  the  harvest  is  celebrated  by  a 
feast  at  which  the  mayor  breaks  the  dough-man  in  pieces  and  gives 
the  pieces  to  the  people  to  eat. 

In  these  examples  the  corn-spirit  is  represented  and  eaten  in  human 
shape.  In  other  cases,  though  the  new  corn  is  not  baked  in  loaves  of 
human  shape,  still  the  solemn  ceremonies  with  which  it  is  eaten  suffice 
to  indicate  that  it  is  partaken  of  sacramentally,  that  is,  as  the  body 
of  the  corn-spirit.  For  example,  the  following  ceremonies  used  to  be 
observed  by  Lithuanian  peasants  at  eating  the  new  corn.  About  the 
time  of  the  autumn  sowing,  when  all  the  corn  had  been  got  in  and  the 
threshing  had  begun,  each  farmer  held  a  festival  called  Sabarios,  that 
is,  “  the  mixing  or  throwing  together.”  He  took  nine  good  handfuls 
of  each  kind  of  crop — wheat,  barley,  oats,  flax,  beans,  lentils,  and  the 
rest  ;  and  each  handful  he  divided  into  three  parts.  The  twenty- 
seven  portions  of  each  grain  were  then  thrown  on  a  heap  and  all  mixed 
up  together.  The  grain  used  had  to  be  that  which  was  first  threshed 
and  winnowed  and  which  had  been  set  aside  and  kept  for  this  purpose. 

A  part  of  the  grain  thus  mixed  was  employed  to  bake  little  loaves, 
one  for  each  of  the  household  ;  the  rest  was  mixed  with  more  barley 
or  oats  and  made  into  beer.  The  first  beer  brewed  from  this  mixture 
was  for  the  drinking  of  the  farmer,  his  wife,  and  children  ;  the  second 
brew  was  for  the  servants.  The  beer  being  ready,  the  farmer  chose 
an  evening  when  no  stranger  was  expected.  Then  he  knelt  down 
before  the  barrel  of  beer,  drew  a  jugful  of  the  liquor  and  poured  it  on 
the  bung  of  the  barrel,  saying,  “  O  fruitful  earth,  make  rye  and  barley 
and  all  kinds  of  corn  to  flourish.”  Next  he  took  the  jug  to  the  parlour, 
where  his  wife  and  children  awaited  him.  On  the  floor  of  the  parlour 
lay  bound  a  black  or  white  or  speckled  (not  a  red)  cock  and  a  hen  of 
the  same  colour  and  of  the  same  brood,  which  must  have  been  hatched  | 
within  the  year.  Then  the  farmer  knelt  down,  with  the  jug  in  his 


L  THE  SACRAMENT  OF  FIRST-FRUITS  48i 

hand,  and  thanked  God  for  the  harvest  and  prayed  for  a  good  croD 
next  year.  Next  all  lifted  up  their  hands  and  said,  “  0  God  and  thou 

,?ae.ar*'  ye  «lve  y°u  |hls  cock  and  hen  as  a  free-will  offering.”  With 
that  the  farmer  killed  the  fowls  with  the  blows  of  a  wooden  spoon 
for  he  might  not  cut  their  heads  off.  After  the  first  prayer  and  after 
killing  each  of  the  birds  he  poured  out  a  third  of  the  beJr.  Then  his 
w  e  boiled  the  fow  s  m  a  new  pot  which  had  never  been  used  before 
After  that  a  bushel  was  set,  bottom  upwards,  on  the  floor  and  on  it 
were  placed  the  little  loaves  mentioned  above  and  the  boiled  fowls 
Next  the  new  beer  was  fetched,  together  with  a  ladle  and  three  mu^s 
none  of  which  was  used  except  on  this  occasion.  When  the  farmer 
had  ladled  the  beer  into  the  mugs,  the  family  knelt  down  round  the 
ushel.  The  father  then  uttered  a  prayer  and  drank  off  the  three 

‘  flesfn0/  rtfeif  The  r6St  folIowed  his  example.  Then  the  loaves  and  the 
flesh  of  the  fowls  were  eaten,  after  which  the  beer  went  round  again 

till  every  one  had  emptied  each  of  the  three  mugs  nine  times.  None 

Pff.th®  f00d  should  r®mam  over ;  but  if  anything  did  happen  to  be 
left,  it  was  consumed  next  morning  with  the  same  ceremonies  The 

bones  were  given  to  the  dog  to  eat ;  if  he  did  not  eat  them  all  up  the 
remains  were  buried  under  the  dung  in  the  cattle-stall.  This  ceremony 
was  observed  at  the  beginning  of  December.  On  the  day  on  which 
it  took  place  no  bad  word  might  be  spoken. 

Such  was  the  custom  about  two  hundred  years  or  more  ago.  At 
he  present  day  in  Lithuania,  when  new  potatoes  or  loaves  made  from 
e  new  coin  are  being  eaten,  all  the  people  at  table  pull  each  other’s 
air.  e  meaning  of  this  last  custom  is  obscure,  but  a  similar  custom 
was  certainly  observed  by  the  heathen  Lithuanians  at  their  solemn 
■  sacrifices  Many  of  the  Esthomans  of  the  island  of  Oesel  will  not  eat 

of  iron  Th  T  C°r,n.ti111  they  have  first  take«  a  bite  at  a  piece 

id  ■+Twlr0n  IS  nere  plalnIy  a  charm.  intended  to  render  harmless 
.  ,  SId  t  iat  ls,m  the  corn’  In  Sutherlandshire  at  the  present  day 

wke^foh  n6W  ?°tat°f  ar®  duS  a11  the  family  must  taste  them,  other- 

wonld  nntf  Tthem  [the  P°tat0es]  take  0ffence’  and  the  potatoes 
would  not  keep.  In  one  part  of  Yorkshire  it  is  still  customary  for 

he  clergyman  to  cut  the  first  corn  ;  and  my  informant  believes  that 

nart  om,S°  ^  1S  USed  t0  ?ake  the  communion  bread.  If  the  latter 

ft  show5hnnUStiT  ruCOrr-Ctly  reP°rted  (and  analogy  is  all  in  its  favour), 
it  shows  how  the  Christian  communion  has  absorbed  within  itself  a 

sacrament  which  is  doubtless  far  older  than  Christianity. 

millpt  C,  m<?  °r  "V?”  °f,  Japan  are  said  t0  distinguish  various  kinds  of 

rre  calt^  na”i  and  these  kinds,  taken  together, 

“  Tn  r  ICj  dlvm®  husband  and  wife  cereal  ”  {Umurek  haru  kamui ) 

eatintrefure  mf0re  1S  Pounded  and  made  into  cakes  for  general 

g,  the  old  men  have  a  few  made  for  themselves  first  to  worship 

hen  they  are  ready  they  pray  to  them  very  earnestly  and  say  : 

U  thou  cereal  deity,  we  worship  thee.  Thou  hast  grown  very  well 

of  fire  wilfb  ^  :flaVT  W'U, b®  SWeet  Th0u  art  S°od-  The  goddess 
will  be  glad,  and  we  also  shall  rejoice  greatly.  O  thou  god,  O 


482 


CH. 


EATING  THE  GOD 

thou  divine  cereal,  do  thou  nourish  the  people.  I  now  partake  of  thee. 

I  worship  thee  and  give  thee  thanks/  After  having  thus  prayed,  they, 
the  worshippers,  take  a  cake  and  eat  it,  and  from  this  time  the  peop  e 
mav  all  partake  of  the  new  millet.  And  so  with  many  gestures  of 
homage  and  words  of  prayer  this  kind  of  food  is  dedicated  to  the  well¬ 
being  of  the  Ainu.  No  doubt  the  cereal  offering  is  regarded  as  a  tribute 
So  god,  but  that  god  is  no  other  than  the  seed  itself  ;  and  it  is 
only  a  god  in  so  far  as  it  is  beneficial  to  the  human  body. 

At  the  close  of  the  rice  harvest  in  the  East  Indian  island  of  Burn, 
each  clan  meets  at  a  common  sacramental  meal,  to  which  every  member 
of  the  clan  is  bound  to  contribute  a  little  of  the  new  rice.  This  meal 
is  called  “  eating  the  soul  of  the  rice,”  a  name  which  clearly  indicates 
the  sacramental  character  of  the  repast.  Some  of  the  rice  is  also  set 
apart  and  offered  to  the  spirits.  Amongst  the  Alfoors  of  Mmahassa,  m 
Celebes,  the  priest  sows  the  first  rice-seed  and  plucks  the  first  ripe  rice 
in  each  field  This  rice  he  roasts  and  grinds  into  meal,  and  gives  some 
of  it  to  each  of  the  household.  Shortly  before  the  rice-harvest  in  Bolang 
Mongondo  another  district  of  Celebes,  an  offering  is  made  of  a  small 
pig  or  a  fowl.  Then  the  priest  plucks  a  little  rice,  first  on  his  own 
field  and  next  on  those  of  his  neighbours.  All  the  rice  thus  plucked 
by  him  he  dries  along  with  his  own,  and  then  gives  it  back  to  the  re¬ 
spective  owners,  who  have  it  ground  and  boiled.  When  it  is  boiled 
the  women  take  it  back,  with  an  egg,  to  the  priest,  who  offers  the  egg 
in  sacrifice  and  returns  the  rice  to  the  women.  Of  this  rice  every 
member  of  the  family,  down  to  the  youngest  child,  must  partake. 
After  this  ceremony  every  one  is  free  to  get  in  his  rice. 

Amongst  the  Burghers  or  Badagas,  a  tribe  of  the  Neilgherry  Hills 
in  Southern  India,  the  first  handful  of  seed  is  sow  and  the  first  sheaf 
reaped  by  a  Curumbar,  a  man  of  a  different  tribe,  the  members  of 
which  the  Burghers  regard  as  sorcerers.  The  grain  contained  in  the 
first  sheaf  “  is  that  day  reduced  to  meal,  made  into  cakes,  and,  being 
offered  as  a  first-fruit  oblation,  is,  together  with  the  remainder  of 
the  sacrificed  animal,  partaken  of  by  the  Burgher  and  the  whole  of 
his  family,  as  the  meat  of  a  federal  offering  and  sacrifice.”  Among 
the  Hindoos  of  Southern  India  the  eating  of  the  new  rice  is  the  occasion 
of  a  family  festival  called  Pongol.  The  new  rice  is  boiled  in  a  new 
pot  on  a  fire  which  is  kindled  at  noon  on  the  day  when,  according  to 
Hindoo  astrologers,  the  sun  enters  the  tropic  of  Capricorn.  The 
boiling  of  the  pot  is  watched  with  great  anxiety  by  the  whole  family, 
for  as  the  milk  boils,  so  will  the  coming  year  be.  If  the  milk  boils 
rapidly,  the  year  will  be  prosperous  ;  but  it  will  be  the  reverse  .if  the 
milk  boils  slowly.  Some  of  the  new  boiled  rice  is  offered  to  the  image 
of  Ganesa  ;  then  every  one  partakes  of  it.  In  some  parts  of  Northern 
India  the  festival  of  the  new  crop  is  known  as  Navan,  that  is,  ‘  new 
grain.”  When  the  crop  is  ripe,  the  owner  takes  the  omens,  goes  tc 
the  field,  plucks  five  or  six  ears  of  barley  in  the  spring  crop  and  one 
of  the  millets  in  the  autumn  harvest.  This  is  brought  home,. parched 
and  mixed  with  coarse  sugar,  butter,  and  curds.  Some  of  it  is  throwr 


L  THE  SACRAMENT  OF  FIRST-FRUITS  483 

on  the  fire  m  the  name  of  the  village  gods  and  deceased  ancestors  ; 
the  rest  is  eaten  by  the  family. 

.  ,  ?'he  ceremony  of  eating  the  new  yams  at  Onitsha,  on  the  Niger 
is  thus  described  :  “  Each  headman  brought  out  six  yams,  and  cut 
down  young  branches  of  palm-leaves  and  placed  them  before  his  gate, 
roasted  three  of  the  yams,  and  got  some  kola-nuts  and  fish.  After 
the  yam  is  roasted,  the  Libia,  or  country  doctor,  takes  the  yam 
scrapes  it  into  a  sort  of  meal,  and  divides  it  into  halves  ;  he  then 
takes  one  piece,  and  places  it  on  the  lips  of  the  person  who  is  going 
o  eat  the  new  yam.  The  eater  then  blows  up  the  steam  from  the 

m  rnya?Vanf/  ierWards  P°kes  the  whole  int0  his  mouth,  and  says, 
I  thank  God  for  being  permitted  to  eat  the  new  yam  ’  ;  he  then  begins 
to  chew  it  heartily,  with  fish  likewise.” 

.  4mo.n&  Nandi  of  British  East  Africa,  when  the  eleusine  grain 
is  ripening  m  autumn,  every  woman  who  owns  a  cornfield  goes  out 
mto  it  with  her  daughters,  and  they  all  pluck  some  of  the  ripe  grain. 
Each  of  the  women  then  fixes  one  grain  in  her  necklace  and  chews 
another  which  she  rubs  on  her  forehead,  throat,  and  breast.  No 
mark  of  joy  escapes  them  ;  sorrowfully  they  cut  a  basketful  of  the 
new  corn,  and  carrying  it  home  place  it  in  the  loft  to  dry.  As  the 
ceiling  is  of  wickerwork,  a  good  deal  of  the  grain  drops  through  the 
crevices  and  falls  into  the  fire,  where  it  explodes  with  a  crackling 
noise  The  people  make  no  attempt  to  prevent  this  waste  ;  for  they 
regard  the  crackling  of  the  grain  in  the  fire  as  a  sign  that  the  souls 
ol  the  dead  are  partaking  of  it.  A  few  days  later  porridge  is  made 

™,the  new  £ram  and  served  up  with  milk  at  the  evening  meal. 
All  the  members  of  the  family  take  some  of  the  porridge  and  dab  it 
on  the  walls  and  roofs  of  the  huts;  also  they  put  a  little  in  their 
mouths  and  spit  it  out  towards  the  east  and  on  the  outside  of  the 
huts  Then,  holding  up  some  of  the  grain  in  his  hand,  the  head  of 
the  family  prays  to  God  for  health  and  strength,  and  likewise  for 
milk,  and  everybody  present  repeats  the  words  of  the  prayer  after 


Amongst  the  Caffres  of  Natal  and  Zululand,  no  one  may  eat  of 
the  new  fruits  till  after  a  festival  which  marks  the  beginning  of  the 
Canre  year  and  falls  at  the  end  of  December  or  the  beginning  of 
January.  All  the  people  assemble  at  the  king’s  kraal,  where  they 
least  and  dance.  Before  they  separate  the  "  dedication  of  the  people  ” 
takes  place.  Various  fruits  of  the  earth,  as  corn,  mealies,  and 
pumpkins,  mixed  with  the  flesh  of  a  sacrificed  animal  and  with 
.  medicme,”  are  boiled  in  great  pots,  and  a  little  of  this  food  is  placed 
m  each  man’s  mouth  by  the  king  himself.  After  thus  partaking  of 
e  sanctified  fruits,  a  man  is  himself  sanctified  for  the  whole  year, 
and  may  immediately  get  in  his  crops.  It  is  believed  that  if  any 
man  were  to  partake  of  the  new  fruits  before  the  festival,  he  would 
die ;  if  he  were  detected,  he  would  be  put  to  death,  or  at  least  all 
ms  cattle  would  be  taken  from  him.  The  holiness  of  the  new  fruits 
is  well  marked  by  the  rule  that  they  must  be  cooked  in  a  special  pot 


EATING  THE  GOD 


CH. 


484 


which  is  used  only  for  this  purpose,  and  on  a  new  fire  kindled  by  a 
through  the  friction  of  two  sticks  which  are  called  husband 

and  wife.” 

Among  the  Bechuanas  it  is  a  rule  that  before  they  partake  of  the 
new  crops  they  must  purify  themselves.  The  purification  takes 
place  at  the  commencement  of  the  new  year  on  a  day  in  January 
which  is  fixed  by  the  chief.  It  begins  in  the  great  kraal  of  the  tribe, 
where  all  the  adult  males  assemble.  Each  of  them  takes  in  his  hand 
leaves  of  a  gourd  called  by  the  natives  lerotse  (described  as  something 
between  a  pumpkin  and  a  vegetable  marrow)  ;  and  having  crushed 
the  leaves  he  anoints  with  the  expressed  juice  his  big  toes  and  his 
navel  ;  many  people  indeed  apply  the  juice  to  all  the  joints  of  their 
body,  but  the  better-informed  say  that  this  is  a  vulgar  departure 
from  ancient  custom.  After  this  ceremony  in  the  great  kraal  every 
man  goes  home  to  his  own  kraal,  assembles  all  the  members  of  his 
family,  men,  women,  and  children,  and  smears  them  all  with  the 
juice  of  the  lerotse  leaves.  Some  of  the  leaves  are  also  pounded, 
mixed  with  milk  in  a  large  wooden  dish,  and  given  to  the  dogs  to 
lap  up.  Then  the  porridge  plate  of  each  member  of  the  family  is 
rubbed  with  the  lerotse  leaves.  When  this  purification  has  been 
completed,  but  not  before,  the  people  are  free  to  eat  of  the  new  crops. 

The  Bororo  Indians  of  Brazil  think  that  it  would  be  certain  death 
to  eat  the  new  maize  before  it  has  been  blessed  by  the  medicine-man. 
The  ceremony  of  blessing  it  is  as  follows.  The  half-ripe  husk  is  washed 
and  placed  before  the  medicine-man,  who  by  dancing  and  singing  for 
several  hours,  and  by  incessant  smoking,  works  himself  up  into  a 
state  of  ecstasy,  whereupon  he  bites  into  the  husk,  trembling  in  every 
limb  and  uttering  shrieks  from  time  to  time.  A  similar  ceremony 
is  performed  whenever  a  large  animal  or  a  large  fish  is  killed.  The 
Bororo  are  firmly  persuaded  that  were  any  man  to  touch  unconsecrated 
maize  or  meat,  before  the  ceremony  had  been  completed,  he  and  his 
whole  tribe  would  perish. 

Amongst  the  Creek  Indians  of  North  America,  the  busk  or  festival 
of  first-fruits  was  the  chief  ceremony  of  the  year.  It  was  held  in 
July  or  August,  when  the  com  was  ripe,  and  marked  the  end  of  the 
old  year  and  the  beginning  of  the  new  one.  Before  it  took  place, 
none  of  the  Indians  would  eat  or  even  handle  any  part  of  the  new 
harvest.  Sometimes  each  town  had  its  own  busk  ;  sometimes  several 
towns  united  to  hold  one  in  common.  Before  celebrating  the  busk, 
the  people  provided  themselves  with  new  clothes  and  new  household 
utensils  and  furniture ;  they  collected  their  old  clothes  and  rubbish, 
together  with  all  the  remaining  grain  and  other  old  provisions,  cast 
them  together  in  one  common  heap,  and  consumed  them  with  fire. 
As  a  preparation  for  the  ceremony,  all  the  fires  in  the  village  were 
extinguished,  and  the  ashes  swept  clean  away.  In  particular,  the 
hearth  or  altar  of  the  temple  was  dug  up  and  the  ashes  carried  out. 
Then  the  chief  priest  put  some  roots  of  the  button-snake  plant,  with 
some  green  tobacco  leaves  and  a  little  of  the  new  fruits,  at  the  bottom 


L 


THE  SACRAMENT  OF  FIRST-FRUITS  485 

of  the  fireplace,  which  he  afterwards  commanded  to  be  covered  up 
with  white  clay,  and  wetted  over  with  clean  water.  A  thick  arbour 
of  green  branches  of  young  trees  was  then  made  over  the  altar. 
Meanwhile  the  women  at  home  were  cleaning  out  their  houses, 
renewing  the  old  hearths,  and  scouring  all  the  cooking  vessels  that 
they  might  be  ready  to  receive  the  new  fire  and  the  new  fruits.  The 
public  or  sacred  square  was  carefully  swept  of  even  the  smallest 
crumbs  of  previous  feasts,  "  for  fear  of  polluting  the  first-fruit  offerings.” 
Also  every  vessel  that  had  contained  or  had  been  used  about  any 
food  during  the  expiring  year  was  removed  from  the  temple  before 
sunset.  Then  all  the  men  who  were  not  known  to  have  violated 
the  law  of  the  first-fruit  offering  and  that  of  marriage  during  the 
year  were  summoned  by  a  crier  to  enter  the  holy  square  and  observe 
a  solemn  fast.  But  the  women  (except  $ix  old  ones),  the  children, 
and  all  who  had  not  attained  the  rank  of  warriors  were  forbidden 
to  enter  the  square.  Sentinels  were  also  posted  at  the  corners  of  the 
square  to  keep  out  all  persons  deemed  impure  and  all  animals.  A 
strict  fast  was  then  observed  for  two  nights  and  a  day,  the  devotees 
drinking  a  bitter  decoction  of  button-snake  root  “  in  order  to  vomit 
and  purge  their  sinful  bodies.”  That  the  people  outside  the  square 
might  also  be  purified,  one  of  the  old  men  laid  down  a  quantity  of 
green  tobacco  at  a  corner  of  the  square  ;  this  was  carried  off  by  an 
old  woman  and  distributed  to  the  people  without,  who  chewed  and 
swallowed  it  “  in  order  to  afflict  their  souls.”  During  this  general 
fast,  the  women,  children,  and  men  of  weak  constitution  were  allowed 
to  eat  after  mid-day,  but  not  before.  On  the  morning  when  the 
fast  ended,  the  women  brought  a  quantity  of  the  old  year’s  food  to 
the  outside  of  the  sacred  square.  These  provisions  were  then  fetched 
in  and  set  before  the  famished  multitude,  but  all  traces  of  them  had 
to  be  removed  before  noon.  When  the  sun  was  declining  from  the 
meridian,  all  the  people  were  commanded  by  the  voice  of  a  crier  to 
stay  within  doors,  to  do  no  bad  act,  and  to  be  sure  to  extinguish  and 
throw  away  every  spark  of  the  old  fire.  Universal  silence  now  reigned. 
Then  the  high  priest  made  the  new  fire  by  the  friction  of  two  pieces 
of  wood,  and  placed  it  on  the  altar  under  the  green  arbour.  This 
new  fire  was  believed  to  atone  for  all  past  crimes  except  murder. 
Next  a  basket  of  new  fruits  was  brought ;  the  high  priest  took  out 
a  little  of  each  sort  of  fruit,  rubbed  it  with  bear’s  oil,  and  offered  it, 
together  with  some  flesh,  “  to  the  bountiful  holy  spirit  of  fire,  as  a 
first-fruit  offering,  and  an  annual  oblation  for  sin.”  He  also  con¬ 
secrated  the  sacred  emetics  (the  button-snake  root  and  the  cassina  or 
black-drink)  by  pouring  a  little  of  them  into  the  fire.  The  persons 
who  had  remained  outside  now  approached,  without  entering,  the 
sacred  square  ;  and  the  chief  priest  thereupon  made  a  speech,  exhorting 
the  people  to  observe  their  old  rites  and  customs,  announcing  that  the 
new  divine  fire  had  purged  away  the  sins  of  the  past  year,  and  earnestly 
warning  the  women  that,  if  any  of  them  had  not  extinguished  the 
old  fire,  or  had  contracted  any  impurity,  they  must  forthwith  depart, 


EATING  THE  GOD 


CH. 


486 


"  lest  the  divine  fire  should  spoil  both  them  and  the  people.”  Some 
of  the  new  fire  was  then  set  down  outside  the  holy  square  ;  the  women 
carried  it  home  joyfully,  and  laid  it  on  their  unpolluted  hearths. 
When  several  towns  had  united  to  celebrate  the  festival,  the  new  fire 
might  thus  be  carried  for  several  miles.  The  new  fruits  were  then 
dressed  on  the  new  fires  and  eaten  with  bear’s  oil,  which  was  deemed 
indispensable.  At  one  point  of  the  festival  the  men  rubbed  the 
new  com  between  their  hands,  then  on  their  faces  and  breasts.  During 
the  festival  which  followed,  the  warriors,  dressed  in  their  wild  martial 
array,  their  heads  covered  with  white  down  and  carrying  white 
feathers  in  their  hands,  danced  round  the  sacred  arbour,  under  which 
burned  the  new  fire.  The  ceremonies  lasted  eight  days,  during  which 
the  strictest  continence  was  practised.  Towards  the  conclusion  of 
the  festival  the  warriors  fought  a  mock  battle  ;  then  the  men  and 
women  together,  in  three  circles,  danced  round  the  sacred  fire. 
Lastly,  all  the  people  smeared  themselves  with  white  clay  and  bathed 
in  running  water.  They  came  out  of  the  water  believing  that  no 
evil  could  now  befall  them  for  what  they  had  done  amiss  in  the  past. 
So  they  departed  in  joy  and  peace. 

To  this  day,  also,  the  remnant  of  the  Seminole  Indians  of  Florida, 
a  people  of  the  same  stock  as  the  Creeks,  hold  an  annual  purification 
and  festival  called  the  Green  Corn  Dance,  at  which  the  new  corn  is 
eaten.  On  the  evening  of  the  first  day  of  the  festival  they  quaff  a 
nauseous  “  Black  Drink,”  as  it  is  called,  which  acts  both  as  an  emetic 
and  a  purgative  ;  they  believe  that  he  who  does  not  drink  of  this 
liquor  cannot  safely  eat  the  new  green  corn,  and  besides  that  he  will 
be  sick  at  some  time  in  the  year.  While  the  liquor  is  being  drunk, 
the  dancing  begins,  and  the  medicine-men  join  in  it.  Next  day  they 
eat  of  the  green  corn  ;  the  following  day  they  fast,  probably  from 
fear  of  polluting  the  sacred  food  in  their  stomachs  by  contact  with 
common  food  ;  but  the  third  day  they  hold  a  great  feast. 

Even  tribes  which  do  not  till  the  ground  sometimes  observe 
analogous  ceremonies  when  they  gather  the  first  wild  fruits  or  dig  the 
first  roots  of  the  season.  Thus  among  the  Salish  and  Tinneh  Indians 
of  North-West  America,  “  before  the  young  people  eat  the  first  berries 
or  roots  of  the  season,  they  always  addressed  the  fruit  or  plant,  and 
begged  for  its  favour  and  aid.  In  some  tribes  regular  First-fruit 
ceremonies  were  annually  held  at  the  time  of  picking  the  wild  fruit  or 
gathering  the  roots,  and  also  among  the  salmon-eating  tribes  when  the 
run  of  the  *  sockeye  ’  salmon  began.  These  ceremonies  were  not  so 
much  thanksgivings,  as  performances  to  ensure  a  plentiful  crop  or 
supply  of  the  particular  object  desired,  for  if  they  were  not  properly 
and  reverently  carried  out  there  was  danger  of  giving  offence  to  the 
‘  spirits  '  of  the  objects,  and  being  deprived  of  them.”  For  example, 
these  Indians  are  fond  of  the  young  shoots  or  suckers  of  the  wild 
raspberry,  and  they  observe  a  solemn  ceremony  at  eating  the  first  of 
them  in  season.  The  shoots  are  cooked  in  a  new  pot  :  the  people 
assemble  and  stand  in  a  great  circle  with  closed  eyes,  while  the  pre- 


L 


THE  SACRAMENT  OF  FIRST-FRUITS 


487 


siding  chief  or  medicine-man  invokes  the  spirit  of  the  plant,  begging 
that  it  will  be  propitious  to  them  and  grant  them  a  good  supply  of 
suckers.  After  this  part  of  the  ceremony  is  over  the  cooked  suckers 
are  handed  to  the  presiding  officer  in  a  newly  carved  dish,  and  a  small 
portion  is  given  to  each  person  present,  who  reverently  and  decorously 
eats  it. 

The  Thompson  Indians  of  British  Columbia  cook  and  eat  the  sun¬ 
flower  root  ( Balsamorrhiza  sagittata,  Nutt.),  but  they  used  to  regard 
it  as  a  mysterious  being,  and  observed  a  number  of  taboos  in  con¬ 
nexion  with  it ;  for  example,  women  who  were  engaged  in  digging  or 
cooking  the  root  must  practise  continence,  and  no  man  might  come 
near  the  oven  where  the  women  were  baking  the  root.  When  young 
people  ate  the  first  berries,  roots,  or  other  products  of  the  season,  they 
addressed  a  prayer  to  the  Sunflower-Root  as  follows  :  “ I  inform  thee 
that  I  intend  to  eat  thee.  Mayest  thou  always  help  me  to  ascend,  so 
that  I  may  always  be  able  to  reach  the  tops  of  mountains,  and  may  I 
never  be  clumsy  !  I  ask  this  from  thee,  Sunflower-Root.  Thou  art 
the  greatest  of  all  in  mystery.”  To  omit  this  prayer  would  make  the 
eater  lazy  and  cause  him  to  sleep  long  in  the  morning. 

These  customs  of  the  Thompson  and  other  Indian  tribes  of  North- 
West  America  are  instructive,  because  they  clearly  indicate  the  motive, 
or  at  least  one  of  the  motives,  which  underlies  the  ceremonies  observed 
at  eating  the  first  fruits  of  the  season.  That  motive  in  the  case  of 
these  Indians  is  simply  a  belief  that  the  plant  itself  is  animated  by  a 
conscious  and  more  or  less  powerful  spirit,  who  must  be  propitiated 
before  the  people  can  safely  partake  of  the  fruits  or  roots  which  are 
supposed  to  be  part  of  his  body.  Now  if  this  is  true  of  wild  fruits  and 
roots,  we  may  infer  with  some  probability  that  it  is  also  true  of  culti¬ 
vated  fruits  and  roots,  such  as  yams,  and  in  particular  that  it  holds 
good  of  the  cereals,  such  as  wheat,  barley,  oats,  rice,  and  maize.  In 
all  cases  it  seems  reasonable  to  infer  that  the  scruples  which  savages 
manifest  at  eating  the  first  fruits  of  any  crop,  and  the  ceremonies  which 
they  observe  before  they  overcome  their  scruples,  are  due  at  least  in 
large  measure  to  a  notion  that  the  plant  or  tree  is  animated  by  a  spirit 
or  even  a  deity,  whose  leave  must  be  obtained,  or  whose  favour  must 
be  sought,  before  it  is  possible  to  partake  with  safety  of  the  new  crop. 
This  indeed  is  plainly  affirmed  of  the  Aino  :  they  call  the  millet  “  the 
divine  cereal,”  “  the  cereal  deity,”  and  they  pray  to  and  worship  him 
before  they  will  eat  of  the  cakes  made  from  the  new  millet.  And  even 
where  the  indwelling  divinity  of  the  first  fruits  is  not  expressly  affirmed, 
it  appears  to  be  implied  both  by  the  solemn  preparations  made  for 
eating  them  and  by  the  danger  supposed  to  be  incurred  by  persons 
who  venture  to  partake  of  them  without  observing  the  prescribed 
ritual.  In  all  such  cases,  accordingly,  we  may  not  improperly  describe 
the  eating  of  the  new  fruits  as  a  sacrament  or  communion  with  a  deity, 
or  at  all  events  with  a  powerful  spirit. 

Among  the  usages  which  point  to  this  conclusion  are  the  custom  of 
employing  either  new  or  specially  reserved  vessels  to  hold  the  new 


488  EATING  THE  GOD  ch. 

fruits,  and  the  practice  of  purifying  the  persons  of  the  communicants 
before  it  is  lawful  to  engage  in  the  solemn  act  of  communion  with  the 
divinity.  Of  all  the  modes  of  purification  adopted  on  these  occasions 
none  perhaps  brings  out  the  sacramental  virtue  of  the  rite  so  clearly 
as  the  Creek  and  Seminole  practice  of  taking  a  purgative  before 
swallowing  the  new  corn.  The  intention  is  thereby  to  prevent  the 
sacred  food  from  being  polluted  by  contact  with  common  food  in  the 
stomach  of  the  eater.  For  the  same  reason  Catholics  partake  of  the 
Eucharist  fasting  ;  and  among  the  pastoral  Masai  of  Eastern  Africa 
the  young  warriors,  who  live  on  meat  and  milk  exclusively,  are  obliged  I 
to  eat  nothing  but  milk  for  so  many  days  and  then  nothing  but  meat 
for  so  many  more,  and  before  they  pass  from  the  one  food  to  the  other 
they  must  make  sure  that  none  of  the  old  food  remains  in  their 
stomachs  ;  this  they  do  by  swallowing  a  very  powerful  purgative  and 
emetic. 

In  some  of  the  festivals  which  we  have  examined,  the  sacrament  U 
of  first-fruits  is  combined  with  a  sacrifice  or  presentation  of  them  to 
gods  or  spirits,  and  in  course  of  time  the  sacrifice  of  first-fruits  tends 
to  throw  the  sacrament  into  the  shade,  if  not  to  supersede  it.  The 
mere  fact  of  offering  the  first-fruits  to  the  gods  or  spirits  comes  now  to 
be  thought  a  sufficient  preparation  for  eating  the  new  corn  ;  the  higher 
powers  having  received  their  share,  man  is  free  to  enjoy  the  rest. 
This  mode  of  viewing  the  new  fruits  implies  that  they  are  regarded 
no  longer  as  themselves  instinct  with  divine  life,  but  merely  as  a  gift 
bestowed  by  the  gods  upon  man,  who  is  bound  to  express  his  gratitude 
and  homage  to  his  divine  benefactors  by  returning  to  them  a  portion 
of  their  bounty. 

§  2.  Eating  the  God  among  the  Aztecs. — The  custom  of  eating  bread 
sacramentally  as  the  body  of  a  god  was  practised  by  the  Aztecs  before 
the  discovery  and  conquest  of  Mexico  by  the  Spaniards.  Twice  a  year, 
in  May  and  December,  an  image  of  the  great  Mexican  god  Huitzilo- 
pochtli  or  Vitzilipuztli  was  made  of  dough,  then  broken  in  pieces,  and 
solemnly  eaten  by  his  worshippers.  The  May  ceremony  is  thus 
described  by  the  historian  Acosta  :  “  The  Mexicans  in  the  month  of 
May  made  their  principal  feast  to  their  god  Vitzilipuztli,  and  two  days 
before  this  feast,  the  virgins  whereof  I  have  spoken  (the  which  were 
shut  up  and  secluded  in  the  same  temple  and  were  as  it  were  religious 
women)  did  mingle  a  quantity  of  the  seed  of  beets  with  roasted  maize, 
and  then  they  did  mould  it  with  honey,  making  an  idol  of  that  paste 
in  bigness  like  to  that  of  wood,  putting  instead  of  eyes  grains  of  green 
glass,  of  blue  or  white  ;  and  for  teeth  grains  of  maize  set  forth  with  all 
the  ornament  and  furniture  that  I  have  said.  This  being  finished, 
all  the  noblemen  came  and  brought  it  an  exquisite  and  rich  garment, 
like  unto  that  of  the  idol,  wherewith  they  did  attire  it.  Being  thus 
clad  and  deckt,  they  did  set  it  in  an  azured  chair  and  in  a  litter  to  carry 
it  on  their  shoulders.  The  morning  of  this  feast  being  come,  an  hour 
before  day  all  the  maidens  came  forth  attired  in  white,  with  new 
ornaments,  the  which  that  day  were  called  the  Sisters  of  their  god 


L  EATING  THE  GOD  AMONG  THE  AZTECS  489 

Vitzilipuztli,  they  came  crowned  with  garlands  of  maize  roasted  and 
parched,  being  like  unto  azahar  or  the  flower  of  orange  ;  and  about 
their  necks  they  had  great  chains  of  the  same,  which  went  bauldrick- 
wise  under  their  left  arm.  Their  cheeks  were  dyed  with  vermilion, 
their  arms  from  the  elbow  to  the  wrist  were  covered  with  red  parrots’ 
feathers.”  Young  men,  dressed  in  red  robes  and  crowned  like  the 
virgins  with  maize,  then  carried  the  idol  in  its  litter  to  the  foot  of  the 
great  pyramid-shaped  temple,  up  the  steep  and  narrow  steps  of  which 
it  was  drawn  to  the  music  of  flutes,  trumpets,  cornets,  and  drums. 
"  While  they  mounted  up  the  idol  all  the  people  stood  in  the  court  with 
much  reverence  and  fear.  Being  mounted  to  the  top,  and  that  they 
had  placed  it  in  a  little  lodge  of  roses  which  they  held  ready,  presently 
came  the  young  men,  which  strewed  many  flowers  of  sundry  kinds, 
wherewith  they  filled  the  temple  both  within  and  without.  This  done, 
all  the  virgins  came  out  of  their  convent,  bringing  pieces  of  paste 
compounded  of  beets  and  roasted  maize,  which  was  of  the  same  paste 
whereof  their  idol  was  made  and  compounded,  and  they  were  of  the 
fashion  of  great  bones.  They  delivered  them  to  the  young  men,  who 
carried  them  up  and  laid  them  at  the  idol’s  feet,  wherewith  they  filled 
the  whole  place  that  it  could  receive  no  more.  They  called  these 
morsels  of  paste  the  flesh  and  bones  of  Vitzilipuztli.  Having  laid 
abroad  these  bones,  presently  came  all  the  ancients  of  the  temple, 
priests,  Levites,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  ministers,  according  to  their 
dignities  and  antiquities  (for  herein  there  was  a  strict  order  amongst 
them)  one  after  another,  with  their  veils  of  diverse  colours  and  works, 
every  one  according  to  his  dignity  and  office,  having  garlands  upon 
their  heads  and  chains  of  flowers  about  their  necks  ;  after  them  came 
their  gods  and  goddesses  whom  they  worshipped,  of  diverse  figures, 
attired  in  the  same  livery  ;  then  putting  themselves  in  order  about 
those  morsels  and  pieces  of  paste,  they  used  certain  ceremonies  with 
singing  and  dancing.  By  means  whereof  they  were  blessed  and  con¬ 
secrated  for  the  flesh  and  bones  of  this  idol.  This  ceremony  and 
blessing  (whereby  they  were  taken  for  the  flesh  and  bones  of  the  idol) 
being  ended,  they  honoured  those  pieces  in  the  same  sort  as  their  god.  .  .  . 
All  the  city  came  to  this  goodly  spectacle,  and  there  was  a  command¬ 
ment  very  strictly  observed  throughout  all  the  land,  that  the  day  of 
the  feast  of  the  idol  of  Vitzilipuztli  they  should  eat  no  other  meat  but 
this  paste,  with  honey,  whereof  the  idol  was  made.  And  this  should 
be  eaten  at  the  point  of  day,  and  they  should  drink  no  water  nor  any 
other  thing  till  after  noon  :  they  held  it  for  an  ill  sign,  yea,  for  sacrilege 
to  do  the  contrary  :  but  after  the  ceremonies  ended,  it  was  lawful  for 
them  to  eat  anything.  During  the  time  of  this  ceremony  they  hid  the 
water  from  their  little  children,  admonishing  all  such  as  had  the  use  of 
reason  not  to  drink  any  water  ;  which,  if  they  did,  the  anger  of  God 
would  come  upon  them,  and  they  should  die,  which  they  did  observe 
very  carefully  and  strictly.  The  ceremonies,  dancing,  and  sacrifice 
ended,  they  went  to  unclothe  themselves,  and  the  priests  and  superiors 
of  the  temple  took  the  idol  of  paste,  which  they  spoiled  of  all  the 


49° 


EATING  THE  GOD 


CH. 


ornaments  it  had,  and  made  many  pieces,  as  well  of  the  idol  itself  as 
of  the  truncheons  which  they  consecrated,  and  then  they  gave  them 
to  the  people  in  manner  of  a  communion,  beginning  with  the  greater, 
and  continuing  unto  the  rest,  both  men,  women,  and  little  children, 
who  received  it  with  such  tears,  fear,  and  reverence  as  it  was  an  admir- 
L/  able  thing,  saying  that  they  did  eat  the  flesh  and  bones  of  God,  where¬ 
with  they  were  grieved.  Such  as  had  any  sick  folks  demanded  thereof 
for  them,  and  carried  it  with  great  reverence  and  veneration." 

From  this  interesting  passage  we  learn  that  the  ancient  Mexicans, 
even  before  the  arrival  of  Christian  missionaries,  were  fully  acquainted 
with  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation  and  acted  upon  it  in  the 
solemn  rites  of  their  religion.  They  believed  that  by  consecrating 
bread  their  priests  could  turn  it  into  the  very  body  of  their  god,  so 
that  all  who  thereupon  partook  of  the  consecrated  bread  entered  into 
a  mystic  communion  with  the  deity  by  receiving  a  portion  of  his 
divine  substance  into  themselves.  The  doctrine  of  transubstantiation, 
or  the  magical  conversion  of  bread  into  flesh,  was  also  familiar  to  the 
Aryans  of  ancient  India  long  before  the  spread  and  even  the  rise  of 
Christianity.  The  Brahmans  taught  that  the  rice-cakes  offered  in  : 
sacrifice  were  substitutes  for  human  beings,  and  that  they  were  actually 
converted  into  the  real  bodies  of  men  by  the  manipulation  of  the 
priest.  We  read  that  “  when  it  (the  rice-cake)  still  consists  of  rice- 
meal,  it  is  the  hair.  When  he  pours  water  on  it,  it  becomes  skin. 
When  he  mixes  it,  it  becomes  flesh  :  for  then  it  becomes  consistent  ; 
and  consistent  also  is  the  flesh.  When  it  is  baked,  it  becomes  bone  : 
for  then  it  becomes  somewhat  hard  ;  and  hard  is  the  bone.  And 
when  he  is  about  to  take  it  off  (the  fire)  and  sprinkles  it  with  butter, 
he  changes  it  into  marrow.  This  is  the  completeness  which  they  call 
the  fivefold  animal  sacrifice."  ( 

Now,  too,  we  can  perfectly  understand  why  on  the  day  of  their 
solemn  communion  with  the  deity  the  Mexicans  refused  to  eat  any 
other  food  than  the  consecrated  bread  which  they  revered  as  the  very 
flesh  and  bones  of  their  God,  and  why  up  till  noon  they  might  drink 
nothing  at  all,  not  even  water.  They  feared  no  doubt  to  defile  the 
portion  of  God  in  their  stomachs  by  contact  with  common  things. 

A  similar  pious  fear  led  the  Creek  and  Seminole  Indians,  as  we  saw, 
to  adopt  the  more  thoroughgoing  expedient  of  rinsing  out  their  bodies 
by  a  strong  purgative  before  they  dared  to  partake  of  the  sacrament 
of  first-fruits. 

At  the  festival  of  the  winter  solstice  in  December  the  Aztecs  killed 
their  god  Huitzilopochtli  in  effigy  first  and  ate  him  afterwards.  As  a 
preparation  for  this  solemn  ceremony  an  image  of  the  deity  in  the 
likeness  of  a  man  was  fashioned  out  of  seeds  of  various  sorts,  which 
were  kneaded  into  a  dough  with  the  blood  of  children.  The  bones  of 
the  god  were  represented  by  pieces  of  acacia  wood.  This  image  was 
placed  on  the  chief  altar  of  the  temple,  and  on  the  day  of  the  festival 
the  king  offered  incense  to  it.  Early  next  day  it  was  taken  down 
and  set  on  its  feet  in  a  great  hall.  Then  a  priest,  who  bore  the  name 


L 


MANY  MAN  1 1  AT  ARICIA 


491 


and  acted  the  part  of  the  god  Quetzalcoatl,  took  a  flint-tipped  dart  and 
hurled  it  into  the  breast  of  the  dough-image,  piercing  it  through  and 
through.  This  was  called  “  killing  the  god  Huitzilopochtli  so  that  his 
body  might  be  eaten.”  One  of  the  priests  cut  out  the  heart  of  the 
image  and  gave  it  to  the  king  to  eat.  The  rest  of  the  image  was 
divided  into  minute  pieces,  of  which  every  man  great  and  small,  down 
to  the  male  children  in  the  cradle,  receive  one  to  eat.  But  no  woman 
might  taste  a  morsel.  The  ceremony  was  called  teoqualo,  that  is, 
“  god  is  eaten.” 

At  another  festival  the  Mexicans  made  little  images  like  men, 
which  stood  for  the  cloud-capped  mountains.  These  images  were 
moulded  of  a  paste  of  various  seeds  and  were  dressed  in  paper  orna¬ 
ments.  Some  people  fashioned  five,  others  ten,  others  as  many  as 
fifteen  of  them.  Having  been  made,  they  were  placed  in  the  oratory 
of  each  house  and  worshipped.  Four  times  in  the  course  of  the  night 
offerings  of  food  were  brought  to  them  in  tiny  vessels  ;  and  people 
sang  and  played  the  flute  before  them  through  all  the  hours  of  dark¬ 
ness.  At  break  of  day  the  priests  stabbed  the  images  with  a  weaver’s 
instrument,  cut  off  their  heads,  and  tore  out  their  hearts,  which  they 
presented  to  the  master  of  the  house  on  a  green  saucer.  The  bodies 
of  the  images  were  then  eaten  by  all  the  family,  especially  by  the 
servants,  “  in  order  that  by  eating  them  they  might  be  preserved  from 
certain  distempers,  to  which  those  persons  who  were  negligent  of 
worship  to  those  deities  conceived  themselves  to  be  subject.” 

§  3.  Many  Manii  at  Aricia. — We  are  now  able  to  suggest  an  explana¬ 
tion  of  the  proverb  “  There  are  many  Manii  at  Aricia.”  Certain 
loaves  made  in  the  shape  of  men  were  called  by  the  Romans  maniae, 
and  it  appears  that  this  kind  of  loaf  was  especially  made  at  Aricia. 
Now,  Mania,  the  name  of  one  of  these  loaves,  was  also  the  name  of 
the  Mother  or  Grandmother  of  Ghosts,  to  whom  woollen  effigies  of 
men  and  women  were  dedicated  at  the  festival  of  the  Compitalia. 
These  effigies  were  hung  at  the  doors  of  all  the  houses  in  Rome  ; 
one  effigy  was  hung  up  for  every  free  person  in  the  house,  and  one 
effigy,  of  a  different  kind,  for  every  slave.  The  reason  was  that 
on  this  day  the  ghosts  of  the  dead  were  believed  to  be  going  about, 
and  it  was  hoped  that,  either  out  of  good  nature  or  through  simple 
inadvertence,  they  would  carry  off  the  effigies  at  the  door  instead  of 
the  living  people  in  the  house.  According  to  tradition,  these  woollen 
figures  were  substitutes  for  a  former  custom  of  sacrificing  human 
beings.  Upon  data  so  fragmentary  and  uncertain,  it  is  impossible 
to  build  with  confidence  ;  but  it  seems  worth  suggesting  that  the 
loaves  in  human  form,  which  appear  to  have  been  baked  at  Aricia, 
were  sacramental  bread,  and  that  in  the  old  days,  when  the  divine 
King  of  the  Wood  was  annually  slain,  loaves  were  made  in  his  imager- 
like  the  paste  figures  of  the  gods  in  Mexico,  and  were  eaten  sacra¬ 
mentally  by  his  worshippers.  The  Mexican  sacraments  in  honour  of 
Huitzilopochtli  were  also  accompanied  by  the  sacrifice  of  human 
victims.  The  tradition  that  the  founder  of  the  sacred  grove  at  Aricia 


492 


EATING  THE  GOD 


CH. 


was  a  man  named  Manius,  from  whom  many  Manii  were  descended, 
would  thus  be  an  etymological  myth  invented  to  explain  the  name 
maniae  as  applied  to  these  sacramental  loaves.  A  dim  recollection  of 
the  original  connexion  of  the  loaves  with  human  sacrifices  may  perhaps 
be  traced  in  the  story  that  the  effigies  dedicated  to  Mania  at  the  Com- 
pitalia  were  substitutes  for  human  victims.  The  story  itself,  however, 
is  probably  devoid  of  foundation,  since  the  practice  of  putting  up 
dummies  to  divert  the  attention  of  ghosts  or  demons  from  living 
people  is  not  uncommon. 

For  example,  the  Tibetans  stand  in  fear  of  innumerable  earth-demons, 
all  of  whom  are  under  the  authority  of  Old  Mother  Khon-ma.  This  god¬ 
dess,  who  may  be  compared  to  the  Roman  Mania,  the  Mother  or  Grand¬ 
mother  of  Ghosts,  is  dressed  in  golden-yellow  robes,  holds  a  golden 
noose  in  her  hand,  and  rides  on  a  ram.  In  order  to  bar  the  dwelling- 
house  against  the  foul  fiends,  of  whom  Old  Mother  Khon-ma  is  mistress, 
an  elaborate  structure  somewhat  resembling  a  chandelier  is  fixed 
above  the  door  on  the  outside  of  the  house.  It  contains  a  ram’s  skull, 
a  variety  of  precious  objects  such  as  gold-leaf,  silver,  and  turquoise,,] 
also  some  dry  food,  such  as  rice,  wheat,  and  pulse,  and  finally  images 
or  pictures  of  a  man,  a  woman,  and  a  house.  “  The  object  of  these 
figures  of  a  man,  wife,  and  house  is  to  deceive  the  demons  should  they 
still  come  in  spite  of  this  offering,  and  to  mislead  them  into  the  belief 
that  the  foregoing  pictures  are  the  inmates  of  the  house,  so  that  they 
may  wreak  their  wrath  on  these  bits  of  wood  and  so  save  the  real  human 
occupants.”  When  all  is  ready,  a  priest  prays  to  Old  Mother  Khon-ma 
that  she  would  be  pleased  to  accept  these  dainty  offerings  and  to  close 
the  open  doors  of  the  earth,  in  order  that  the  demons  may  not  come 
forth  to  infest  and  injure  the  household. 

Again,  effigies  are  often  employed  as  a  means  of  preventing  or 
curing  sickness  ;  the  demons  of  disease  either  mistake  the  effigies  for 
living  people  or  are  persuaded  or  compelled  to  enter  them,  leaving  the 
real  men  and  women  well  and  whole.  Thus  the  Alfoors  of  Minahassa, 
in  Celebes,  will  sometimes  transport  a  sick  man  to  another  house, 
while  they  leave  on  his  bed  a  dummy  made  up  of  a  pillow  and  clothes. 
This  dummy  the  demon  is  supposed  to  mistake  for  the  sick  man,  who 
consequently  recovers.  Cure  or  prevention  of  this  sort  seems  to  find 
especial  favour  with  the  natives  of  Borneo.  Thus,  when  an  epidemic  is 
raging  among  them,  the  Dyaks  of  the  Katoengouw  river  set  up  wooden 
images  at  their  doors  in  the  hope  that  the  demons  of  the  plague  may 
be  deluded  into  carrying  off  the  effigies  instead  of  the  people.  Among 
the  Oloh  Ngadju  of  Borneo,  when  a  sick  man  is  supposed  to  be  suffering 
from  the  assaults  of  a  ghost,  puppets  of  dough  or  rice-meal  are  made 
and  thrown  under  the  house  as  substitutes  for  the  patient,  who  thus 
rids  himself  of  the  ghost.  In  certain  of  the  western  districts  of  Borneo 
if  a  man  is  taken  suddenly  and  violently  sick,  the  physician,  who  in 
this  part  of  the  world  is  generally  an  old  woman,  fashions  a  wooden 
image  and  brings  it  seven  times  into  contact  with  the  sufferer’s  head, 
while  she  says  :  “  This  image  serves  to  take  the  place  of  the  sick  man  ; 


L 


MANY  MANII  AT  ARICIA 


493 


sickness,  pass  over  into  the  image.”  Then,  with  some  rice,  salt,  and 
tobacco  in  a  little  basket,  the  substitute  is  carried  to  the  spot  where 
the  evil  spirit  is  supposed  to  have  entered  into  the  man.  There  it  is 
set  upright  on  the  ground,  after  the  physician  has  invoked  the  spirit 
as  follows  :  “  O  devil,  here  is  an  image  which  stands  instead  of  the 
sick  man.  Release  the  soul  of  the  sick  man  and  plague  the  image,  for 
it  is  indeed  prettier  and  better  than  he.”  Batak  magicians  can  conjure 
the  demon  of  disease  out  of  the  patient’s  body  into  an  image  made  out 
of  a  banana-tree  with  a  human  face  and  wrapt  up  in  magic  herbs  ;  the 
image  is  then  hurriedly  removed  and  thrown  away  or  buried  beyond 
the  boundaries  of  the  village.  Sometimes  the  image,  dressed  as  a  man 
or  a  woman  according  to  the  sex  of  the  patient,  is  deposited  at  a  cross¬ 
road  or  other  thoroughfare,  in  the  hope  that  some  passer-by,  seeing  it, 
may  start  and  cry  out,  “  Ah  !  So-and-So  is  dead  ”  ;  for  such  an  ex¬ 
clamation  is  supposed  to  delude  the  demon  of  disease  into  a  belief 
that  he  has  accomplished  his  fell  purpose,  so  he  takes  himself  off  and 
leaves  the  sufferer  to  get  well.  The  Mai  Darat,  a  Sakai  tribe  of  the 
Malay  Peninsula,  attribute  all  kinds  of  diseases  to  the  agency  of  spirits 
which  they  call  nyani  ;  fortunately,  however,  the  magician  can  induce 
these  maleficent  beings  to  come  out  of  the  sick  person  and  take  up 
their  abode  in  rude  figures  of  grass,  which  are  hung  up  outside  the 
houses  in  little  bell -shaped  shrines  decorated  with  peeled  sticks. 
During  an  epidemic  of  small-pox  the  Ewe  negroes  will  sometimes 
clear  a  space  outside  of  the  town,  where  they  erect  a  number  of  low 
mounds  and  cover  them  with  as  many  little  clay  figures  as  there  are 
people  in  the  place.  Pots  of  food  and  water  are  also  set  out  for  the 
refreshment  of  the  spirit  of  small-pox,  who,  it  is  hoped,  will  take  the 
clay  figures  and  spare  the  living  folk  ;  and  to  make  assurance  doubly 
sure  the  road  into  the  town  is  barricaded  against  him. 

With  these  examples  before  us  we  may  surmise  that  the  woollen 
effigies,  which  at  the  festival  of  the  Compitalia  might  be  seen  hanging 
at  the  doors  of  all  the  houses  in  ancient  Rome,  were  not  substitutes  for 
human  victims  who  had  formerly  been  sacrificed  at  this  season,  but 
rather  vicarious  offerings  presented  to  the  Mother  or  Grandmother  of 
Ghosts,  in  the  hope  that  on  her  rounds  through  the  city  she  would 
accept  or  mistake  the  effigies  for  the  inmates  of  the  house  and  so  spare 
the  living  for  another  year.  It  is  possible  that  the  puppets  made  of 
rushes,  which  in  the  month  of  May  the  pontiffs  and  Vestal  Virgins 
annually  threw  into  the  Tiber  from  the  old  Sublician  bridge  at  Rome, 
had  originally  the  same  significance  ;  that  is,  they  may  have  been 
designed  to  purge  the  city  from  demoniac  influence  by  diverting  the 
attention  of  the  demons  from  human  beings  to  the  puppets  and  then 
toppling  the  whole  uncanny  crew,  neck  and  crop,  into  the  river,  which 
would  soon  sweep  them  far  out  to  sea.  In  precisely  the  same  way  the 
natives  of  Old  Calabar  used  periodically  to  rid  their  town  of  the  devils 
which  infested  it  by  luring  the  unwary  demons  into  a  number  of 
lamentable  scarecrows,  which  they  afterwards  flung  into  the  river. 
This  interpretation  of  the  Roman  custom  is  supported  to  some  extent 


494  HOMOEOPATHIC  MAGIC  OF  A  FLESH  DIET  ch. 

by  the  evidence  of  Plutarch,  who  speaks  of  the  ceremony  as  “  the 
greatest  of  purifications.” 


CHAPTER  LI 

HOMOEOPATHIC  MAGIC  OF  A  FLESH  DIET 

The  practice  of  killing  a  god  has  now  been  traced  amongst  peoples 
who  have  reached  the  agricultural  stage  of  society.  We  have  seen 
that  the  spirit  of  the  corn,  or  of  other  cultivated  plants,  is  commonly 
represented  either  in  human  or  in  animal  form,  and  that  in  some  places 
a  custom  has  prevailed  of  killing  annually  either  the  human  or  the 
animal  representative  of  the  god.  One  reason  for  thus  killing  the 
corn-spirit  in  the  person  of  his  representative  has  been  given  implicitly 
in  an  earlier  part  of  this  work  :  we  may  suppose  that  the  intention 
was  to  guard  him  or  her  (for  the  corn-spirit  is  often  feminine)  from  the 
enfeeblement  of  old  age  by  transferring  the  spirit,  while  still  hale  and 
hearty,  to  the  person  of  a  youthful  and  vigorous  successor.  Apart  * 
from  the  desirability  of  renewing  his  divine  energies,  the  death  of  the 
corn-spirit  may  have  been  deemed  inevitable  under  the  sickles  or  the 
knives  of  the  reapers,  and  his  worshippers  may  accordingly  have  felt 
bound  to  acquiesce  in  the  sad  necessity.  But,  further,  we  have  found 
a  widespread  custom  of  eating  the  god  sacramentally,  either  in  the 
shape  of  the  man  or  animal  who  represents  the  god,  or  in  the  shape  of 
bread  made  in  human  or  animal  form.  The  reasons  for  thus  partaking 
of  the  body  of  the  god  are,  from  the  primitive  standpoint,  simple 
enough.  The  savage  commonly  believes  that  by  eating  the  flesh  of  an 
animal  or  man  he  acquires  not  only  the  physical,  but  even  the  moral 
and  intellectual  qualities  which  were  characteristic  of  that  animal  or 
man  ;  so  when  the  creature  is  deemed  divine,  our  simple  savage 
naturally  expects  to  absorb  a  portion  of  its  divinity  along  with  its 
material  substance.  It  may  be  well  to  illustrate  by  instances  this 
common  faith  in  the  acquisition  of  virtues  or  vices  of  many  kinds 
through  the  medium  of  animal  food,  even  when  there  is  no  pretence 
that  the  viands  consist  of  the  body  or  blood  of  a  god.  The  doctrine 
forms  part  of  the  widely  ramified  system  of  sympathetic  or  homoeo¬ 
pathic  magic. 

Thus,  for  example,  the  Creeks,  Cherokee,  and  kindred  tribes  of 
North  American  Indians  “  believe  that  nature  is  possest  of  such  a 
property,  as  to  transfuse  into  men  and  animals  the  qualities,  either  of 
the  food  they  use,  or  of  those  objects  that  are  presented  to  their 
senses  ;  he  who  feeds  on  venison  is,  according  to  their  physical  system, 
swifter  and  more  sagacious  than  the  man  who  lives  on  the  flesh  of  the 
clumsy  bear,  or  helpless  dunghill  fowls,  the  slow-footed  tame  cattle, 
or  the  heavy  wallowing  swine.  This  is  the  reason  that  several  of  their 
old  men  recommend,  and  say,  that  formerly  their  greatest  chieftains 
observed  a  constant  rule  in  their  diet,  and  seldom  ate  of  any  animal 


LI 


HOMOEOPATHIC  MAGIC  OF  A  FLESH  DIET 


495 

of  a  gross  quality,  or  heavy  motion  of  body,  fancying  it  conveyed  a 
dullness  through  the  whole  system,  and  disabled  them  from  exerting 
themselves  with  proper  vigour  in  their  martial,  civil,  and  religious 
duties.”  The  Zaparo  Indians  of  Ecuador  “  will,  unless  from  necessity, 
in  most  cases  not  eat  any  heavy  meats,  such  as  tapir  and  peccary,  but 
confine  themselves  to  birds,  monkeys,  deer,  fish,  etc.,  principally 
because  they  argue  that  the  heavier  meats  make  them  unwieldy,  like 
the  animals  who  supply  the  flesh,  impeding  their  agility,  and  unfitting 
them  for  the  chase.”  Similarly  some  of  the  Brazilian  Indians  would 
eat  no  beast,  bird,  or  fish  that  ran,  flew,  or  swam  slowly,  lest  by 
partaking  of  its  flesh  they  should  lose  their  agility  and  be  unable  to 
escape  from  their  enemies.  The  Caribs  abstained  from  the  flesh  of 
pigs  lest  it  should  cause  them  to  have  small  eyes  like  pigs  ;  and  they 
refused  to  partake  of  tortoises  from  a  fear  that  if  they  did  so  they 
would  become  heavy  and  stupid  like  the  animal.  Among  the  Fans  of 
West  Africa  men  in  the  prime  of  life  never  eat  tortoises  for  a  similar 
reason  ;  they  imagine  that  if  they  did  so,  their  vigour  and  fleetness  of 
foot  would  be  gone.  But  old  men  may  eat  tortoises  freely,  because 
having  already  lost  the  power  of  running  they  can  take  no  harm  from 
the  flesh  of  the  slow-footed  creature. 

While  many  savages  thus  fear  to  eat  the  flesh  of  slow-footed 
animals  lest  they  should  themselves  become  slow-footed,  the  Bushmen 
of  South  Africa  purposely  ate  the  flesh  of  such  creatures,  and  the 
reason  which  they  gave  for  doing  so  exhibits  a  curious  refinement  of 
savage  philosophy.  They  imagined  that  the  game  which  they  pursued 
would  be  influenced  sympathetically  by  the  food  in  the  body  of  the 
hunter,  so  that  if  he  had  eaten  of  swift-footed  animals,  the  quarry 
would  be  swift-footed  also  and  would  escape  him  ;  whereas  if  he  had 
eaten  of  slow-footed  animals,  the  quarry  would  also  be  slow-footed, 
and  he  would  be  able  to  overtake  and  kill  it.  For  that  reason  hunters 
of  gemsbok  particularly  avoided  eating  the  flesh  of  the  swift  and  agile 
springbok  ;  indeed  they  would  not  even  touch  it  with  their  hands, 
because  they  believed  the  springbok  to  be  a  very  lively  creature  which 
did  not  go  to  sleep  at  night,  and  they  thought  that  if  they  ate  spring¬ 
bok,  the  gemsbok  which  they  hunted  would  likewise  not  be  willing  to 
go  to  sleep,  even  at  night.  How,  then,  could  they  catch  it  ? 

The  Namaquas  abstain  from  eating  the  flesh  of  hares,  because 
they  think  it  would  make  them  faint-hearted  as  a  hare.  But  they 
eat  the  flesh  of  the  lion,  or  drink  the  blood  of  the  leopard  or  lion,  to 
get  the  courage  and  strength  of  these  beasts.  The  Bushmen  will  not 
give  their  children  a  jackal's  heart  to  eat,  lest  it  should  make  them 
timid  like  the  jackal ;  but  they  give  them  a  leopard's  heart  to  eat 
to  make  them  brave  like  the  leopard.  When  a  Wagogo  man  of 
East  Africa  kills  a  lion,  he  eats  the  heart  in  order  to  become 
brave  like  a  lion  ;  but  he  thinks  that  to  eat  the  heart  of  a  hen  would 
make  him  timid.  When  a  serious  disease  has  attacked  a  Zulu  kraal, 
the  medicine-man  takes  the  bone  of  a  very  old  dog,  or  the  bone  of 
an  old  cow,  bull,  or  other  very  old  animal,  and  administers  it  to  the 


496  HOMOEOPATHIC  MAGIC  OF  A  FLESH  DIET  ch. 

healthy  as  well  as  to  the  sick  people,  in  order  that  they  may  live  to 
be  as  old  as  the  animal  of  whose  bone  they  have  partaken.  So  to 
restore  the  aged  Aeson  to  youth,  the  witch  Medea  infused  into  his 
veins  a  decoction  of  the  liver  of  the  long-lived  deer  and  the  head 
of  a  crow  that  had  outlived  nine  generations  of  men. 

Among  the  Dyaks  of  North-West  Borneo  young  men  and  warriors 
may  not  eat  venison,  because  it  would  make  them  as  timid  as  deer  ; 
but  the  women  and  very  old  men  are  free  to  eat  it.  However,  among 
the  Kayans  of  the  same  region,  who  share  the  same  view  as  to  the  ill 
effect  of  eating  venison,  men  will  partake  of  the  dangerous  viand 
provided  it  is  cooked  in  the  open  air,  for  then  the  timid  spirit  of  the 
animal  is  supposed  to  escape  at  once  into  the  jungle  and  not  to  enter 
into  the  eater.  The  Aino  believe  that  the  heart  of  the  water-ousel 
is  exceedingly  wise,  and  that  in  speech  the  bird  is  most  eloquent. 
Therefore  whenever  he  is  killed,  he  should  be  at  once  torn  open  and 
his  heart  wrenched  out  and  swallowed  before  it  has  time  to  grow 
cold  or  suffer  damage  of  any  kind.  If  a  man  swallows  it  thus,  he  will 
become  very  fluent  and  wise,  and  will  be  able  to  argue  down  all  his 
adversaries.  In  Northern  India  people  fancy  that  if  you  eat  the 
eyeballs  of  an  owl  you  will  be  able  like  an  owl  to  see  in  the  dark. 

When  the  Kansas  Indians  were  going  to  war,  a  feast  used  to  be 
held  in  the  chiefs  hut,  and  the  principal  dish  was  dog’s  flesh,  because, 
said  the  Indians,  the  animal  who  is  so  brave  that  he  will  let  himself 
be  cut  in  pieces  in  defence  of  his  master,  must  needs  inspire  valour. 
Men  of  the  Buru  and  Aru  Islands,  East  Indies,  eat  the  flesh  of  dogs 
in  order  to  be  bold  and  nimble  in  war.  Amongst  the  Papuans  of  the 
Port  Moresby  and  Motumotu  districts,  New  Guinea,  young  lads  eat 
strong  pig,  wallaby,  and  large  fish,  in  order  to  acquire  the  strength 
of  the  animal  or  fish.  Some  of  the  natives  of  Northern  Australia 
fancy  that  by  eating  the  flesh  of  the  kangaroo  or  emu  they  are  enabled 
to  jump  or  run  faster  than  before.  The  Miris  of  Assam  prize  tiger’s 
flesh  as  food  for  men  ;  it  gives  them  strength  and  courage.  But  “  it 
is  not  suited  for  women  ;  it  would  make  them  too  strong-minded.” 
In  Corea  the  bones  of  tigers  fetch  a  higher  price  than  those  of  leopards 
as  a  means  of  inspiring  courage.  A  Chinaman  in  Seoul  bought  and 
ate  a  whole  tiger  to  make  himself  brave  and  fierce.  In  Norse  legend, 
Ingiald,  son  of  King  Aunund,  was  timid  in  his  youth,  but  after  eating 
the  heart  of  a  wolf  he  became  very  bold  ;  Hialto  gained  strength  and 
courage  by  eating  the  heart  of  a  bear  and  drinking  its  blood. 

In  Morocco  lethargic  patients  are  given  ants  to  swallow,  and  to 
eat  lion’s  flesh  will  make  a  coward  brave  ;  but  people  abstain  from 
eating  the  hearts  of  fowls,  lest  thereby  they  should  be  rendered  timid. 
When  a  child  is  late  in  learning  to  speak,  the  Turks  of  Central  Asia 
will  give  it  the  tongues  of  certain  birds  to  eat.  A  North  American 
Indian  thought  that  brandy  must  be  a  decoction  of  hearts  and  tongues, 
“  because,”  said  he,  "  after  drinking  it  I  fear  nothing,  and  I  talk 
wonderfully.”  In  Java  there  is  a  tiny  earthworm  which  now  and 
then  utters  a  shn_i  sound  like  that  of  the  alarum  of  a  small  clock. 


li  HOMOEOPATHIC  MAGIC  OF  A  FLESH  DIET  497 

Hence  when  a  public  dancing  girl  has  screamed  herself  hoarse  in  the 
exercise  of  her  calling,  the  leader  of  the  troop  makes  her  eat  some  of 
these  worms,  in  the  belief  that  thus  she  will  regain  her  voice  and  will, 
after  swallowing  them,  be  able  to  scream  as  shrilly  as  ever.  The 
people  of  Darfur,  in  Central  Africa,  think  that  the  liver  is  the  seat  of 
the  soul,  and  that  a  man  may  enlarge  his  soul  by  eating  the  liver  of 
an  animal.  ‘  Whenever  an  animal  is  killed  its  liver  is  taken  out 
and  eaten,  but  the  people  are  most  careful  not  to  touch  it  with  their 
hands,  as  it  is  considered  sacred  ;  it  is  cut  up  in  small  pieces  and 
eaten  raw,  the  bits  being  conveyed  to  the  mouth  on  the  point  of  a 
knife,  or  the  sharp  point  of  a  stick.  Any  one  who  may  accidentally 
touch  the  liver  is  strictly  forbidden  to  partake  of  it,  which  prohibition 
is  regarded  as  a  great  misfortune  for  him.”  Women  are  not  allowed 
to  eat  liver,  because  they  have  no  soul. 

Again,  the  flesh  and  blood  of  dead  men  are  commonly  eaten  and 
drunk  to  inspire  bravery ,#  wisdom,  or  other  qualities  for  which  the 
men  themselves  were  remarkable,  or  which  are  supposed  to  have 
their  special  seat  in  the  particular  part  eaten.  Thus  among  the 
mountain  tribes  of  South-eastern  Africa  there  are  ceremonies  by 
which  the  youths  are  formed  into  guilds  or  lodges,  and  among  the 
rites  of  initiation  there  is  one  which  is  intended  to  infuse  courage, 
intelligence,  and  other  qualities  into  the  novices.  Whenever  an 
enemy  who  has  behaved  with  conspicuous  bravery  is  killed,  his  liver, 
which  is  considered  the  seat  of  valour  ;  his  ears,  which  are  supposed 
to  be  the  seat  of  intelligence  ;  the  skin  of  his  forehead,  which  is 
regarded  as  the  seat  of  perseverance  ;  his  testicles,  which  are  held 
to  be  the  seat  of  strength  ;  and  other  members,  which  are  viewed 
as  the  seat  of  other  virtues,  are  cut  from  his  body  and  baked  to  cinders. 
The  ashes  are  carefully  kept  in  the  horn  of  a  bull,  and,  during  the 
ceremonies  observed  at  circumcision,  are  mixed  with  other  ingredients 
into  a  kind  of  paste,  which  is  administered  by  the  tribal  priest  to  the 
youths.  By  this  means  the  strength,  valour,  intelligence,  and  other 
virtues  of  the  slain  are  believed  to  be  imparted  to  the  eaters.  When 
Basutos  of  the  mountains  have  killed  a  very  brave  foe,  they  im¬ 
mediately  cut  out  his  heart  and  eat  it,  because  this  is  supposed  to 
give  them  his  courage  and  strength  in  battle.  When  Sir  Charles 
M'Carthy  was  killed  by  the  Ashantees  in  1824,  it  is  said  that  his 
heart  was  devoured  by  the  chiefs  of  the  Ashantee  army,  who  hoped 
by  this  means  to  imbibe  his  courage.  His  flesh  was  dried  and  parcelled 
out  among  the  lower  officers  for  the  same  purpose,  and  his  bones  were 
long  kept  at  Coomassie  as  national  fetishes.  The  Nauras  Indians 
of  New  Granada  ate  the  hearts  of  Spaniards  when  they  had  the 
opportunit}/,  hoping  thereby  to  make  themselves  as  dauntless  as  the 
dreaded  Castilian  chivalry.  The  Sioux  Indians  used  to  reduce  to 
powder  the  heart  of  a  valiant  enemy  and  swallow  the  powder, 
hoping  thus  to  appropriate  the  dead  man's  valour. 

But  waile  the  human  heart  is  thus  commonly  eaten  for  the  sake 
01  imbuing  the  eater  with  the  qualities  of  its  origirn.  1  owner,  it  is  not. 


498  HOMOEOPATHIC  MAGIC  OF  A  FLESH  DIET  ch. 

as  we  have  already  seen,  the  only  part  of  the  body  which  is  consumed 
for  this  purpose.  Thus  warriors  of  the  Theddora  and  Ngarigo  tribes 
of  South-eastern  Australia  used  to  eat  the  hands  and  feet  of  their 
slain  enemies,  believing  that  in  this  way  they  acquired  some  of  the 
qualities  and  courage  of  the  dead.  The  Kamilaroi  of  New  South 
Wales  ate  the  liver  as  well  as  the  heart  of  a  brave  man  to  get  his 
courage.  In  Tonquin  also  there  is  a  popular  superstition  that  the 
liver  of  a  brave  man  makes  brave  any  who  partake  of  it.  With  a 
like  intent  the  Chinese  swallow  the  bile  of  notorious  bandits  who 
have  been  executed.  The  Dyaks  of  Sarawak  used  to  eat  the  palms 
of  the  hands  and  the  flesh  of  the  knees  of  the  slain  in  order  to  steady 
their  own  hands  and  strengthen  their  own  knees.  The  Tolalaki, 
notorious  head-hunters  of  Central  Celebes,  drink  the  blood  and  eat 
the  brains  of  their  victims  that  they  may  become  brave.  The  Italones 
of  the  Philippine  Islands  drink  the  blood  of  their  slain  enemies,  and 
eat  part  of  the  back  of  their  heads  and  of  their  entrails  raw  to  acquire 
their  courage.  For  the  same  reason  the  Efugaos,  another  tribe  ol 
the  Philippines,  suck  the  brains  of  their  foes.  In  like  manner  the 
Kai  of  German  New  Guinea  eat  the  brains  of  the  enemies  they  ki! 
in  order  to  acquire  their  strength.  Among  the  Kimbunda  of  Westerr 
Africa,  when  a  new  king  succeeds  to  the  throne,  a  brave  prisoner  o: 
war  is  killed  in  order  that  the  king  and  nobles  may  eat  his  flesh,  anc 
so  acquire  his  strength  and  courage.  The  notorious  Zulu  chie: 
Matuana  drank  the  gall  of  thirty  chiefs,  whose  people  he  had  destroyed 
in  the  belief  that  it  would  make  him  strong.  It  is  a  Zulu  fancy  thai 
by  eating  the  centre  of  the  forehead  and  the  eyebrow  of  an  enemq 
they  acquire  the  power  of  looking  steadfastly  at  a  foe.  Before  ever} 
warlike  expedition  the  people  of  Minahassa  in  Celebes  used  to  tak< 
the  locks  of  hair  of  a  slain  foe  and  dabble  them  in  boiling  water  t( 
extract  the  courage  ;  this  infusion  of  bravery  was  then  drunk  by  th 
warriors.  In  New  Zealand  “  the  chief  was  an  atua  [god],  but  then 
were  powerful  and  powerless  gods  ;  each  naturally  sought  to  mak 
himself  one  of  the  former  ;  the  plan  therefore  adopted  was  to  in 
corporate  the  spirits  of  others  with  their  own  ;  thus,  when  a  warrio 
slew  a  chief,  he  immediately  gouged  out  his  eyes  and  swallowed  them 
the  atua  tonga,  or  divinity,  being  supposed  to  reside  in  that  organ 
thus  he  not  only  killed  the  body,  but  also  possessed  himself  of  the  sou 
of  his  enemy,  and  consequently  the  more  chiefs  he  slew  the  greate 
did  his  divinity  become. ” 

It  is  now  easy  to  understand  why  a  savage  should  desire  to  partak 
of  the  flesh  of  an  animal  or  man  whom  he  regards  as  divine.  B; 
eating  the  body  of  the  god  he  shares  in  the  god’s  attributes  am 
powers.  And  when  the  god  is  a  corn-god,  the  com  is  his  proper  body 
when  he  is  a  vine-god,  the  juice  of  the  grape  is  his  blood  ;  and  so  b 
eating  the  bread  and  drinking  the  wine  the  worshipper  partakes  c 
the  real  body  and  blood  of  his  god.  Thus  the  drinking  of  wine  i 
the  rites  of  a  vine-god  like  Dionysus  is  not  an  act  of  revelry,  it  is 
solemn  sacrament.  Yet  a  time  comes  when  reasonable  men  find  i 


LII 


KILLING  THE  SACRED  BUZZARD 


499 


hard  to  understand  how  any  one  in  his  senses  can  suppose  that  by 
eating  bread  or  drinking  wine  he  consumes  the  body  or  blood  of  a 
deity.  When  we  call  corn  Ceres  and  wine  Bacchus/’  says  Cicero, 
“  we  use  a  common  figure  of  speech ;  but  do  you  imagine  that  any¬ 
body  is  so  insane  as  to  believe  that  the  thing  he  feeds  upon  is  a  god  ?  ” 


CHAPTER  LII 

KILLING  THE  DIVINE  ANIMAL 

§  i.  Killing  the  Sacred  Buzzard. — In  the  preceding  chapters  we  saw 
that  many  communities  which  have  progressed  so  far  as  to  subsist 
mainly  by  agriculture  have  been  in  the  habit  of  killing  and  eating 
their  farinaceous  deities  either  in  their  proper  form  of  corn,  rice,  and 
so  forth,  or  in  the  borrowed  shapes  of  animals  and  men.  It  remains 
to  show  that  hunting  and  pastoral  tribes,  as  well  as  agricultural  peoples, 
have  been  in  the  habit  of  killing  the  beings  whom  they  worship! 
Among  the  worshipful  beings  or  gods,  if  indeed  they  deserve  to  be 
dignified  by  that  name,  whom  hunters  and  shepherds  adore  and  kill 
are  animals  pure  and  simple,  not  animals  regarded  as  embodiments 
of  other  supernatural  beings.  Our  first  example  is  drawn  from  the 
Indians  of  California,  who  living  in  a  fertile  country  under  a  serene 
and  temperate  sky,  nevertheless  rank  near  the  bottom  of  the  savage 
scale.  The  Acagchemem  tribe  adored  the  great  buzzard,  and  once  a 
year  they  celebrated  a  great  festival  called  Panes  or  bird-feast  in  its 
honour.  The  day  selected  for  the  festival  was  made  known  to  the 
public  on  the  evening  before  its  celebration  and  preparations  were 
at  once  made  for  the  erection  of  a  special  temple  ( vanquech ),  which 
seems  to  have  been  a  circular  or  oval  enclosure  of  stakes  with  the 
stuffed  skin  of  a  coyote  or  prairie-wolf  set  up  on  a  hurdle  to  represent 
the  god  Chinigchinich.  When  the  temple  was  ready,  the  bird  was 
carried  into  it  in  solemn  procession  and  laid  on  an  altar  erected  for 
the  purpose.  Then  all  the  young  women,  whether  married  or  single, 
began  to  run  to  and  fro,  as  if  distracted,  some  in  one  direction  and 
some  in  another,  while  the  elders  of  both  sexes  remained  silent  spec¬ 
tators  of  the  scene,  and  the  captains,  tricked  out  in  paint  and  feathers, 
danced  round  their  adored  bird.  These  ceremonies  being  concluded, 
they  seized  upon  the  bird  and  carried  it  to  the  principal  temple,  all 
the  assembly  uniting  in  the  grand  display,  and  the  captains  dancing 
and  singing  at  the  head  of  the  procession.  Arrived  at  the  temple, 
they  killed  the  bird  without  losing  a  drop  of  its  blood.  The  skin 
was  removed  entire  and  preserved  with  the  feathers  as  a  relic  or  for 
the  purpose  of  making  the  festal  garment  or  paelt.  The  carcase  was 
buried  in  a  hole  in  the  temple,  and  the  old  women  gathered  round 
the  grave  weeping  and  moaning  bitterly,  while  they  threw  various 
kinds  of  seeds  or  pieces  of  food  on  it,  crying  out,  “  Why  did  you  run 


5oo  KILLING  THE  DIVINE  ANIMAL  ch. 

away  ?  Would  you  not  have  been  better  with  us  ?  you  would  have 
made  pinole  (a  kind  of  gruel)  as  we  do,  and  if  you  had  not  run  away, 
you  would  not  have  become  a  Panes,  anci  so  on.  When  this  cere- 
mony  was  concluded,  the  dancing  was  resumed  and  kept  up  for  three 
days  and  nights.  They  said  that  the  Panes  was  a  woman  who  had 
run  off  to  the  mountains  and  there  been  changed  into  a  bird  by  the 
god  Chinigchinich.  They  believed  that  though  they  sacrificed  the 
bird  annually,  she  came  to  life  again  and  returned  to  her  home  in 
the  mountains.  Moreover  they  thought  that  as  often  as  the  bird 
was  killed,  it  became  multiplied  ;  because  every  year  all  the  different 
Capitanes  celebrated  the  same  feast  of  Panes,  and  were  firm  in  the 
opinion  that  the  birds  sacrificed  were  but  one  and  the  same  female/’ 

The  unity  in  multiplicity  thus  postulated  by  the  Californians  is 
very  noticeable  and  helps  to  explain  their  motive  for  killing  the  divine 
bird.  The  notion  of  the  life  of  a  species  as  distinct  from  that  of  an 
individual,  easy  and  obvious  as  it  seems  to  us,  appears  to  be  one  which 
the  Californian  savage  cannot  grasp.  He  is  unable  to  conceive  the 
life  of  the  species  otherwise  than  as  an  individual  life,  and  therefore 
as  exposed  to  the  same  dangers  and  calamities  which  menace  and 
finally  destroy  the  life  of  the  individual.  Apparently  he  imagines 
that  a  species  left  to  itself  will  grow  old  and  die  like  an  individual, 
and  that  therefore  some  step  must  be  taken  to  save  from  extinction 
the  particular  species  which  he  regards  as  divine.  The  only  means 
he  can  think  of  to  avert  the  catastrophe  is  to  kill  a  member  of  the 
species  in  whose  veins  the  tide  of  life  is  still  running  strong  and  has 
not  yet  stagnated  among  the  fens  of  old  age.  The  life  thus  diverted 
from  one  channel  will  flow,  he  fancies,  more  freshly  and  freely  in  a 
new  one  ;  in  other  words,  the  slain  animal  will  revive  and  enter  on 
a  new  term  of  life  with  all  the  spring  and  energy  of  youth.  To  us 
this  reasoning  is  transparently  absurd,  but  so  too  is  the  custom.  A 
similar  confusion,  it  may  be  noted,  between  the  individual  life  and  the 
life  of  the  species  was  made  by  the  Samoans.  Each  family  had  for 
its  god  a  particular  species  of  animal ;  yet  the  death  of  one  of  these 
animals,  for  example  an  owl,  was  not  the  death  of  the  god,  “  he  was 
supposed  to  be  yet  alive,  and  incarnate  in  all  the  owls  in  existence.” 

§  2.  Killing  the  Sacred  Ram. — The  rude  Californian  rite  which  we 
have  just  considered  has  a  close  parallel  in  the  religion  of  ancient 
Egypt.  The  Thebans  and  all  other  Egyptians  who  worshipped  the 
Theban  god  Ammon  held  rams  to  be  sacred,  and  would  not  sacrifice 
them.  But  once  a  year  at  the  festival  of  Ammon  they  killed  a  ram, 
skinned  it,  and  clothed  the  image  of  the  god  in  the  skin.  Then  they 
mourned  over  the  ram  and  buried  it  in  a  sacred  tomb.  The  custom 
was  explained  by  a  story  that  Zeus  had  once  exhibited  himself  to 
Hercules  clad  in  the  fleece  and  wearing  the  head  of  a  ram.  Of  course 
the  ram  in  this  case  was  simply  the  beast-god  of  Thebes,  as  the  wolf 
was  the  beast-god  of  Lycopolis,  and  the  goat  was  the  beast-god  of 
Mendes.  In  other  words,  the  ram  was  Ammon  himself.  On  the 
monuments,  it  is  true,  Ammon  appears  in  semi-human  form  with 


lii  KILLING  THE  SACRED  RAM  501 

the  body  of  a  man  and  the  head  of  a  ram.  But  this  only  shows  that 
he  was  in  the  usual  chrysalis  state  through  which  beast-gods  regularly 
pass  before  they  emerge  as  full-blown  anthropomorphic  gods.  The 
ram,  therefore,  was  killed,  not  as  a  sacrifice  to  Ammon,  but  as  the 
god  himself,  whose  identity  with  the  beast  is  plainly  shown  by  the 
custom  of  clothing  his  image  in  the  skin  of  the  slain  ram.  The  reason 
for  thus,  killing  the  ram-god  annually  may  have  been  that  which  I 
have  assigned  for  the  general  custom  of  killing  a  god  and  for  the  special 
Californian  custom  of  killing  the  divine  buzzard.  As  applied  to 
Egypt,  this  explanation  is  supported  by  the  analogy  of  the  bull-god 
Apis,  who  was  not  suffered  to  outlive  a  certain  term  of  years.  The 
intention  of  thus  putting  a  limit  to  the  life  of  the  human  god  was, 
as  I  have  argued,  to  secure  him  from  the  weakness  and  frailty  of  age. 
The  same  reasoning  would  explain  the  custom — probably  an  older 
one — of  putting  the  beast-god  to  death  annually,  as  was  done  with 
the  ram  of  Thebes. 

One  point  in  the  Theban  ritual — the  application  of  the  skin  to 
the  image  of  the  god — deserves  particular  attention.  If  the  god  was 
at  first  the  living  ram,  his  representation  by  an  image  must  have 
originated  later.  But  how  did  it  originate  ?  One  answer  to  this 
question  is  perhaps  furnished  by  the  practice  of  preserving  the  skin 
of  the  animal  which  is  slain  as  divine.  The  Californians,  as  we  have 
seen,  preserved  the  skin  of  the  buzzard  ;  and  the  skin  of  the  goat, 
which  is  killed  on  the  harvest-field  as  a  representative  of  the  corn- 
spirit,  is  kept  for  various  superstitious  purposes.  The  skin  in  fact 
was  kept  as  a  token  or  memorial  of  the  god,  or  rather  as  containing 
in  it  a  part  of  the  divine  life,  and  it  had  only  to  be  stuffed  or  stretched 
upon  a  frame  to  become  a  regular  image  of  him.  At  first  an  image  of 
this  kind  would  be  renewed  annually,  the  new  image  being  provided 
by  the  skin  of  the  slain  animal.  But  from  annual  images  to  per¬ 
manent  images  the  transition  is  easy.  We  have  seen  that  the  older 
custom  of  cutting  a  new  May-tree  every  year  was  superseded  by  the 
practice  of  maintaining  a  permanent  Maypole,  which  was,  however, 
annually  decked  with  fresh  leaves  and  flowers,  and  even  surmounted 
each  year  by  a  fresh  young  tree.  Similarly  when  the  stuffed  skin, 
as  a  representative  of  the  god,  was  replaced  by  a  permanent  image 
of  him  in  wood,  stone,  or  metal,  the  permanent  image  was  annually 
clad  in  the  fresh  skin  of  the  slain  animal.  When  this  stage  had  been 
reached,  the  custom  of  killing  the  ram  came  naturally  to  be  interpreted 
as  a  sacrifice  offered  to  the  image,  and  was  explained  by  a  story  like 
that  of  Ammon  and  Hercules. 

§  3.  Killing  the  Sacred  Serpent. — West  Africa  appears  to  furnish 
another  example  of  the  annual  killing  of  a  sacred  animal  and  the 
preservation  of  its  skin.  The  negroes  of  Issapoo,  in  the  island  of 
Fernando  Po,  regard  the  cobra-capella  as  their  guardian  deity,  who 
can  do  them  good  or  ill,  bestow  riches  or  inflict  disease  and  death. 
The  skin  of  one  of  these  reptiles  is  hung  tail  downwards  from  a  branch 
of  the  highest  tree  in  the  public  square,  and  the  placing  of  it  on  the 


502  KILLING  THE  DIVINE  ANIMAL  ch. 

tree  is  an  annual  ceremony.  As  soon  as  the  ceremony  is  over,  all 
children  born  within  the  past  year  are  carried  out  and  their  hands 
made  to  touch  the  tail  of  the  serpent's  skin.  The  latter  custom  is 
clearly  a  way  of  placing  the  infants  under  the  protection  of  the  tribal 
god.  Similarly  in  Senegambia  a  python  is  expected  to  visit  every  child 
of  the  Python  clan  within  eight  days  after  birth  ;  and  the  Psylli,  a  Snake 
clan  of  ancient  Africa,  used  to  expose  their  infants  to  snakes  in  the 
belief  that  the  snakes  would  not  harm  true-born  children  of  the  clan. 

§  4.  Killing  the  Sacred  Turtles. — In  the  Californian,  Egyptian,  and 
Fernando  Po  customs  the  worship  of  the  animal  seems  to  have  no 
relation  to  agriculture,  and  may  therefore  be  presumed  to  date  from 
the  hunting  or  pastoral  stage  of  society.  The  same  may  be  said  of 
the  following  custom,  though  the  Zuni  Indians  of  New  Mexico,  who 
practise  it,  are  now  settled  in  walled  villages  or  towns  of  a  peculiar 
type,  and  practise  agriculture  and  the  arts  of  pottery  and  weaving. 
But  the  Zuni  custom  is  marked  by  certain  features  which  appear  to 
place  it  in  a  somewhat  different  class  from  the  preceding  cases.  It 
may  be  well  therefore  to  describe  it  at  full  length  in  the  words  of  an  1 
eye-witness. 

“  With  midsummer  the  heat  became  intense.  My  brother  [ i.e . 
adopted  Indian  brother]  and  I  sat,  day  after  day,  in  the  cool  under¬ 
rooms  of  our  house, — the  latter  [sfc]  busy  with  his  quaint  forge  and 
crude  appliances,  working  Mexican  coins  over  into  bangles,  girdles, 
ear-rings,  buttons,  and  what  not,  for  savage  ornament.  Though  his 
tools  were  wonderfully  rude,  the  work  he  turned  out  by  dint  of  combined 
patience  and  ingenuity  was  remarkably  beautiful.  One  day  as  I  sat 
watching  him,  a  procession  of  fifty  men  went  hastily  down  the  hill,  and 
off  westward  over  the  plain.  They  were  solemnly  led  by  a  painted  and 
shell-bedecked  priest,  and  followed  by  the  torch-bearing  Shu-lu-wit-si 
or  God  of  Fire.  After  thev  had  vanished,  I  asked  old  brother  what  it 
all  meant.  j 

“  ‘  They  are  going,'  said  he,  ‘  to  the  city  of  the  Ka-ka  and  the 
home  of  our  others.' 

“  Four  days  after,  towards  sunset,  costumed  and  masked  in  the 
beautiful  paraphernalia  of  the  Ka-k'ok-shi,  or  ‘  Good  Dance,'  they 
returned  in  file  up  the  same  pathway,  each  bearing  in  his  arms  a 
basket  filled  with  living,  squirming  turtles,  which  he  regarded  and 
carried  as  tenderly  as  a  mother  would  her  infant.  Some  of  the 
wretched  reptiles  were  carefully  wrapped  in  soft  blankets,  their  heads 
and  forefeet  protruding, — and,  mounted  on  the  backs  of  the  plume- 
bedecked  pilgrims,  made  ludicrous  but  solemn  caricatures  of  little 
children  in  the  same  position.  While  I  was  at  supper  upstairs  that 
evening,  the  governor’s  brother-in-law  came  in.  He  was  welcomed  by 
the  family  as  if  a  messenger  from  heaven.  Lie  bore  in  his  tremulous 
fingers  one  of  the  much-abused  and  rebellious  turtles.  Paint  still 
adhered  to  his  hands  and  bare  feet,  which  led  me  to  infer  that  he  had 
formed  one  of  the  sacred  embassy. 

“  ‘  So  you  went  to  Ka-thlu-el-lon,  did  you  ?  '  I  asked. 


LII 


KILLING  THE  SACRED  TURTLES 


503 


E'e,'  replied  the  weary  man,  in  a  voice  husky  with  long  chanting, 
as  he  sank,  almost  exhausted,  on  a  roll  of  skins  which  had  been  placed 
for  him,  and  tenderly  laid  the  turtle  on  the  floor.  No  sooner  did  the 
creature  find  itself  at  liberty  than  it  made  off  as  fast  as  its  lame  legs 
would  take  it.  Of  one  accord,  the  family  forsook  dish,  spoon,  and 
drinking-cup,  and  grabbing  from  a  sacred  meal-bowl  whole  handfuls 
,  of  the  contents,  hurriedly  followed  the  turtle  about  the  room,  into 
dark  corners,  around  water-jars,  behind  the  grinding-troughs,  and  out 
into  the  middle  of  the  floor  again,  praying  and  scattering  meal  on  its 
back  as  they  went.  At  last,  strange  to  say,  it  approached  the  foot-sore 
man  who  had  brought  it. 

“  ‘  Ha  !  '  he  exclaimed  with  emotion  ;  ‘  see  it  comes  to  me  again  ; 
ah,  what  great  favours  the  fathers  of  all  grant  me  this  day/  and, 
passing  his  hand  gently  over  the  sprawling  animal,  he  inhaled  from  his 
palm  deeply  and  long,  at  the  same  time  invoking  the  favour  of  the 
gods.  Then  he  leaned  his  chin  upon  his  hand,  and  with  large,  wistful 
eyes  regarded  his  ugly  captive  as  it  sprawled  about,  blinking  its  meal- 
bedimmed  eyes,  and  clawing  the  smooth  floor  in  memory  of  its  native 
element.  At  this  juncture  I  ventured  a  question  : 

“  ‘  Why  do  you  not  let  him  go,  or  give  him  some  water  ?  ' 

“  Slowly  the  man  turned  his  eyes  toward  me,  an  odd  mixture  of 
pain,  indignation,  and  pity  on  his  face,  while  the  worshipful  family 
stared  at  me  with  holy  horror. 

“  ‘  Poor  younger  brother  !  '  he  said  at  last,  ‘  know  you  not  how 
precious  it  is  ?  It  die  ?  It  will  not  die  ;  I  tell  you,  it  cannot  die/ 

“  ‘  But  it  will  die  if  you  don't  feed  it  and  give  it  water.' 

“  ‘  I  tell  you  it  cannot  die  ;  it  will  only  change  houses  to-morrow, 
and  go  back  to  the  home  of  its  brothers.  Ah,  well !  How  should  you 
know  ?  '  he  mused.  Turning  to  the  blinded  turtle  again  :  *  Ah  !  my 
poor  dear  lost  child  or  parent,  my  sister  or  brother  to  have  been  ! 
Who  knows  which  ?  Maybe  my  own  great-grandfather  or  mother  !  ' 
And  with  this  he  fell  to  weeping  most  pathetically,  and,  tremulous  with 
sobs,  which  were  echoed  by  the  women  and  children,  he  buried  his  face 
in  his  hands.  Filled  with  sympathy  for  his  grief,  however  mistaken, 
I  raised  the  turtle  to  my  lips  and  kissed  its  cold  shell ;  then  depositing 
it  on  the  floor,  hastily  left  the  grief-stricken  family  to  their  sorrows. 
Next  day,  with  prayers  and  tender  beseechings,  plumes,  and  offerings, 
the  poor  turtle  was  killed,  and  its  flesh  and  bones  were  removed  and 
deposited  in  the  little  river,  that  it  might  ‘  return  once  more  to  eternal 
life  among  its  comrades  in  the  dark  waters  of  the  lake  of  the  dead/ 
The  shell,  carefully  scraped  and  dried,  was  made  into  a  dance-rattle, 
and,  covered  by  a  piece  of  buckskin,  it  still  hangs  from  the  smoke- 
stained  rafters  of  my  brother's  house.  Once  a  Navajo  tried  to  buy  it 
for  a  ladle  ;  loaded  with  indignant  reproaches,  he  was  turned  out  of 
the  house.  Were  any  one  to  venture  the  suggestion  that  the  turtle  no 
longer  lived,  his  remark  would  cause  a  flood  of  tears,  and  he  would  be 
reminded  that  it  had  only  ‘  changed  houses  and  gone  to  live  for  ever 
in  the  home  of  “  our  lost  others."  '  ” 


5o4  KILLING  THE  DIVINE  ANIMAL  ch. 

In  this  custom  we  find  expressed  in  the  clearest  way  a  belief  in  the 
transmigration  of  human  souls  into  the  bodies  of  tui  ties.  The  theory 
of  transmigration  is  held  by  the  Moqui  Indians,  who  belong  to  the 
same  race  as  the  Zunis.  The  Moquis  are  divided  into  totem  clans 
the  Bear  clan,  Deer  clan,  Wolf  clan,  Hare  clan,  and  so  on  ;  they  believe 
that  the  ancestors  of  the  clans  were  bears,  deer,  wolves,  hares,  and  so 
forth  ;  and  that  at  death  the  members  of  each  clan  become  bears, 
deer,  and  so  on  according  to  the  particular  clan  to  which  they  belonged. 
The  Zuni  are  also  divided  into  clans,  the  totems  of  which  agree  closely 
with  those  of  the  Moquis,  and  one  of  their  totems  is  the  turtle.  Thus 
their  belief  in  transmigration  into  the  turtle  is  probably  one  of  the 
regular  articles  of  their  totem  faith.  What  then  is  the  meaning  of 
killing  a  turtle  in  which  the  soul  of  a  kinsman  is  believed  to  be  present  ? 
Apparently  the  object  is  to  keep  up  a  communication  with  the  other 
world  in  which  the  souls  of  the  departed  are  believed  to  be  assembled 
in  the  form  of  turtles.  It  is  a  common  belief  that  the  spirits  of  the 
dead  return  occasionally  to  their  old  homes  ;  and  accordingly  the 
unseen  visitors  are  welcomed  and  feasted  by  the  living,  and  then  sent 
upon  their  way.  In  the  Zuni  ceremony  the  dead  are  fetched  home  in 
the  form  of  turtles,  and  the  killing  of  the  turtles  is  the  way  of  sending 
back  the  souls  to  the  spirit-land.  Thus  the  general  explanation  given 
above  of  the  custom  of  killing  a  god  seems  inapplicable  to  the  Zuni 
custom,  the  true  meaning  of  which  is  somewhat  obscure.  Nor  is  the 
obscurity  which  hangs  over  the  subject  entirely  dissipated  by  a  later 
and  fuller  account  which  we  possess  of  the  ceremony.  From  it  we 
learn  that  the  ceremony  forms  part  of  the  elaborate  ritual  which  these 
Indians  observe  at  the  midsummer  solstice  for  the  purpose  of  ensuring 
an  abundant  supply  of  rain  for  the  crops.  Envoys  are  despatched  to 
bring  “  their  otherselves,  the  tortoises/'  from  the  sacred  lake  Kothlu- 
walawa,  to  which  the  souls  of  the  dead  are  believed  to  repair.  When 
the  creatures  have  thus  been  solemnly  brought  to  Zuni,  they  are  placed 
in  a  bowl  of  water  and  dances  are  performed  beside  them  by  men  in 
costume,  who  personate  gods  and  goddesses.  “  After  the  ceremonial 
the  tortoises  are  taken  home  by  those  who  caught  them  and  are  hung 
by  their  necks  to  the  rafters  till  morning,  when  they  are  thrown  into 
pots  of  boiling  water.  The  eggs  are  considered  a  great  delicacy.  The 
meat  is  seldom  touched  except  as  a  medicine,  which  is  curative  for 
cutaneous  diseases.  Part  of  the  meat  is  deposited  in  the  river  with 
kohakwa  (white  shell  beads)  and  turquoise  beads  as  offerings  to  Council 
of  the  Gods."  This  account  at  all  events  confirms  the  inference  that 
the  tortoises  are  supposed  to  be  reincarnations  of  the  human  dead,  for 
they  are  called  the  “  otherselves  ”  of  the  Zuni ;  indeed,  what  else 
should  they  be  than  the  souls  of  the  dead  in  the  bodies  of  tortoises 
seeing  that  they  come  from  the  haunted  lake  ?  As  the  principal  object 
of  the  prayers  uttered  and  of  the  dances  performed  at  these  midsummer 
ceremonies  appears  to  be  to  procure  rain  for  the  crops,  it  may  be  that 
the  intention  of  bringing  the  tortoises  to  Zuni  and  dancing  before  them 
is  to  intercede  with  the  ancestral  spirits,  incarnate  in  the  animals,  that 


lii  KILLING  THE  SACRED  BEAR  505 

they  may  be  pleased  to  exert  their  power  over  the  waters  of  heaven 
for  the  benefit  of  their  living  descendants. 

§  5.  Killing  the  Sacred  Bear. — Doubt  also  hangs  at  first  sight  over 
the  meaning  of  the  bear-sacrifice  offered  by  the  Aino  or  Ainu,  a  primi¬ 
tive  people  who  are  found  in  the  Japanese  island  of  Yezo  or  Yesso,  as 
well  as  in  Saghalien  and  the  southern  of  the  Kurile  Islands.  It  is  not 
quite  easy  to  define  the  attitude  of  the  Aino  towards  the  bear.  On  the 
one  hand  they  give  it  the  name  of  kamui  or  “  god  ”  ;  but  as  they  apply 
the  same  word  to  strangers,  it  may  mean  no  more  than  a  being  supposed 
to  be  endowed  with  superhuman,  or  at  all  events  extraordinary, 
powers.  Again,  it  is  said  that  “  the  bear  is  their  chief  divinity  ”  ; 
“  in  the  religion  of  the  Aino  the  bear  plays  a  chief  part  ”  ;  “  amongst 
the  animals  it  is  especially  the  bear  which  receives  an  idolatrous 
veneration  ”  ;  “  they  worship  it  after  their  fashion  ”  ;  “  there  is  no 
doubt  that  this  wild  beast  inspires  more  of  the  feeling  which  prompts 
worship  than  the  inanimate  forces  of  nature,  and  the  Aino  may  be 
distinguished  as  bear-worshippers.”  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  they  kill 
the  bear  whenever  they  can  ;  "in  bygone  years  the  Ainu  considered 
bear-hunting  the  most  manly  and  useful  way  in  which  a  person  could 
possibly  spend  his  time  ”  ;  “  the  men  spend  the  autumn,  winter,  and 
spring  in  hunting  deer  and  bears.  Part  of  their  tribute  or  taxes  is 
paid  in  skins,  and  they  subsist  on  the  dried  meat  ”  ;  bear’s  flesh  is 
indeed  one  of  their  staple  foods  ;  they  eat  it  both  fresh  and  salted  ; 
and  the  skins  of  bears  furnish  them  with  clothing.  In  fact,  the  worship 
of  which  writers  on  this  subject  speak  appears  to  be  paid  chiefly  to  the 
dead  animal.  Thus,  although  they  kill  a  bear  whenever  they  can, 
“  in  the  process  of  dissecting  the  carcass  they  endeavour  to  conciliate 
the  deity,  whose  representative  they  have  slain,  by  making  elaborate 
obeisances  and  deprecatory  salutations  ”  ;  “  when  a  bear  has  been 
killed  the  Ainu  sit  down  and  admire  it,  make  their  salaams  to  it, 
worship  it,  and  offer  presents  of  inao  ”  ;  “  when  a  bear  is  trapped  or 
wounded  by  an  arrow,  the  hunters  go  through  an  apologetic  or  pro¬ 
pitiatory  ceremony.”  The  skulls  of  slain  bears  receive  a  place  of 
honour  in  their  huts,  or  are  set  up  on  sacred  posts  outside  the  huts, 
and  are  treated  with  much  respect :  libations  of  millet  beer,  and  of 
sake,  an  intoxicating  liquor,  are  offered  to  them  ;  and  they  are 
addressed  as  “  divine  preservers  ”  or  “  precious  divinities.”  The 
skulls  of  foxes  are  also  fastened  to  the  sacred  posts  outside  the  huts  ; 
they  are  regarded  as  charms  against  evil  spirits,  and  are  consulted  as 
oracles.  Yet  it  is  expressly  said,  “  The  live  fox  is  revered  just  as  little 
as  the  bear  ;  rather  they  avoid  it  as  much  as  possible,  considering  it  a 
wily  animal.”  The  bear  can  hardly,  therefore,  be  described  as  a  sacred 
animal  of  the  Aino,  nor  yet  as  a  totem  ;  for  they  do  not  call  them¬ 
selves  bears,  and  they  kill  and  eat  the  animal  freely.  However,  they 
have  a  legend  of  a  woman  who  had  a  son  by  a  bear  ;  and  many  of  them 
who  dwell  in  the  mountains  pride  themselves  on  being  descended  from 
a  bear.  Such  people  are  called  “  Descendants  of  the  bear  ”  (. Kimun 
Kamui  sanikiri),  and  in  the  pride  of  their  heart  they  will  say,  As 


5°6 


KILLING  THE  DIVINE  ANIMAL 


CH. 


for  me,  I  am  a  child  of  the  god  of  the  mountains  ;  I  am  descended 
from  the  divine  one  who  rules  in  the  mountains,”  meaning  by  “  the 
god  of  the  mountains  ”  no  other  than  the  bear.  It  is  therefore  possible 
that,  as  our  principal  authority,  the  Rev.  J.  Batchelor,  believes,  the 
bear  may  have  been  the  totem  of  an  Aino  clan  ;  but  even  if  that  were 
so  it  would  not  explain  the  respect  shown  for  the  animal  by  the  whole 
Aino  people. 

But  it  is  the  bear-festival  of  the  Aino  which  concerns  us  here. 
Towards  the  end  of  winter  a  bear  cub  is  caught  and  brought  into  the 
village.  If  it  is  very  small,  it  is  suckled  by  an  Aino  woman,  but  should 
there  be  no  woman  able  to  suckle  it,  the  little  animal  is  fed  from  the 
hand  or  the  mouth.  During  the  day  it  plays  about  in  the  hut  with 
the  children  and  is  treated  with  great  affection.  But  when  the  cub 
grows  big  enough  to  pain  people  by  hugging  or  scratching  them,  he 
is  shut  up  in  a  strong  wooden  cage,  where  he  stays  generally  for  two 
or  three  years,  fed  on  fish  and  millet  porridge,  till  it  is  time  for  him 
to  be  killed  and  eaten.  But  “  it  is  a  peculiarly  striking  fact  that  the 
young  bear  is  not  kept  merely  to  furnish  a  good  meal ;  rather  he  is 
regarded  and  honoured  as  a  fetish,  or  even  as  a  sort  of  higher  being.” 
In  Yezo  the  festival  is  generally  celebrated  in  September  or  October. 
Before  it  takes  place  the  Aino  apologise  to  their  gods,  alleging  that 
they  have  treated  the  bear  kindly  as  long  as  they  could,  now  they  can 
feed  him  no  longer,  and  are  obliged  to  kill  him.  A  man  who  gives  a 
bear-feast  invites  his  relations  and  friends  ;  in  a  small  village  nearly 
the  whole  community  takes  part  in  the  feast ;  indeed,  guests  from 
distant  villages  are  invited  and  generally  come,  allured  by  the  prospect 
of  getting  drunk  for  nothing.  The  form  of  invitation  runs  somewhat 
as  follows  :  “  I,  so  and  so,  am  about  to  sacrifice  the  dear  little  divine 
thing  who  resides  among  the  mountains.  My  friends  and  masters, 
come  ye  to  the  feast ;  we  will  then  unite  in  the  great  pleasure  of  sending  I: 
the  god  away.  Come.”  When  all  the  people  are  assembled  in  front 
of  the  cage,  an  orator  chosen  for  the  purpose  addresses  the  bear  and 
tells  it  that  they  are  about  to  send  it  forth  to  its  ancestors.  He  craves 
pardon  for  what  they  are  about  to  do  to  it,  hopes  it  will  not  be  angry, 
and  comforts  it  by  assuring  the  animal  that  many  of  the  sacred  whittled 
sticks  (inao)  and  plenty  of  cakes  and  wine  will  be  sent  with  it  on  the 
long  journey.  One  speech  of  this  sort  which  Mr.  Batchelor  heard  ran 
as  follows  :  “  O  thou  divine  one,  thou  wast  sent  into  the  world  for  us 
to  hunt.  O  thou  precious  little  divinity,  we  worship  thee  ;  pray  hear 
our  prayer.  We  have  nourished  thee  and  brought  thee  up  with  a  deal 
of  pains  and  trouble,  all  because  we  love  thee  so.  Now,  as  thou  hast 
grown  big,  we  are  about  to  send  thee  to  thy  father  and  mother.  When 
thou  comest  to  them  please  speak  well  of  us,  and  tell  them  how  kind 
we  have  been  ;  please  come  to  us  again  and  we  will  sacrifice  thee.” 
Having  been  secured  with  ropes,  the  bear  is  then  let  out  of  the  cage 
and  assailed  with  a  shower  of  blunt  arrows  in  order  to  rouse  it  to  fury. 
When  it  has  spent  itself  in  vain  struggles,  it  is  tied  up  to  a  stake,  gagged 
and  strangled,  its  neck  being  placed  between  two  poles,  which  are  then 


LI  I 


KILLING  THE  SACRED  BEAR 


507 


violently  compressed,  all  the  people  eagerly  helping  to  squeeze  the 
animal  to  death.  An  arrow  is  also  discharged  into  the  beast’s  heart 
by  a  good  marksman,  but  so  as  not  to  shed  blood,  for  they  think  that 
it  would  be  very  unlucky  if  any  of  the  blood  were  to  drip  on  the  ground. 
However,  the  men  sometimes  drink  the  warm  blood  of  the  bear  “  that 
the  courage  and  other  virtues  it  possesses  may  pass  into  them  ”  ; 
and  sometimes  they  besmear  themselves  and  their  clothes  with  the 
blood  in  order  to  ensure  success  in  hunting.  When  the  animal  has 
been  strangled  to  death,  it  is  skinned  and  its  head  is  cut  off  and  set 
in  the  east  window  of  the  house,  where  a  piece  of  its  own  flesh  is  placed 
under  its  snout,  together  with  a  cup  of  its  own  meat  boiled,  some  millet 
dumplings,  and  dried  fish.  Prayers  are  then  addressed  to  the  dead 
animal ;  amongst  other  things  it  is  sometimes  invited,  after  going 
away  to  its  father  and  mother,  to  return  into  the  world  in  order  that 
it  may  again  be  reared  for  sacrifice.  When  the  bear  is  supposed  to 
have  finished  eating  its  own  flesh,  the  man  who  presides  at  the  feast 
takes  the  cup  containing  the  boiled  meat,  salutes  it,  and  divides  the 
contents  between  all  the  company  present :  every  person,  young  and 
old  alike,  must  taste  a  little.  The  cup  is  called  “  the  cup  of  offering  ” 
because  it  has  just  been  offered  to  the  dead  bear.  When  the  rest  of 
the  flesh  has  been  cooked,  it  is  shared  out  in  like  manner  among  all  the 
people,  everybody  partaking  of  at  least  a  morsel ;  not  to  partake  of 
the  feast  would  be  equivalent  to  excommunication,  it  would  be  to 
place  the  recreant  outside  the  pale  of  Aino  fellowship.  Formerly 
every  particle  of  the  bear,  except  the  bones,  had  to  be  eaten  up  at  the 
banquet,  but  this  rule  is  now  relaxed.  The  head,  on  being  detached 
from  the  skin,  is  set  up  on  a  long  pole  beside  the  sacred  wands  ( inao ) 
outside  of  the  house,  where  it  remains  till  nothing  but  the  bare  white 
skull  is  left.  Skulls  so  set  up  are  worshipped  not  only  at  the  time  of 
the  festival,  but  very  often  as  long  as  they  last.  The  Aino  assured 
Mr.  Batchelor  that  they  really  do  believe  the  spirits  of  the  worshipful 
animals  to  reside  in  the  skulls  ;  that  is  why  they  address  them  as 
“  divine  preservers  ”  and  “  precious  divinities.” 

The  ceremony  of  killing  the  bear  was  witnessed  by  Dr.  B.  Scheube 
on  the  tenth  of  August  at  Kunnui,  which  is  a  village  on  Volcano  Bay 
in  the  island  of  Yezo  or  Yesso.  As  his  description  of  the  rite  contains 
some  interesting  particulars  not  mentioned  in  the  foregoing  account, 
it  may  be  worth  while  to  summarise  it. 

On  entering  the  hut  he  found  about  thirty  Aino  present,  men, 
women,  and  children,  all  dressed  in  their  best.  The  master  of  the 
house  first  offered  a  libation  on  the  fireplace  to  the  god  of  the  fire, 
and  the  guests  followed  his  example.  Then  a  libation  was  offered  to 
the  house-god  in  his  sacred  corner  of  the  hut.  Meanwhile  the  house¬ 
wife,  who  had  nursed  the  bear,  sat  by  herself,  silent  and  sad,  bursting 
now  and  then  into  tears.  Her  grief  was  obviously  unaffected,  and  it 
deepened  as  the  festival  went  on.  Next,  the  master  of  the  house  and 
some  of  the  guests  went  out  of  the  hut  and  offered  libations  before  the 
bear’s  cage.  A  few  drops  were  presented  to  the  bear  in  a  saucer, 


KILLING  THE  DIVINE  ANIMAL 


CH. 


508 


which  he  at  once  upset.  Then  the  women  and  girls  danced  round  the 
cage,  their  faces  turned  towards  it,  their  knees  slightly  bent,  rising  and 
hopping  on  their  toes.  As  they  danced  they  clapped  their  hands  and 
sang  a  monotonous  song.  The  housewife  and  a  few  old  women,  who 
might  have  nursed  many  bears,  danced  tearfully,  stretching  out  their 
arms  to  the  bear,  and  addressing  it  in  terms  of  endearment.  The 
young  folks  were  less  affected  ;  they  laughed  as  well  as  sang.  Dis¬ 
turbed  by  the  noise,  the  bear  began  to  rush  about  his  cage  and  howl 
lamentably.  Next  libations  were  offered  at  the  inao  ( inabos )  or  sacred 
wands  which  stand  outside  of  an  Aino  hut.  These  wands  are  about  a 
couple  of  feet  high,  and  are  whittled  at  the  top  into  spiral  shavings. 
Five  new  wands  with  bamboo  leaves  attached  to  them  had  been  set 
up  for  the  festival.  This  is  regularly  done  when  a  bear  is  killed  ;  the 
leaves  mean  that  the  animal  may  come  to  life  again.  Then  the  bear 
was  let  out  of  his  cage,  a  rope  was  thrown  round  his  neck,  and  he  was 
led  about  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  hut.  While  this  was  being 
done  the  men,  headed  by  a  chief,  shot  at  the  beast  with  arrows  tipped 
with  wooden  buttons.  Dr.  Scheube  had  to  do  so  also.  Then  the  bear 
was  taken  before  the  sacred  wands,  a  stick  was  put  in  his  mouth,  nine 
men  knelt  on  him  and  pressed  his  neck  against  a  beam.  In  five 
minutes  the  animal  had  expired  without  uttering  a  sound.  Meantime 
the  women  and  girls  had  taken  post  behind  the  men,  where  they 
danced,  lamenting,  and  beating  the  men  who  were  killing  the  bear. 
The  bear's  carcase  was  next  placed  on  the  mat  before  the  sacred  wands  ; 
and  a  sword  and  quiver,  taken  from  the  wands,  were  hung  round  the 
beast's  neck.  Being  a  she-bear,  it  was  also  adorned  with  a  necklace 
and  ear-rings.  Then  food  and  drink  were  offered  to  it,  in  the  shape 
of  millet-broth,  millet-cakes,  and  a  pot  of  sake.  The  men  now  sat 
down  on  mats  before  the  dead  bear,  offered  libations  to  it,  and  drank 
deep.  Meanwhile  the  women  and  girls  had  laid  aside  all  marks  of 
sorrow,  and  danced  merrily,  none  more  merrily  than  the  old  women. 
When  the  mirth  was  at  its  height  two  young  Aino,  who  had  let  the  bear 
out  of  his  cage,  mounted  the  roof  of  the  hut  and  threw  cakes  of  millet 
among  the  company,  who  all  scrambled  for  them  without  distinction 
of  age  or  sex.  The  bear  was  next  skinned  and  disembowelled,  and 
the  trunk  severed  from  the  head,  to  which  the  skin  was  left  hanging. 
The  blood,  caught  in  cups,  was  eagerly  swallowed  by  the  men.  None 
of  the  women  or  children  appeared  to  drink  the  blood,  though  custom 
did  not  forbid  them  to  do  so.  The  liver  was  cut  in  small  pieces  and 
eaten  raw,  with  salt,  the  women  and  children  getting  their  share.  The 
flesh  and  the  rest  of  the  vitals  were  taken  into  the  house  to  be  kept  till 
the  next  day  but  one,  and  then  to  be  divided  among  the  persons  who 
had  been  present  at  the  feast.  Blood  and  liver  were  offered  to  Dr. 
Scheube.  While  the  bear  was  being  disembowelled,  the  women  and 
girls  danced  the  same  dance  which  they  had  danced  at  the  beginning — - 
not,  however,  round  the  cage,  but  in  front  of  the  sacred  wands.  At 
this  dance  the  old  women,  who  had  been  merry  a  moment  before,  again 
shed  tears  freely.  After  the  brain  had  been  extracted  from  the  bear's 


lii  KILLING  THE  SACRED  BEAR  509 

head  and  swallowed  with  salt,  the  skull,  detached  from  the  skin,  was 
hung  on  a  pole  beside  the  sacred  wands.  The  stick  with  which  the 
bear  had  been  gagged  was  also  fastened  to  the  pole,  and  so  were  the 
sword  and  quiver  which  had  been  hung  on  the  carcase.  The  latter 
were  removed  in  about  an  hour,  but  the  rest  remained  standing.  The 
whole  company,  men  and  women,  danced  noisily  before  the  pole  ; 
and  another  drinking-bout,  in  which  the  women  joined,  closed  the 
festival. 

Perhaps  the  first  published  account  of  the  bear-feast  of  the  Aino 
is  one  which  was  given  to  the  world  by  a  Japanese  writer  in  1652. 
It  has  been  translated  into  French  and  runs  thus  :  “  When  they  find 
a  young  bear,  they  bring  it  home,  and  the  wife  suckles  it.  When 
it  is  grown  they  feed  it  with  fish  and  fowl  and  kill  it  in  winter  for  the 
sake  of  the  liver,  which  they  esteem  an  antidote  to  poison,  the  worms, 
colic,  and  disorders  of  the  stomach.  It  is  of  a  very  bitter  taste,  and 
is  good  for  nothing  if  the  bear  has  been  killed  in  summer.  This 
butchery  begins  in  the  first  Japanese  month.  For  this  purpose  they 
put  the  animal’s  head  between  two  long  poles,  which  are  squeezed 
together  by  fifty  or  sixty  people,  both  men  and  women.  When  the 
bear  is  dead  they  eat  his  flesh,  keep  the  liver  as  a  medicine,  and  sell 
the  skin,  which  is  black  and  commonly  six  feet  long,  but  the  longest 
measure  twelve  feet.  As  soon  as  he  is  skinned,  the  persons  who 
nourished  the  beast  begin  to  bewail  him  ;  afterwards  they  make  little 
cakes  to  regale  those  who  helped  them.” 

The  Aino  of  Saghalien  rear  bear  cubs  and  kill  them  with  similar 
ceremonies.  We  are  told  that  they  do  not  look  upon  the  bear  as  a 
god  but  only  as  a  messenger  whom  they  despatch  with  various 
commissions  to  the  god  of  the  forest.  The  animal  is  kept  for  about 
two  years  in  a  cage,  and  then  killed  at  a  festival,  which  always  takes 
place  in  winter  and  at  night.  The  day  before  the  sacrifice  is  devoted 
to  lamentation,  old  women  relieving  each  other  in  the  duty  of  weeping 
and  groaning  in  front  of  the  bear’s  cage.  Then  about  the  middle 
of  the  night  or  very  early  in  the  morning  an  orator  makes  a  long 
speech  to  the  beast,  reminding  him  how  they  have  taken  care  of  him, 
and  fed  him  well,  and  bathed  him  in  the  river,  and  made  him  warm 
and  comfortable.  “  Now,”  he  proceeds,  “  we  are  holding  a  great 
festival  in  your  honour.  Be  not  afraid.  We  will  not  hurt  you. 
We  will  only  kill  you  and  send  you  to  the  god  of  the  forest  who  loves 
you.  We  are  about  to  offer  you  a  good  dinner,  the  best  you  have 
ever  eaten  among  us,  and  we  will  all  weep  for  you  together.  The 
Aino  who  will  kill  you  is  the  best  shot  among  us.  There  he  is,  he 
weeps-  and  asks  your  forgiveness  ;  you  will  feel  almost  nothing,  it 
will  be  done  so  quickly.  We  cannot  feed  you  always,  as  you  will 
understand.  We  have  done  enough  for  you  ;  it  is  now  your  turn  to 
sacrifice  yourself  for  us.  You  will  ask  God  to  send  us,  for  the  winter, 
plenty  of  otters  and  sables,  and  for  the  summer,  seals  and  fish  in 
abundance.  Do  not  forget  our  messages,  we  love  you  much,  and 
our  children  will  never  forget  you.”  When  the  bear  has  partaken 


KILLING  THE  DIVINE  ANIMAL 


CH. 


510 


of  his  last  meal  amid  the  general  emotion  of  the  spectators,  the  old 
women  weeping  afresh  and  the  men  uttering  stifled  cries,  he  is  strapped, 
not  without  difficulty  and  danger,  and  being  let  out  of  the  cage  is 
led  on  leash  or  dragged,  according  to  the  state  of  his  temper,  thrice 
round  his  cage,  then  round  his  master’s  house,  and  lastly  round  the 
house  of  the  orator.  Thereupon  he  is  tied  up  to  a  tree,  which  is 
decked  with  sacred  whittled  sticks  (inao)  of  the  usual  sort ;  and  the 
orator  again  addresses  him  in  a  long  harangue,  which  sometimes  lasts 
till  the  day  is  beginning  to  break.  “  Remember,”  he  cries,  “  remember  ! 
I  remind  you  of  your  whole  life  and  of  the  services  we  have  rendered 
you.  It  is  now  for  you  to  do  your  duty.  Do  not  forget  what  I  have 
asked  of  you.  You  will  tell  the  gods  to  give  us  riches,  that  our  hunters 
may  return  from  the  forest  laden  with  rare  furs  and  animals  good 
to  eat  ;  that  our  fishers  may  find  troops  of  seals  on  the  shore  and  in 
the  sea,  and  that  their  nets  may  crack  under  the  weight  of  the  fish. 
We  have  no  hope  but  in  you.  The  evil  spirits  laugh  at  us,  and  too 
often  they  are  unfavourable  and  malignant  to  us,  but  they  will  bow 
before  you.  We  have  given  you  food  and  joy  and  health  ;  now  we 
kill  you  in  order  that  you  may  in  return  send  riches  to  us  and  to  our 
children.”  To  this  discourse  the  bear,  more  and  more  surly  and 
agitated,  listens  without  conviction  ;  round  and  round  the  tree  he 
paces  and  howls  lamentably,  till,  just  as  the  first  beams  of  the 
rising  sun  light  up  the  scene,  an  archer  speeds  an  arrow  to  his  heart. 
No  sooner  has  he  done  so,  than  the  marksman  throws  away  his  bow 
and  flings  himself  on  the  ground,  and  the  old  men  and  women  do  the 
same,  weeping  and  sobbing.  Then  they  offer  the  dead  beast  a  repast 
of  rice  and  wild  potatoes,  and  having  spoken  to  him  in  terms  of  pity 
and  thanked  him  for  what  he  has  done  and  suffered,  they  cut  off 
his  head  and  paws  and  keep  them  as  sacred  things.  A  banquet  on 
the  flesh  and  blood  of  the  bear  follows.  Women  were  formerly 
excluded  from  it,  but  now  they  share  with  the  men.  The  blood  is 
drunk  warm  by  all  present ;  the  flesh  is  boiled,  custom  forbids  it  to 
be  roasted.  And  as  the  relics  of  the  bear  may  not  enter  the  house 
by  the  door,  and  Aino  houses  in  Saghalien  have  no  windows,  a  man 
gets  up  on  the  roof  and  lets  the  flesh,  the  head,  and  the  skin  down 
through  the  smoke-hole.  Rice  and  v/ild  potatoes  are  then  offered 
to  the  head,  and  a  pipe,  tobacco,  and  matches  are  considerately 
placed  beside  it.  Custom  requires  that  the  guests  should  eat  up  the 
whole  animal  before  they  depart  :  the  use  of  salt  and  pepper  at  the 
meal  is  forbidden  ;  and  no  morsel  of  the  flesh  may  be  given  to  the 
dogs.  When  the  banquet  is  over,  the  head  is  carried  away  into  the 
depth  of  the  forest  and  deposited  on  a  heap  of  bears’  skulls,  the  bleached 
and  mouldering  relics  of  similar  festivals  in  the  past. 

The  Gilyaks,  a  Tunguzian  people  of  Eastern  Siberia,  hold  a  bear- 
festival  of  the  same  sort  once  a  year  in  January.  “  The  bear  is  the 
object  of  the  most  refined  solicitude  of  an  entire  village  and  plays 
the  chief  part  in  their  religious  ceremonies.”  An  old  she-bear  is  shot 
and  her  cub  is  reared,  but  not  suckled,  in  the  village.  When  the 


i'll  KILLING  THE  SACRED  BEAR  511 

bear  is  big  enough  he  is  taken  from  his  cage  and  dragged  through  the 
village.  But  first  they  lead  him  to  the  bank  of  the  river,  for  this  is 
believed  to  ensure  abundance  of  fish  to  each  family.  He  is  then 
taken  into  every  house  in  the  village,  where  fish,  brandy,  and  so 
forth  are  offered  to  him.  Some  people  prostrate  themselves  before  the 
beast.  His  entrance  into  a  house  is  supposed  to  bring  a  blessing ; 
and  if  he  snuffs  at  the  food  offered  to  him,  this  also  is  a  blessing. 
Nevertheless  they  tease  and  worry,  poke  and  tickle  the  animal 
continually,  so  that  he  is  surly  and  snappish.  After  being  thus 
taken  to  every  house,  he  is  tied  to  a  peg  and  shot  dead  with  arrows. 
His  head  is  then  cut  off,  decked  with  shavings,  and  placed  on  the 
table  where  the  feast  is  set  out.  Here  they  beg  pardon  of  the  beast 
and  worship  him.  Then  his  flesh  is  roasted  and  eaten  in  special 
vessels  of  wood  finely  carved.  They  do  not  eat  the  flesh  raw  nor 
drink  the  blood,  as  the  Aino  do.  The  brain  and  entrails  are  eaten 
last ;  and  the  skull,  still  decked  with  shavings,  is  placed  on  a  tree 
near  the  house.  Then  the  people  sing  and  both  sexes  dance  in  ranks, 
as  bears. 

One  of  these  bear-festivals  was  witnessed  by  the  Russian  traveller 
L.  von  Schrenck  and  his  companions  at  the  Gilyak  village  of  Tebach 
in  January  1856.  From  his  detailed  report  of  the  ceremony  we  may 
gather  some  particulars  which  are  not  noticed  in  the  briefer  accounts 
which  I  have  just  summarised.  The  bear,  he  tells  us,  plays  a  great 
part  in  the  life  of  all  the  peoples  inhabiting  the  region  of  the  Amoor 
and  Siberia  as  far  as  Kamtchatka,  but  among  none  of  them  is  his 
importance  greater  than  among  the  Gilyaks.  The  immense  size 
which  the  animal  attains  in  the  valley  of  the  Amoor,  his  ferocity 
whetted  by  hunger,  and  the  frequency  of  his  appearance,  all  combine 
to  make  him  the  most  dreaded  beast  of  prey  in  the  country.  No 
wonder,  therefore,  that  the  fancy  of  the  Gilyaks  is  busied  with  him 
and  surrounds  him,  both  in  life  and  in  death,  with  a  sort  of  halo  of 
superstitious  fear.  Thus,  for  example,  it  is  thought  that  if  a  Gilyak 
falls  in  combat  with  a  bear,  his  soul  transmigrates  into  the  body  of 
the  beast.  Nevertheless  his  flesh  has  an  irresistible  attraction  for 
the  Gilyak  palate,  especially  when  the  animal  has  been  kept  in 
captivity  for  some  time  and  fattened  on  fish,  which  gives  the  flesh, 
in  the  opinion  of  the  Gilyaks,  a  peculiarly  delicious  flavour.  But  in 
order  to  enjoy  this  dainty  with  impunity  they  deem  it  needful  to 
perform  a  long  series  of  ceremonies,  of  which  the  intention  is  to  delude 
the  living  bear  by  a  show  of  respect,  and  to  appease  the  anger  of  the 
dead  animal  by  the  homage  paid  to  his  departed  spirit.  The  marks 
of  respect  begin  as  soon  as  the  beast  is  captured.  He  is  brought  home 
in  triumph  and  kept  in  a  cage,  where  all  the  villagers  take  it  in  turns 
to  feed  him.  For  although  he  may  have  been  captured  or  purchased 
by  one  man,  he  belongs  in  a  manner  to  the  whole  village.  His  flesh 
will  furnish  a  common  feast,  and  hence  all  must  contribute  to  support 
him  in  his  life.  The  length  of  time  he  is  kept  in  captivity  depends 
on  his  age.  Old  bears  are  kept  only  a  few  months  ;  cubs  are  kept 


512 


KILLING  THE  DIVINE  ANIMAL 


CH. 


till  they  are  full-grown.  A  thick  layer  of  fat  on  the  captive  bear 
gives  the  signal  for  the  festival,  which  is  always  held  in  winter,  , 
generally  in  December  but  sometimes  in  January  or  February.  At 
the  festival  witnessed  by  the  Russian  travellers,  which  lasted  a  good 
many  days,  three  bears  were  killed  and  eaten.  More  than  once  the 
animals  were  led  about  in  procession  and  compelled  to  enter  every 
house  in  the  village,  where  they  were  fed  as  a  mark  of  honour,  and  to 
show  that  they  were  welcome  guests.  But  before  the  beasts  set  out 
on  this  round  of  visits,  the  Gilyaks  played  at  skipping-rope  in  presence, 
and  perhaps,  as  L.  von  Schrenck  inclined  to  believe,  in  honour  of 
the  animals.  The  night  before  they  were  killed,  the  three  bears 
were  led  by  moonlight  a  long  way  on  the  ice  of  the  frozen  river.  That 
night  no  one  in  the  village  might  sleep.  Next  day,  after  the  animals 
had  been  again  led  down  the  steep  bank  to  the  river,  and  conducted 
thrice  round  the  hole  in  the  ice  from  which  the  women  of  the  village 
drew  their  water,  they  were  taken  to  an  appointed  place  not  far  from 
the  village  and  shot  to  death  with  arrows.  The  place  of  sacrifice 
or  execution  was  marked  as  holy  by  being  surrounded  with  whittled 
sticks,  from  the  tops  of  which  shavings  hung  in  curls.  Such  sticks 
are  with  the  Gilyaks,  as  with  the  Aino,  the  regular  symbols  that  ac¬ 
company  all  religious  ceremonies. 

When  the  house  has  been  arranged  and  decorated  for  their  reception, 
the  skins  of  the  bears,  with  their  heads  attached  to  them,  are  brought 
into  it,  not  however  by  the  door,  but  through  a  window,  and  then  hung 
on  a  sort  of  scaffold  opposite  the  hearth  on  which  the  flesh  is  to  be 
cooked.  The  boiling  of  the  bears’  flesh  among  the  Gilyaks  is  done  only 
by  the  oldest  men,  whose  high  privilege  it  is  ;  women  and  children, 
young  men  and  boys  have  no  part  in  it.  The  task  is  performed 
slowly  and  deliberately,  with  a  certain  solemnity.  On  the  occasion 
described  by  the  Russian  travellers  the  kettle  was  first  of  all  surrounded 
with  a  thick  wreath  of  shavings,  and  then  filled  with  snow,  for  the 
use  of  water  to  cook  bear’s  flesh  is  forbidden.  Meanwhile  a  large 
wooden  trough,  richly  adorned  with  arabesques  and  carvings  of  all 
sorts,  was  hung  immediately  under  the*  snouts  of  the  bears  ;  on  one 
side  of  the  trough  was  carved  in  relief  a  bear,  on  the  other  side  a  toad. 
When  the  carcases  were  being  cut  up,  each  leg  was  laid  on  the 
ground  in  front  of  the  bears,  as  if  to  ask  their  leave,  before  being 
placed  in  the  kettle  ;  and  the  boiled  flesh  was  fished  out  of  the  kettle 
with  an  iron  hook,  and  set  in  the  trough  before  the  bears,  in  order 
that  they  might  be  the  first  to  taste  of  their  own  flesh.  As  fast, 
too,  as  the  fat  was  cut  in  strips  it  was  hung  up  in  front  of  the  bears, 
and  afterwards  laid  in  a  small  wooden  trough  on  the  ground  before 
them.  Last  of  all  the  inner  organs  of  the  beasts  were  cut  up  and 
placed  in  small  vessels.  At  the  same  time  the  women  made  bandages 
out  of  parti-coloured  rags,  and  after  sunset  these  bandages  were  tied 
round  the  bears’  snouts  just  below  the  eyes  “  in  order  to  dry  the  tears 
that  flowed  from  them.” 

As  soon  as  the  ceremony  of  wiping  away  poor  bruin’s  tears  had 


LI  I 


KILLING  THE  SACRED  BEAR 


5i3 


been  performed,  the  assembled  Gilyaks  set  to  work  in  earnest  to  devour 
his  flesh.  The  broth  obtained  by  boiling  the  meat  had  already  been 
partaken  of.  The  wooden  bowls,  platters,  and  spoons  out  of  which 
the  Gilyaks  eat  the  broth  and  flesh  of  the  bears  on  these  occasions  are 
always  made  specially  for  the  purpose  at  the  festival  and  only  then  ; 
they  are  elaborately  ornamented  with  carved  figures  of  bears  and 
other  devices  that  refer  to  the  animal  or  the  festival,  and  the  people 
have  a  strong  superstitious  scruple  against  parting  with  them.  After 
the  bones  had  been  picked  clean  they  were  put  back  in  the  kettle  in 
which  the  flesh  had  been  boiled.  And  when  the  festal  meal  was  over, 
an  old  man  took  his  stand  at  the  door  of  the  house  with  a  branch  of  fir 
in  his  hand,  with  which,  as  the  people  passed  out,  he  gave  a  light  blow 
to  every  one  who  had  eaten  of  the  bear’s  flesh  or  fat,  perhaps  as  a 
punishment  for  their  treatment  of  the  worshipful  animal.  In  the 
afternoon  the  women  performed  a  strange  dance.  Only  one  woman 
danced  at  a  time,  throwing  the  upper  part  of  her  body  into  the  oddest 
postures,  while  she  held  in  her  hands  a  branch  of  fir  or  a  kind  of  wooden 
castanets.  The  other  women  meanwhile  played  an  accompaniment 
by  drumming  on  the  beams  of  the  house  with  clubs.  Von  Schrenk 
believed  that  after  the  flesh  of  the  bear  has  been  eaten  the  bones  and 
the  skull  are  solemnly  carried  out  by  the  oldest  people  to  a  place  in  the 
forest  not  far  from  the  village.  There  all  the  bones  except  the  skull 
are  buried.  After  that  a  young  tree  is  felled  a  few  inches  above  the 
ground,  its  stump  cleft,  and  the  skull  wedged  into  the  cleft.  When 
the  grass  grows  over  the  spot,  the  skull  disappears  from  view,  and  that 
is  the  end  of  the  bear. 

Another  description  of  the  bear-festivals  of  the  Gilyaks  has  been 
given  us  by  Mr.  Leo  Sternberg.  It  agrees  substantially  with  the  fore¬ 
going  accounts,  but  a  few  particulars  in  it  may  be  noted.  According 
to  Mr.  Sternberg,  the  festival  is  usually  held  in  honour  of  a  deceased 
relation  :  the  next  of  kin  either  buys  or  catches  a  bear  cub  and  nurtures 
it  for  two  or  three  years  till  it  is  ready  for  the  sacrifice.  Only  certain 
distinguished  guests  ( Nardi-en )  are  privileged  to  partake  of  the  bear’s 
flesh,  but  the  host  and  members  of  his  clan  eat  a  broth  made  from  the 
flesh';  great  quantities  of  this  broth  are  prepared  and  consumed  on 
the  occasion.  The  guests  of  honour  (N arch-en)  must  belong  to  the 
clan  into  which  the  host’s  daughters  and  the  other  women  of  his  clan 
are  married  :  one  of  these  guests,  usually  the  host’s  son-in-law,  is  en¬ 
trusted  with  the  duty  of  shooting  the  bear  dead  with  an  arrow.  The 
skin,  head,  and  flesh  of  the  slain  bear  are  brought  into  the  house  not 
through  the  door  but  through  the  smoke-hole  ;  a  quiver  full  of  arrows 
is  laid  under  the  head  and  beside  it  are  deposited  tobacco,  sugar,  and 
other  food.  The  soul  of  the  bear  is  supposed  to  carry  off  the  souls  of 
these  things  with  it  on  the  far  journey.  A  special  vessel  is  used  for 
cooking  the  bear’s  flesh,  and  the  fire  must  be  kindled  by  a  sacred 
apparatus  of  flint  and  steel,  which  belongs  to  the  clan  and  is  handed 
down  from  generation  to  generation,  but  which  is  never  used  to  light 
fires  except  on  these  solemn  occasions.  Of  all  the  many  viands  cooked 


5I4  KILLING  THE  DIVINE  ANIMAL  ch. 

for  the  consumption  of  the  assembled  people  a  portion  is  placed  in  a 
special  vessel  and  set  before  the  bear  s  head  .  this  is  called  feeding 
the  head.”  After  the  bear  has  been  killed,  dogs  are  sacrificed  in  couples 
of  male  and  female.  Before  being  throttled,  they  are  fed  and  invited 
to  go  to  their  lord  on  the  highest  mountain,  to  change  their  skins,  and 
to  return  next  year  in  the  form  of  bears.  The  soul  of  the  dead  bear 
departs  to  the  same  lord,  who  is  also  lord  of  the  primaeval  forest  ,  it 
goes  away  laden  with  the  offerings  that  have  been  made  to  it,  and  I 
attended  by  the  souls  of  the  dogs  and  also  by  the  souls  of  the  sacred 
whittled  sticks,  which  figure  prominently  at  the  festival. 

The  Goldi,  neighbours  of  the  Gilyaks,  treat  the  bear  in  much  the 
same  way.  They  hunt  and  kill  it  \  but  sometimes  they  capture  a  live  < 
bear  and  keep  him  in  a  cage,  feeding  him  well  and  calling  him  their 
son  and  brother.  Then  at  a  great  festival  he  is  taken  from  his  cage, 
paraded  about  with  marked  consideration,  and  afterwards  killed  and 
eaten.  “  The  skull,  jaw-bones,  and  ears  are  then  suspended  on  a  tree, 
as  an  antidote  against  evil  spirits  ;  but  the  flesh  is  eaten  and  much 
relished,  for  they  believe  that  all  who  partake  of  it  acquire  a  zest  for 
the  chase,  and  become  courageous.” 

The  Orotchis,  another  Tunguzian  people  of  the  region  of  the 
Amoor,  hold  bear-festivals  of  the  same  general  character.  Any  one 
who  catches  a  bear  cub  considers  it  his  bounden  duty  to  rear  it  in  a 
cage  for  about  three  years,  in  order  at  the  end  of  that  time  to  kill  it 
publicly  and  eat  the  flesh  with  his  friends.  The  feasts  being  public, 
though  organised  by  individuals,  the  people  try  to  have  one  in  each 
Orotchi  village  every  year  in  turn.  When  the  bear  is  taken  out  of  his 
cage,  he  is  led  about  by  means  of  ropes  to  all  the  huts,  accompanied 
by  people  armed  with  lances,  bows,  and  arrows.  At  each  hut  the  bear 
and  bear-leaders  are  treated  to  something  good  to  eat  and  drink.  This 
goes  on  for  several  days  until  all  the  huts,  not  only  in  that  village  but 
also  in  the  next,  have  been  visited.  The  days  are  given  up  to  sport 
and  noisy  jollity.  Then  the  bear  is  tied  to  a  tree  or  wooden  pillar  and 
shot  to  death  by  the  arrows  of  the  crowd,  after  which  its  flesh  is  roasted 
and  eaten.  Among  the  Orotchis  of  the  Tundja  River  women  take  part 
in  the  bear-feasts,  while  among  the  Orotchis  of  the  River  Vi  the  women 
will  not  even  touch  bear’s  flesh. 

In  the  treatment  of  the  captive  bear  by  these  tribes  there  are 
features  which  can  hardly  be  distinguished  from  worship.  Suclq  f°r 
example,  are  the  prayers  offered  to  it  both  alive  and  dead  ;  the  offerings 
of  food,  including  portions  of  its  own  flesh,  laid  before  the  animal  $ 
skull ;  and  the  Gilyak  custom  of  leading  the  living  beast  to  the  river 
in  order  to  ensure  a  supply  of  fish,  and  of  conducting  him  from  house* 
to  house  in  order  that  every  family  may  receive  his  blessing,  just  as  ir 
Europe  a  May-tree  or  a  personal  representative  of  the  tree-spirit  uset 
to  be  taken  from  door  to  door  in  spring  for  the  sake  of  diffusing  among] 
all  and  sundry  the  fresh  energies  of  reviving  nature.  Again,  the  solemr 
participation  in  his  flesh  and  blood,  and  particularly  the  Aino  custon 
of  sharing  the  contents  of  the  cup  which  had  been  consecrated  by  bein£ 


LII 


KILLING  THE  SACRED  BEAR 


5i5 


set  before  the  dead  beast,  are  strongly  suggestive  of  a  sacrament,  and 
the  suggestion  is  confirmed  by  the  Gilyak  practice  of  reserving  special 
vessels  to  hold  the  flesh  and  cooking  it  on  a  fire  kindled  by  a  sacred 
apparatus  which  is  never  employed  except  on  these  religious  occasions. 
Indeed  our  principal  authority  on  Aino  religion,  the  Rev.  John  Batchelor, 
frankly  describes  as  worship  the  ceremonious  respect  which  the  Aino 
pay  to  the  bear,  and  he  affirms  that  the  animal  is  undoubtedly  one 
of  their  gods.  Certainly  the  Aino  appear  to  apply  their  name  for  god 
(kamui)  freely  to  the  bear  ;  but,  as  Mr.  Batchelor  himself  points  out, 
that  word  is  used  with  many  different  shades  of  meaning  and  is  applied 
to  a  great  variety  of  objects,  so  that  from  its  application  to  the  bear 
we  cannot  safely  argue  that  the  animal  is  actually  regarded  as  a  deity. 
Indeed  we  are  expressly  told  that  the  Aino  of  Saghalien  do  not  consider 
the  bear  to  be  a  god  but  only  a  messenger  to  the  gods,  and  the  message 
with  which  they  charge  the  animal  at  its  death  bears  out  the  statement. 
Apparently  the  Gilyaks  also  look  on  the  bear  in  the  light  of  an  envoy 
despatched  with  presents  to  the  Lord  of  the  Mountain,  on  whom  the 
welfare  of  the  people  depends.  At  the  same  time  they  treat  the  animal 
as  a  being  of  a  higher  order  than  man,  in  fact  as  a  minor  deity,  whose 
presence  in  the  village,  so  long  as  he  is  kept  and  fed,  diffuses  blessings, 
especially  by  keeping  at  bay  the  swarms  of  evil  spirits  who  are  con¬ 
stantly  lying  in  wait  for  people,  stealing  their  goods  and  destroying 
their  bodies  by  sickness  and  disease.  Moreover,  by  partaking  of  the 
flesh,  blood,  or  broth  of  the  bear,  the  Gilyaks,  the  Aino,  and  the  Goldi 
are  all  of  opinion  that  they  acquire  some  portion  of  the  animal’s 
mighty  powers,  particularly  his  courage  and  strength.  No  wonder, 
therefore,  that  they  should  treat  so  great  a  benefactor  with  marks  of 
the  highest  respect  and  affection. 

Some  light  may  be  thrown  on  the  ambiguous  attitude  of  the  Aino 
to  bears  by  comparing  the  similar  treatment  which  they  accord  to  other 
creatures.  For  example,  they  regard  the  eagle-owl  as  a  good  deity 
who  by  his  hooting  warns  men  of  threatened  evil  and  defends  them 
against  it ;  hence  he  is  loved,  trusted,  and  devoutly  worshipped  as  a 
divine  mediator  between  men  and  the  Creator.  The  various  names 
applied  to  him  are  significant  both  of  his  divinity  and  of  his  mediator- 
ship.  Whenever  an  opportunity  offers,  one  of  these  divine  birds  is 
captured  and  kept  in  a  cage,  where  he  is  greeted  with  the  endearing 
titles  of  “  Beloved  god  ”  and  “  Dear  little  divinity.”  Nevertheless  the 
time  comes  when  the  dear  little  divinity  is  throttled  and  sent  away  in 
his  capacity  of  mediator  to  take  a  message  to  the  superior  gods  or  to 
the  Creator  himself.  The  following  is  the  form  of  prayer  addressed  to 
the  eagle-owl  when  it  is  about  to  be  sacrificed  :  “  Beloved  deity,  we 
have  brought  you  up  because  we  loved  you,  and  now  we  are  about  to 
send  you  to  your  father.  We  herewith  offer  you  food,  mao,  wine,  and 
cakes  ;  take  them  to  your  parent,  and  he  will  be  very  pleased.  When 
you  come  to  him  say,  ‘  I  have  lived  a  long  time  among  the  Ainu,  where 
an  Ainu  father  and  an  Ainu  mother  reared  me.  I  now  come  to  thee. 
I  have  brought  a  variety  of  good  things.  I  saw  while  living  in  Ainu- 


KILLING  THE  DIVINE  ANIMAL 


CH. 


516 


land  a  great  deal  of  distress.  I  observed  that  some  of  the  people  were  1 
possessed  by  demons,  some  were  wounded  by  wild  animals,  some  were 
hurt  by  landslides,  others  suffered  shipwreck,  and  many  were  attacked 
by  disease.  The  people  are  in  great  straits.  My  father,  hear  me,  and 
hasten  to  look  upon  the  Ainu  and  help  them/  If  you  do  this,  your 
father  will  help  us.” 

Again,  the  Aino  keep  eagles  in  cages,  worship  them  as  divinities, 
and  ask  them  to  defend  the  people  from  evil.  Yet  they  offer  the  bird 
in  sacrifice,  and  when  they  are  about  to  do  so  they  pray  to  him,  saying  : 
“  O  precious  divinity,  O  thou  divine  bird,  pray  listen  to  my  words. 
Thou  dost  not  belong  to  this  world,  for  thy  home  is  with  the  Creator 
and  his  golden  eagles.  This  being  so,  I  present  thee  with  these  inao 
and  cakes  and  other  precious  things.  Do  thou  ride  upon  the  inao 
and  ascend  to  thy  home  in  the  glorious  heavens.  When  thou  arrivest, 
assemble  the  deities  of  thy  own  kind  together  and  thank  them  for  us 
for  having  governed  the  world.  Do  thou  come  again,  I  beseech  thee, 
and  rule  over  us.  O  my  precious  one,  go  thou  quietly.”  Once  more, 
the  Aino  revere  hawks,  keep  them  in  cages,  and  offer  them  in  sacrifice. 
At  the  time  of  killing  one  of  them  the  following  prayer  should  be 
addressed  to  the  bird  :  “  O  divine  hawk,  thou  art  an  expert  hunter, 
please  cause  thy  cleverness  to  descend  on  me.”  If  a  hawk  is  well 
treated  in  captivity  and  prayed  to  after  this  fashion  when  he  is  about 
to  be  killed,  he  will  surely  send  help  to  the  hunter. 

Thus  the  Aino  hopes  to  profit  in  various  ways  by  slaughtering  the 
creatures,  which,  nevertheless,  he  treats  as  divine.  He  expects  them 
to  carry  messages  for  him  to  their  kindred  or  to  the  gods  in  the  upper 
world  ;  he  hopes  to  partake  of  their  virtues  by  swallowing  parts  of  their 
bodies  or  in  other  ways  ;  and  apparently  he  looks  forward  to  their 
bodily  resurrection  in  this  world,  which  will  enable  him  again  to  catch 
and  kill  them,  and  again  to  reap  all  the  benefits  which  he  has  already 
derived  from  their  slaughter.  For  in  the  prayers  addressed  to  the 
worshipful  bear  and  the  worshipful  eagle  before  they  are  knocked  on 
the  head  the  creatures  are  invited  to  come  again,  which  seems  clearly 
to  point  to  a  faith  in  their  future  resurrection.  If  any  doubt  could 
-  exist  on  this  head,  it  would  be  dispelled  by  the  evidence  of  Mr.  Batchelor, 
who  tells  us  that  the  Aino  “  are  firmly  convinced  that  the  spirits  ol 
birds  and  animals  killed  in  hunting  or  offered  in  sacrifice  come  and  live 
again  upon  the  earth  clothed  with  a  body  ;  and  they  believe,  further, 
that  they  appear  here  for  the  special  benefit  of  men,  particularly  Ainu 
hunters.”  The  Aino,  Mr.  Batchelor  tells  us,  “  confessedly  slays  and 
eats  the  beast  that  another  may  come  in  its  place  and  be  treated  in  like 
manner”  ;  and  at  the  time  of  sacrificing  the  creatures  “  prayers  are 
said  to  them  which  form  a  request  that  they  will  come  again  and 
furnish  viands  for  another  feast,  as  if  it  were  an  honour  to  them  to  be 
thus  killed  and  eaten,  and  a  pleasure  as  well.  Indeed  such  is  the 
people’s  idea.”  These  last  observations,  as  the  context  shows,  refeii 
especially  to  the  sacrifice  of  bears. 

Thus  among  the  beiiefits  which  the  Aino  anticipates  from  the 


LII 


KILLING  THE  SACRED  BEAR 


5i7 


slaughter  of  the  worshipful  animals  not  the  least  substantial  is  that  of 
goiging  himself  on  their  flesh  and  blood,  both  on  the  present  and  on 
many  a  similar  occasion  hereafter;  and  that  pleasing  prospect  again 
is  derivecTfrom  his  firm  faith  in  the  spiritual  immortality  and  bodily 
resurrection  of  the  dead  animals.  A  like  faith  is  shared  by  many 
savage  hunters  in  many  parts  of  the  world  and  has  given  rise  to  a 
variety  of  quaint  customs,  some  of  which  will  be  described  presently. 
Meantime  it  is  not  unimportant  to  observe  that  the  solemn  festivals 
at  which  the  Aino,  the  Gilyaks,  and  other  tribes  slaughter  the  tame 
caged  bears  with  demonstrations  of  respect  and  sorrow,  are  probably 
nothing  but  an  extension  or  glorification  of  similar  rites  which  the 
hunter  performs  over  any  wild  bear  which  he  chances  to  kill  in  the 
forest.  Indeed  with  regard  to  the  Gilyaks  we  are  expressly  informed 
that  this  is  the  case.  If  we  would  understand  the  meaning  of  the 
Gilyak  ritual,  says  Mr.  Sternberg,  “  we  must  above  all  remember  that 
the  bear-festivals  are  not,  as  is  usually  but  falsely  assumed,  celebrated 
only  at  the  killing  of  a  house-bear  but  are  held  on  every  occasion  when 
a  Gilyak  succeeds  in  slaughtering  a  bear  in  the  chase.  It  is  true  that 
in  such  cases  the  festival  assumes  less  imposing  dimensions,  but  in  its 
essence  it  remains  the  same.  When  the  head  and  skin  of  a  bear  killed 
in  the  foiest  aie  brought  into  the  village,  they  are  accorded  a  triumphal 
reception  with  music  and  solemn  ceremonial.  The  head  is  laid  on  a 
consecrated  scaffold,  fed,  and  treated  with  offerings,  just  as  at  the 
killing  of  a  house-bear  ;  and  the  guests  of  honour  (iV ctycJi-en)  are  also 
assembled.  So,  too,  dogs  are  sacrificed,  and  the  bones  of  the  bear 
are  preserved  in  the  same  place  and  with  the  same  marks  of  respect 
as  the  bones  of  a  house-bear.  Hence  the  great  winter  festival  is  only 
an  extension  of  the  rite  which  is  observed  at  the  slaughter  of  every 
bear. 

Thus  the  apparent  contradiction  in  the  practice  of  these  tribes, 
who  venerate  and  almost  deify  the  animals  which  they  habitually 
hunt,  kill,  and  eat,  is  not  so  flagrant  as  at  first  sight  it  appears  to  us  : 
the  people  have  reasons,  and  some  very  practical  reasons,  for  acting 
as  they  do.  For  the  savage  is  by  no  means  so  illogical  and  unpractical 
as  to  superficial  observers  he  is  apt  to  seem  ;  he  has  thought  deeply 
on  the  questions  which  immediately  concern  him,  he  reasons  about 
them,  and  though  his  conclusions  often  diverge  very  widely  from  ours, 
we  ought  not  to  deny  him  the  credit  of  patient  and  prolonged  medita¬ 
tion  on  some  fundamental  problems  of  human  existence.  In  the 
present  case,  if  he  treats  bears  in  general  as  creatures  wholly  subservient 
to  human  needs  and  yet  singles  out  certain  individuals  of  the  species 
for  homage  which  almost  amounts  to  deification,  we  must  not  hastily 
set  him  down  as  irrational  and  inconsistent,  but  must  endeavour  to 
place  ourselves  at  his  point  of  view,  to  see  things  as  he  sees  them,  and 
to  divest  ourselves  of  the  prepossessions  which  tinge  so  deeply  our 
own  views  of  the  world.  If  we  do  so,  we  shall  probably  discover  that, 
however  absurd  his  conduct  may  appear  to  us,  the  savage  nevertheless 
generally  acts  on  a  train  of  reasoning  which  seems  to  him  in  harmony 


5i8  PROPITIATION  OF  WILD  ANIMALS  BY  HUNTERS  ch. 

with  the  facts  of  his  limited  experience.  This  I  propose  to  illustrate 
in  the  following  chapter,  where  I  shall  attempt  to  show  that  the 
solemn  ceremonial  of  the  bear-festival  among  the  Ainos  and  other 
tribes  of  North-eastern  Asia  is  only  a  particularly  striking  example  of 
the  respect  which  on  the  principles  of  his  rude  philosophy  the  savage 
habitually  pays  to  the  animals  which  he  kills  and  eats. 


CHAPTER  LI  1 1 

THE  PROPITIATION  OF  WILD  ANIMALS  BY  HUNTERS 


The  explanation  of  life  by  the  theory  of  an  indwelling  and  practically 
immortal  soul  is  one  which  the  savage  does  not  confine  to  human  beings 
but  extends  to  the  animate  creation  in  general.  In  so  doing  he  is 
more  liberal  and  perhaps  more  logical  than  the  civilised  man,  who 
commonly  denies  to  animals  that  privilege  of  immortality  which  he 
claims  for  himself.  The  savage  is  not  so  proud  ;  he  commonly  believes 
that  animals  are  endowed  with  feelings  and  intelligence  like  those  of 
men,  and  that,  like  men,  they  possess  souls  which  survive  the  death 
of  their  bodies  either  to  wander  about  as  disembodied  spirits  or  to  be 
born  again  in  animal  form. 

Thus  to  the  savage,  who  regards  all  living  creatures  as  practically 
on  a  footing  of  equality  with  man,  the  act  of  killing  and  eating  an 
animal  must  wear  a  very  different  aspect  from  that  which  the  same  act 
presents  to  us,  who  regard  the  intelligence  of  animals  as  far  inferior  to 
our  own  and  deny  them  the  possession  of  immortal  souls.  Hence  on 
the  principles  of  his  rude  philosophy  the  primitive  hunter  who  slays 
an  animal  believes  himself  exposed  to  the  vengeance  either  of  its 
disembodied  spirit  or  of  all  the  other  animals  of  the  same  species,  whom 
he  considers  as  knit  together,  like  men,  by  the  ties  of  kin  and  the 
obligations  of  the  blood  feud,  and  therefore  as  bound  to  resent  the 
injury  done  to  one  of  their  number.  Accordingly  the  savage  makes 
it  a  rule  to  spare  the  life  of  those  animals  which  he  has  no  pressing 
motive  for  killing,  at  least  such  fierce  and  dangerous  animals  as  are 
likely  to  exact  a  bloody  vengeance  for  the  slaughter  of  one  of  their 
kind.  Crocodiles  are  animals  of  this  sort.  They  are  only  found  in 
hot  countries,  where,  as  a  rule,  food  is  abundant  and  primitive  man 
has  therefore  little  reason  to  kill  them  for  the  sake  of  their  tough  and 
unpalatable  flesh.  Hence  it  is  a  custom  with  some  savages  to  spare 
crocodiles,  or  rather  only  to  kill  them  in  obedience  to  the  law  of  blood 
feud,  that  is,  as  a  retaliation  for  the  slaughter  of  men  by  crocodiles. 
For  example,  the  Dyaks  of  Borneo  will  not  kill  a  crocodile  unless  a 
crocodile  has  first  killed  a  man.  "  For  why,  say  they,  should  they 
commit  an  act  of  aggression,  when  he  and  his  kindred  can  so  easily 
repay  them  ?  But  should  the  alligator  take  a  human  life,  revenge 
becomes  a  sacred  duty  of  the  living  relatives,  who  will  trap  the  man- 


j 


liii  PROPITIATION  OF  WILD  ANIMALS  BY  HUNTERS  519 

eater  in  the  spirit  of  an  officer  of  justice  pursuing  a  criminal.  Others, 
even  then,  hang  back,  reluctant  to  embroil  themselves  in  a  quarrel 
which  does  not  concern  them.  The  man-eating  alligator  is  supposed 
to  be  pursued  by  a  righteous  Nemesis  ;  and  whenever  one  is  caught 
they  have  a  profound  conviction  that  it  must  be  the  guilty  one,  or  his 
accomplice.” 

Like  the  Dyaks,  the  natives  of  Madagascar  never  kill  a  crocodile 
“  except  in  retaliation  for  one  of  their  friends  who  has  been  destroyed 
by  a  crocodile.  They  believe  that  the  wanton  destruction  of  one  of 
these  reptiles  will  be  followed  by  the  loss  of  human  life,  in  accordance 
with  the  principle  of  lex  talionis.”  The  people  who  live  near  the  lake 
Itasy  in  Madagascar  make  a  yearly  proclamation  to  the  crocodiles, 
announcing  that  they  will  revenge  the  death  of  some  of  their  friends 
by  killing  as  many  crocodiles  in  return,  and  warning  all  well-disposed 
crocodiles  to  keep  out  of  the  way,  as  they  have  no  quarrel  with  them, 
but  only  with  their  evil-minded  relations  who  have  taken  human  life. 
Various  tribes  of  Madagascar  believe  themselves  to  be  descended  from 
crocodiles,  and  accordingly  they  view  the  scaly  reptile  as,  to  all  intents 
and  purposes,  a  man  and  a  brother.  If  one  of  the  animals  should 
so  far  forget  himself  as  to  devour  one  of  his  human  kinsfolk,  the  chief 
of  the  tribe,  or  in  his  absence  an  old  man  familiar  with  the  tribal 
customs,  repairs  at  the  head  of  the  people  to  the  edge  of  the  water, 
and  summons  the  family  of  the  culprit  to  deliver  him  up  to  the  arm 
of  justice.  A  hook  is  then  baited  and  cast  into  the  river  or  lake. 
Next  day  the  guilty  brother,  or  one  of  his  family,  is  dragged  ashore, 
and  after  his  crime  has  been  clearly  brought  home  to  him  by  a  strict 
interrogation,  he  is  sentenced  to  death  and  executed.  The  claims 
of  justice  being  thus  satisfied  and  the  majesty  of  the  law  fully  vindi¬ 
cated,  the  deceased  crocodile  is  lamented  and  buried  like  a  kinsman  ; 
a  mound  is  raised  over  his  relics  and  a  stone  marks  the  place  of  his 
head. 

Again,  the  tiger  is  another  of  those  dangerous  beasts  whom  the 
savage  prefers  to  leave  alone,  lest  by  killing  one  of  the  species  he 
should  excite  the  hostility  of  the  rest.  No  consideration  will  induce 
a  Sumatran  to  catch  or  wound  a  tiger  except  in  self-defence  or  im¬ 
mediately  after  a  tiger  has  destroyed  a  friend  or  relation.  When  a 
European  has  set  traps  for  tigers,  the  people  of  the  neighbourhood 
have  been  known  to  go  by  night  to  the  place  and  explain  to  the  animals 
that  the  traps  are  not  set  by  them  nor  with  their  consent.  The  in¬ 
habitants  of  the  hills  near  Rajamahall,  in  Bengal,  are  very  averse  to 
killing  a  tiger,  unless  one  of  their  kinsfolk  has  been  carried  off  by  one 
of  the  beasts.  In  that  case  they  go  out  for  the  purpose  of  hunting 
and  slaying  a  tiger  ;  and  when  they  have  succeeded  they  lay  their 
bows  and  arrows  on  the  carcase  and  invoke  God,  declaring  that  they 
slew  the  animal  in  retaliation  for  the  loss  of  a  kinsman.  Vengeance 
having  been  thus  taken,  they  swear  not  to  attack  another  tiger  except 
under  similar  provocation. 

The  Indians  of  Carolina  would  not  molest  snakes  when  they  came 


520  PROPITIATION  OF  WILD  ANIMALS  BY  HUNTERS  ch. 


upon  them,  but  would  pass  by  on  the  other  side  of  the  path,  believing 
that  if  they  were  to  kill  a  serpent  the  reptile’s  kindred  would  destroy 
some  of  their  brethren,  friends,  or  relations  in  return.  So  the  Seminole 
Indians  spared  the  rattlesnake,  because  they  feared  that  the  soul  of 
the  dead  rattlesnake  would  incite  its  kinsfolk  to  take  vengeance.  The 
Cherokee  regard  the  rattlesnake  as  the  chief  of  the  snake  tribe  and 
fear  and  respect  him  accordingly.  Few  Cherokee  will  venture  to  kill 
a  rattlesnake,  unless  they  cannot  help  it,  and  even  then  they  must 
atone  for  the  crime  by  craving  pardon  of  the  snake’s  ghost  either  in 
their  own  person  or  through  the  mediation  of  a  priest,  according  to 
a  set  formula.  If  these  precautions  are  neglected,  the  kinsfolk  of 
the  dead  snake  will  send  one  of  their  number  as  an  avenger  of  blood, 
who  will  track  down  the  murderer  and  sting  him  to  death.  No  ordinary 
Cherokee  dares  to  kill  a  wolf,  if  he  can  possibly  help  it ;  for  he  believes 
that  the  kindred  of  the  slain  beast  would  surely  avenge  its  death, 
and  that  the  weapon  with  which  the  deed  had  been  done  would  be 
quite  useless  for  the  future,  unless  it  were  cleaned  and  exorcised  by 
a  medicine-man.  However,  certain  persons  who  know  the  proper 
rites  of  atonement  for  such  a  crime  can  kill  wolves  with  impunity, 
and  they  are  sometimes  hired  to  do  so  by  people  who  have  suffered 
from  the  raids  of  the  wolves  on  their  cattle  or  fish-traps.  In  Jebel- 
Nuba,  a  district  of  the  Eastern  Sudan,  it  is  forbidden  to  touch  the 
nests  or  remove  the  young  of  a  species  of  black  birds,  resembling  our 
blackbirds,  because  the  people  believe  that  the  parent  birds  would 
avenge  the  wrong  by  causing  a  stormy  wind  to  blow,  which  would 
destroy  the  harvest. 

But  the  savage  clearly  cannot  afford  to  spare  all  animals.  He 
must  either  eat  some  of  them  or  starve,  and  when  the  question  thus 
comes  to  be  whether  he  or  the  animal  must  perish,  he  is  forced  to 
overcome  his  superstitious  scruples  and  take  the  life  of  the  beast. 
At  the  same  time  he  does  all  he  can  to  appease  his  victims  and  their 
kinsfolk.  Even  in  the  act  of  killing  them  he  testifies  his  respect  for 
them,  endeavours  to  excuse  or  even  conceal  his  share  in  procuring 
their  death,  and  promises  that  their  remains  will  be  honourably  treated. 
By  thus  robbing  death  of  its  terrors  he  hopes  to  reconcile  his  victims 
to  their  fate  and  to  induce  their  fellows  to  come  and  be  killed  also. 
For  example,  it  was  a  principle  with  the  Kamtchatkans  never  to  kill 
a  land  or  sea  animal  without  first  making  excuses  to  it  and  begging 
that  the  animal  would  not  take  it  ill.  Also  they  offered  it  cedar- 
nuts  and  so  forth,  to  make  it  think  that  it  was  not  a  victim  but  a 
guest  at  a  feast.  They  believed  that  this  hindered  other  animals  of 
the  same  species  from  growing  shy.  For  instance,  after  they  had 
killed  a  bear  and  feasted  on  its  flesh,  the  host  would  bring  the  bear’s 
head  before  the  company,  wrap  it  in  grass,  and  present  it  with  a  variety 
of  trifles.  Then  he  would  lay  the  blame  of  the  bear’s  death  on  the 
Russians,  and  bid  the  beast  wreak  his  wrath  upon  them.  Also  he 
would  ask  the  bear  to  inform  the  other  bears  how  well  he  had  been 
treated,  that  they  too  might  come  without  fear.  Seals,  sea-lions, 


Lin  PROPITIATION  OF  WILD  ANIMALS  BY  HUNTERS  521 

and  other  animals  were  treated  by  the  Ivamtchatkans  with  the  same 
ceremonious  respect.  Moreover,  they  used  to  insert  sprigs  of  a  plant 
resembling  bear’s  wort  in  the  mouths  of  the  animals  they  killed; 
after  which  they  would  exhort  the  grinning  skulls  to  have  no  fear 
but  to  go  and  tell  it  to  their  fellows,  that  they  also  might  come  and 
be  caught  and  so  partake  of  this  splendid  hospitality.  When  the 
Ostiaks  have  hunted  and  killed  a  bear,  they  cut  off  its  head  and  hang 
it  on  a  tree.  Then  they  gather  round  in  a  circle  and  pay  it  divine 
honours.  Next  they  run  towards  the  carcase  uttering  lamentations 
and  saying,  “  Who  killed  you  ?  It  was  the  Russians.  Who  cut  off 
your  head  ?  It  was  a  Russian  axe.  Who  skinned  you  ?  It  was  a 
knife  made  by  a  Russian.”  They  explain,  too,  that  the  feathers 
which  sped  the  arrow  on  its  flight  came  from  the  wing  of  a  strange 
bird,  and  that  they  did  nothing  but  let  the  arrow  go.  They  do  all 
this  because  they  believe  that  the  wandering  ghost  of  the  slain  bear 
would  attack  them  on  the  first  opportunity,  if  they  did  not  thus  ap¬ 
pease  it.  Or  they  stuff  the  skin  of  the  slain  bear  with  hay  ;  and  after 
celebrating  their  victory  with  songs  of  mockery  and  insult,  after  spitting 
on  and  kicking  it,  they  set  it  up  on  its  hind  legs,  “  and  then,  for  a 
considerable  time,  they  bestow  on  it  all  the  veneration  due  to  a  guardian 
god.”  When  a  party  of  Koryak  have  killed  a  bear  or  a  wolf,  they 
skin  the  beast  and  dress  one  of  themselves  in  the  skin.  Then  they 
dance  round  the  skin-clad  man,  saying  that  it  was  not  they  who  killed 
the  animal,  but  some  one  else,  generally  a  Russian.  When  they  kill 
a  fox  they,  skin  it,  wrap  the  body  in  grass,  and  bid  him  go  tell 
his  companions  how  hospitably  he  has  been  received,  and  how  he  has 
received  a  new  cloak  instead  of  his  old  one.  A  fuller  account  of  the 
Koryak  ceremonies  is  given  by  a  more  recent  writer.  He  tells  us  that 
when  a  dead  bear  is  brought  to  the  house,  the  women  come  out  to 
meet  it,  dancing  with  firebrands.  The  bear-skin  is  taken  off  along 
with  the  head ;  and  one  of  the  women  puts  on  the  skin,  dances  in  it, 
and  entreats  the  bear  not  to  be  angry,  but  to  be  kind  to  the  people. 
At  the  same  time  they  offer  meat  on  a  wooden  platter  to  the  dead 
beast,  saying,  “  Eat,  friend.”  Afterwards  a  ceremony  is  performed 
for  the  purpose  of  sending  the  dead  bear,  or  rather  his  spirit,  away 
back  to  his  home.  He  is  provided  with  provisions  for  the  journey 
in  the  shape  of  puddings  or  reindeer-flesh  packed  in  a  grass  bag.  His 
skin  is  stuffed  with  grass  and  carried  round  the  house,  after  which 
he  is  supposed  to  depart  towards  the  rising  sun.  The  intention  of 
the  ceremonies  is  to  protect  the  people  from  the  wrath  of  the  slain 
bear  and  his  kinsfolk,  and  so  to  ensure  success  in  future  bear-hunts. 
The  Finns  used  to  try  to  persuade  a  slain  bear  that  he  had  not  been 
killed  by  them,  but  had  fallen  from  a  tree,  or  met  his  death  in  some 
other  way ;  moreover,  they  held  a  funeral  festival  in  his  honour,  at 
the  close  of  which  bards  expatiated  on  the  homage  that  had  been 
paid  to  him,  urging  him  to  report  to  the  other  bears  the  high  con¬ 
sideration  with  which  he  had  been  treated,  in  order  that  they  also, 
following  his  example,  might  come  and  be  slain.  When  the  Lapps 


522  PROPITIATION  OF  WILD  ANIMALS  BY  HUNTERS  ch. 

had  succeeded  in  killing  a  bear  with  impunity,  they  thanked  him  for 
not  hurting  them  and  for  not  breaking  the  clubs  and  spears  which 
had  given  him  his  death  wounds  ;  and  they  prayed  that  he  would 
not  visit  his  death  upon  them  by  sending  storms  or  in  any  other  way. 
His  flesh  then  furnished  a  feast. 

The  reverence  of  hunters  for  the  bear  whom  they  regularly  kill 
and  eat  may  thus  be  traced  all  along  the  northern  region  of  the  Old 
World,  from  Bering’s  Straits  to  Lappland.  It  reappears  in  similar 
forms  in  North  America.  With  the  American  Indians  a  bear  hunt 
was  an  important  event  for  which  they  prepared  by  long  fasts  and 
purgations.  Before  setting  out  they  offered  expiatory  sacrifices  to 
the  souls  of  bears  slain  in  previous  hunts,  and  besought  them  to  be 
favourable  to  the  hunters.  When  a  bear  was  killed  the  hunter  lit 
his  pipe,  and  putting  the  mouth  of  it  between  the  bear’s  lips,  blew 
into  the  bowl,  filling  the  beast’s  mouth  with  smoke.  Then  he  begged 
the  bear  not  to  be  angry  at  having  been  killed,  and  not  to  thwart 
him  afterwards  in  the  chase.  The  carcase  was  roasted  whole  and 
eaten  ;  not  a  morsel  of  the  flesh  might  be  left  over.  The  head,  painted 
red  and  blue,  was  hung  on  a  post  and  addressed  by  orators,  who 
heaped  praise  on  the  dead  beast.  When  men  of  the  Bear  clan  in  the 
Otawa  tribe  killed  a  bear,  they  made  him  a  feast  of  his  own  flesh,  and 
addressed  him  thus  :  “  Cherish  us  no  grudge  because  we  have  killed 
you.  You  have  sense  ;  you  see  that  our  children  are  hungry.  They 
love  you  and  wish  to  take  you  into  their  bodies.  Is  it  not  glorious  , 
to  be  eaten  by  the  children  of  a  chief  ?  ”  Amongst  the  Nootka 
Indians  of  British  Columbia,  when  a  bear  had  been  killed,  it  was 
brought  in  and  seated  before  the  head  chief  in  an  upright  posture, 
with  a  chief’s  bonnet,  wrought  in  figures,  on  its  head,  and  its  fur 
powdered  over  with  white  down.  A  tray  of  provisions  was  then  set  lt 
before  it,  and  it  was  invited  by  words  and  gestures  to  eat.  After  i 
that  the  animal  was  skinned,  boiled,  and  eaten. 

A  like  respect  is  testified  for  other  dangerous  creatures  by  the 
hunters  who  regularly  trap  and  kill  them.  When  Caffre  hunters  are 
in  the  act  of  showering  spears  on  an  elephant,  they  call  out,  “  Don’t 
kill  us,  great  captain  ;  don’t  strike  or  tread  upon  us,  mighty  chief.” 
When  he  is  dead  they  make  their  excuses  to  him,  pretending  that  his 
death  was  a  pure  accident.  As  a  mark  of  respect  they  bury  his  trunk 
with  much  solemn  ceremony  ;  for  they  say  that  “  the  elephant  is  a 
great  lord  ;  his  trunk  is  his  hand.”  Before  the  Amaxosa  Caffres  attack 
an  elephant  they  shout  to  the  animal  and  beg  him  to  pardon  them  for 
the  slaughter  they  are  about  to  perpetrate,  professing  great  submission 
to  his  person  and  explaining  clearly  the  need  they  have  of  his  tusks  to 
enable  them  to  procure  beads  and  supply  their  wants.  When  they  have 
killed  him  they  bury  in  the  ground,  along  with  the  end  of  his  trunk,  a 
few  of  the  articles  they  have  obtained  for  the  ivory,  thus  hoping  to 
avert  some  mishap  that  would  otherwise  befall  them.  Amongst  some 
tribes  of  Eastern  Africa,  when  a  lion  is  killed,  the  carcase  is  brought 
before  the  king,  who  does  homage  to  it  by  prostrating  himself  on  the 


liii  PROPITIATION  OF  WILD  ANIMALS  BY  HUNTERS  523 

ground  and  rubbing  his  face  on  the  muzzle  of  the  beast.  In  some 
parts  of  Western  Africa  if  a  negro  kills  a  leopard  he  is  bound  fast 
and  brought  before  the  chiefs  for  having  killed  one  of  their  peers. 
The  man  defends  himself  on  the  plea  that  the  leopard  is  chief  of 
the  forest  and  therefore  a  stranger.  He  is  then  set  at  liberty  and 
rewarded.  But  the  dead  leopard,  adorned  with  a  chiefs  bonnet,  is 
set  up  in  the  village,  where  nightly  dances  are  held  in  its  honour. 
The  Baganda  greatly  fear  the  ghosts  of  buffaloes  which  they  have 
killed,  and  they  always  appease  these  dangerous  spirits.  On  no 
account  will  they  bring  the  head  of  a  slain  buffalo  into  a  village  or  into 
a  garden  of  plantains  :  they  always  eat  the  flesh  of  the  head  in  the 
open  country.  Afterwards  they  place  the  skull  in  a  small  hut  built 
for  the  purpose,  where  they  pour  out  beer  as  an  offering  and  pray  to  the 
ghost  to  stay  where  he  is  and  not  to  harm  them. 

Another  formidable  beast  whose  life  the  savage  hunter  takes  with 
joy,  yet  with  fear  and  trembling,  is  the  whale.  After  the  slaughter 
of  a  whale  the  maritime  Koryak  of  North-eastern  Siberia  hold  a  com¬ 
munal  festival,  the  essential  part  of  which  “  is  based  on  the  conception 
that  the  whale  killed  has  come  on  a  visit  to  the  village  ;  that  it  is  staying 
for  some  time,  during  which  it  is  treated  with  great  respect ;  that  it 
then  returns  to  the  sea  to  repeat  its  visit  the  following  }^ear  ;  that  it 
will  induce  its  relatives  to  come  along,  telling  them  of  the  hospitable 
reception  that  has  been  accorded  to  it.  According  to  the  Koryak 
ideas,  the  whales,  like  all  other  animals,  constitute  one  tribe,  or  rather 
family,  of  related  individuals,  who  live  in  villages  like  the  Koryak. 
They  avenge  the  murder  of  one  of  their  number,  and  are  grateful 
for  kindnesses  that  they  may  have  received.”  When  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Isle  of  St.  Mary,  to  the  north  of  Madagascar,  go  a-whaling, 
they  single  out  the  young  whales  for  attack  and  “  humbly  beg  the 
mother's  pardon,  stating  the  necessity  that  drives  them  to  kill  her 
progeny,  and  requesting  that  she  will  be  pleased  to  go  below  while 
the  deed  is  doing,  that  her  maternal  feelings  may  not  be  outraged  by 
witnessing  what  must  cause  her  so  much  uneasiness.”  An  Ajumba 
hunter  having  killed  a  female  hippopotamus  on  Lake  Azyingo 
in  West  Africa,  the  animal  was  decapitated  and  its  quarters  and 
bowels  removed.  Then  the  hunter,  naked,  stepped  into  the  hollow 
of  the  ribs,  and  kneeling  down  in  the  bloody  pool  washed  his  whole 
body  with  the  blood  and  excretions  of  the  animal,  while  he  prayed  to 
the  soul  of  the  hippopotamus  not  to  bear  him  a  grudge  for  having  killed 
her  and  so  blighted  her  hopes  of  future  maternity  ;  and  he  further 
entreated  the  ghost  not  to  stir  up  other  hippopotamuses  to  avenge 
her  death  by  butting  at  and  capsizing  his  canoe. 

The  ounce,  a  leopard-like  creature,  is  dreaded  for  its  depredations 
by  the  Indians  of  Brazil.  When  they  have  caught  one  of  these 
animals  in  a  snare,  they  kill  it  and  carry  the  body  home  to  the  village. 
There  the  women  deck  the  carcase  with  feathers  of  many  colours,  put 
bracelets  on  its  legs,  and  weep  over  it,  saying,  “  I  pray  thee  not  to  take 
vengeance  on  our  little  ones  for  having  been  caught  and  killed  through 


524  PROPITIATION  OF  WILD  ANIMALS  BY  HUNTERS  ch. 

thine  own  ignorance.  For  it  was  not  we  who  deceived  thee,  it  was 
thyself.  Our  husbands  only  set  the  trap  to  catch  animals  that  are  good 
to  eat  :  they  never  thought  to  take  thee  in  it.  Therefore,  let  not 
thy  soul  counsel  thy  fellows  to  avenge  thy  death  on  our  little  ones !  ” 
When  a  Blackfoot  Indian  has  caught  eagles  in  a  trap  and  killed 
them,  he  takes  them  home  to  a  special  lodge,  called  the  eagles’  lodge, 
which  has  been  prepared  for  their  reception  outside  of  the  camp. 
Here  he  sets  the  birds  in  a  row  on  the  ground,  and  propping  up  their 
heads  on  a  stick,  puts  a  piece  of  dried  meat  in  each  of  their  mouths 
in  order  that  the  spirits  of  the  dead  eagles  may  go  and  tell  the  other 
eagles  how  well  they  are  being  treated  by  the  Indians.  So  when 
Indian  hunters  of  the  Orinoco  region  have  killed  an  animal,  they  open 
its  mouth  and  pour  into  it  a  few  drops  of  the  liquor  they  generally 
carry  with  them,  in  order  that  the  soul  of  the  dead  beast  may  inform 
its  fellows  of  the  welcome  it  has  met  with,  and  that  they  too,  cheered 
by  the  prospect  of  the  same  kind  reception,  may  come  with  alacrity 
to  be  killed.  When  a  Teton  Indian  is  on  a  journey  and  he  meets  a 
grey  spider  or  a  spider  with  yellow  legs,  he  kills  it,  because  some  evil 
would  befall  him  if  he  did  not.  But  he  is  very  careful  not  to  let 
the  spider  know  that  he  kills  it,  for  if  the  spider  knew,  his  soul  would 
go  and  tell  the  other  spiders,  and  one  of  them  would  be  sure  to  avenge 
the  death  of  his  relation.  So  in  crushing  the  insect,  the  Indian  says, 
“  O  Grandfather  Spider,  the  Thunder-beings  kill  you.”  And  the 
spider  is  crushed  at  once  and  believes  what  is  told  him.  His  soul 
probably  runs  and  tells  the  other  spiders  that  the  Thunder-beings 
have  killed  him  ;  but  no  harm  comes  of  that.  For  what  can  grey 
or  yellow-legged  spiders  do  to  the  Thunder-beings  ? 

But  it  is  not  merely  dangerous  creatures  with  whom  the  savage 
desires  to  keep  on  good  terms.  It  is  true  that  the  respect  which  he 
pays  to  wild  beasts  is  in  some  measure  proportioned  to  their  strength 
and  ferocity.  Thus  the  savage  Stiens  of  Cambodia,  believing  that  all 
animals  have  souls  which  roam  about  after  their  death,  beg  an  animal’s 
pardon  when  they  kill  it,  lest  its  soul  should  come  and  torment  them. 
Also  they  offer  it  sacrifices,  but  these  sacrifices  are  proportioned  to  the 
size  and  strength  of  the  animal.  The  ceremonies  which  they  observe  at 
the  death  of  an  elephant  are  conducted  with  much  pomp  and  last  seven 
days.  Similar  distinctions  are  drawn  by  North  American  Indians. 
“  The  bear,  the  buffalo,  and  the  beaver  are  manidos  [divinities]  which 
furnish  food.  The  bear  is  formidable,  and  good  to  eat.  They  render 
ceremonies  to  him,  begging  him  to  allow  himself  to  be  eaten,  although 
they  know  he  has  no  fancy  for  it.  We  kill  you,  but  you  are  not 
annihilated.  His  head  and  paws  are  objects  of  homage.  .  .  .  Other 
animals  are  treated  similarly  from  similar  reasons.  .  .  .  Many  of  the 
animal  manidos,  not  being  dangerous,  are  often  treated  with  contempt 
— the  terrapin,  the  weasel,  polecat,  etc.”  The  distinction  is  instructive. 
Animals  which  are  feared,  or  are  good  to  eat,  or  both,  are  treated  with 
ceremonious  respect ;  those  which  are  neither  formidable  nor  good  to 
eat  are  despised.  We  have  had  examples  of  reverence  paid  to  animals 


i'll i  PROPITIATION  OF  WILD  ANIMALS  BY  HUNTERS  525 

which  are  both  feared  and  eaten.  It  remains  to  prove  that  similar 
respect  is  shown  to  animals  which,  without  being  feared,  are  either 
eaten  or  valued  for  their  skins. 

When  Siberian  sable-hunters  have  caught  a  sable,  no  one  is  allowed 
to  see  it,  and  they  think  that  if  good  or  evil  be  spoken  of  the  captured 
sable  no  more  sables  will  be  caught.  A  hunter  has  been  known  to 
express  his  belief  that  the  sables  could  hear  what  was  said  of  them 
as  far  off  as  Moscow.  He  said  that  the  chief  reason  why  the  sable 
hunt  was  now  so  unproductive  was  that  some  live  sables  had  been 
sent  to  Moscow.  There  they  had  been  viewed  with  astonishment  as 
strange  animals,  and  the  sables  cannot  abide  that.  Another,  Though 
minor,  cause  of  the  diminished  take  of  sables  was,  he  alleged,  that  the 
world  is  now  much  worse  than  it  used  to  be,  so  that  nowadays  a  hunter 
will  sometimes  hide  the  sable  which  he  has  got  instead  of  putting  it  into 
the  common  stock.  This  also,  said  he,  the  sables  cannot  abide. 
Alaskan  hunters  preserve  the  bones  of  sables  and  beavers  out  of 
reach  of  the  dogs  for  a  year  and  then  bury  them  carefully,  “  lest  the 
spirits  who  look  after  the  beavers  and  sables  should  consider  that  they 
are  regarded  with  contempt,  and  hence  no  more  should  be  killed  or 
trapped/'  The  Canadian  Indians  were  equally  particular  not  to  let 
their  dogs  gnaw  the  bones,  or  at  least  certain  of  the  bones,  of  beavers. 
They  took  the  greatest  pains  to  collect  and  preserve  these  bones,  and, 
when  the  beaver  had  been  caught  in  a  net,  they  threw  them  into  the 
river.  To  a  Jesuit  who  argued  that  the  beavers  could  not  possibly 
know  what  became  of  their  bones,  the  Indians  replied,  “  You  know 
nothing  about  catching  beavers  and  yet  you  will  be  prating  about 
it.  Before  the  beaver  is  stone  dead,  his  soul  takes  a  turn  in  the 
hut  of  the  man  who  is  killing  him  and  makes  a  careful  note  of  what 
is  done  with  his  bones.  If  the  bones  are  given  to  the  dogs,  the  other 
beavers  would  get  word  of  it  and  would  not  let  themselves  be  caught. 
Whereas,  if  their  bones  are  thrown  into  the  fire  or  a  river,  they 
are  quite  satisfied ;  and  it  is  particularly  gratifying  to  the  net  which 
caught  them."  Before  hunting  the  beaver  they  offered  a  solemn 
prayer  to  the  Great  Beaver,  and  presented  him  with  tobacco  ;  and 
when  the  chase  was  over,  an  orator  pronounced  a  funeral  oration 
over  the  dead  beavers.  He  praised  their  spirit  and  wisdom.  “  You 
will  hear  no  more,"  said  he,  “  the  voice  of  the  chieftains  who  com¬ 
manded  you  and  whom  you  chose  from  among  all  the  warrior  beavers 
to  give  you  laws.  Your  language,  which  the  medicine-men  under¬ 
stand  perfectly,  will  be  heard  no  more  at  the  bottom  of  the  lake. 
You  will  fight  no  more  battles  with  the  otters,  your  cruel  foes.  No, 
beavers  !  But  your  skins  shall  serve  to  buy  arms  ;  we  will  carry  your 
smoked  hams  to  our  children  ;  we  will  keep  the  dogs  from  eating  your 
bones,  which  are  so  hard.” 

The  elan,  deer,  and  elk  were  treated  by  the  American  Indians  with 
the  same  punctilious  respect,  and  for  the  same  reason.  Their  bones 
might  not  be  given  to  the  dogs  nor  thrown  into  the  fire,  nor  might 
their  fat  be  dropped  upon  the  fire,  because  the  souls  of  the  dead 


526  PROPITIATION  OF  WILD  ANIMALS  BY  HUNTERS  ch. 

animals  were  believed  to  see  what  was  done  to  their  bodies  and  to  tell 
it  to  the  other  beasts,  living  and  dead.  Hence,  if  their  bodies  were  ill- 
used,  the  animals  of  thabspecies  would  not  allow  themselves  to  be  taken, 
neither  in  this  world  nor  in  the  world  to  come.  Among  the  Chiquites 
of  Paraguay  a  sick  man  would  be  asked  by  the  medicine-man  whether 
he  had  not  thrown  away  some  of  the  flesh  of  the  deer  or  turtle,  and  if 
he  answered  yes,  the  medicine-man  would  say,  “  That  is  what  is 
killing  you.  The  soul  of  the  deer  or  turtle  has  entered  into  your  body 
to  avenge  the  wrong  you  did  it.”  The  Canadian  Indians  would  not 
cat  the  embryos  of  the  elk,  unless  at  the  close  of  the  hunting  season ; 
otherwise  the  mother-elks  would  be  shy  and  refuse  to  be  caught. 

In  the  Timor-laut  islands  of  the  Indian  Archipelago  the  skulls  of  all 
the  turtles  which  a  fisherman  has  caught  are  hung  up  under  his  house. 
Before  he  goes  out  to  catch  another,  he  addresses  himself  to  the  skull 
of  the  last  turtle  that  he  killed,  and  having  inserted  betel  between  its 
jaws,  he  prays  the  spirit  of  the  dead  animal  to  entice  its  kinsfolk  in  the 
sea  to  come  and  be  caught.  In  the  Poso  district  of  Central  Celebes 
hunters  keep  the  jawbones  of  deer  and  wild  pigs  which  they  have  killed 
and  hang  them  up  in  their  houses  near  the  fire.  Then  they  say  to  the 
jawbones,  “Ye  cry  after  your  comrades,  that  your  grandfathers,  or 
nephews,  or  children  may  not  go  away.”  Their  notion  is  that  the 
souls  of  the  dead  deer  and  pigs  tarry  near  their  jawbones  and  attract 
the  souls  of  living  deer  and  pigs,  which  are  thus  drawn  into  the  toils 
of  the  hunter.  Thus  the  wily  savage  employs  dead  animals  as  decoys 
to  lure  living  animals  to  their  doom. 

The  Lengua  Indians  of  the  Gran  Chaco  love  to  hunt  the  ostrich, 
but  when  they  have  killed  one  of  these  birds  and  are  bringing  home 
the  carcase  to  the  village,  they  take  steps  to  outwit  the  resentful 
ghost  of  their  victim.  They  think  that  when  the  first  natural  shock 
of  death  is  passed,  the  ghost  of  the  ostrich  pulls  himself  together 
and  makes  after  his  body.  Acting  on  this  sage  calculation,  the  Indians 
pluck  feathers  from  the  breast  of  the  bird  and  strew  them  at  intervals 
along  the  track.  At  every  bunch  of  feathers  the  ghost  stops  to  con¬ 
sider,  “  Is  this  the  whole  of  my  body  or  only  a  part  of  it  ?  ”  The 
doubt  gives  him  pause,  and  when  at  last  he  has  made  up  his  mind 
fully  at  all  the  bunches,  and  has  further  wasted  valuable  time  by  the 
zigzag  course  which  he  invariably  pursues  in  going  from  one  to  another, 
the  hunters  are  safe  at  home,  and  the  bilked  ghost  may  stalk  in  vain 
round  about  the  village,  which  he  is  too  timid  to  enter. 

The  Esquimaux  about  Bering  Strait  believe  that  the  souls  of 
dead  sea-beasts,  such  as  seals,  walrus,  and  whales,  remain  attached 
to  their  bladders,  and  that  by  returning  the  bladders  to  the  sea  they 
can  cause  the  souls  to  be  reincarnated  in  fresh  bodies  and  so  multiply 
the  game  which  the  hunters  pursue  and  kill.  Acting  on  this  belief 
every  hunter  carefully  removes  and  preserves  the  bladders  of  all  the 
sea-beasts  that  he  kills  ;  and  at  a  solemn  festival  held  once  a  year 
in  winter  these  bladders,  containing  the  souls  of  all  the  sea-beasts 
that  have  been  killed  throughout  the  year,  are  honoured  with  dances 


liii  PROPITIATION  OF  WILD  ANIMALS  BY  HUNTERS  527 

and  offerings  of  food  in  the  public  assembly-room,  after  which  they 
are  taken  out  on  the  ice  and  thrust  through  holes  into  the  water  ; 
for  the  simple  Esquimaux  imagine  that  the  souls  of  the  animals,  in 
high  good  humour  at  the  kind  treatment  they  have  experienced,  will 
thereafter  be  bom  again  as  seals,  walrus,  and  whales,  and  in  that 
form  will  flock  willingly  to  be  again  speared,  harpooned,  or  otherwise 
done  to  death  by  the  hunters. 

For  like  reasons,  a  tribe  which  depends  for  its  subsistence,  chiefly 
or  in  part,  upon  fishing  is  careful  to  treat  the  fish  with  every  mark 
of  honour  and  respect.  The  Indians  of  Peru  “  adored  the  fish  that 
they  caught  in  greatest  abundance  ;  for  they  said  that  the  first  fish 
that  was  made  in  the  world  above  (for  so  they  named  Heaven)  gave 
birth  to  all  other  fish  of  that  species,  and  took  care  to  send  them 
plenty  of  its  children  to  sustain  their  tribe.  For  this  reason  they 
worshipped  sardines  in  one  region,  where  they  killed  more  of  them 
than  of  any  other  fish  ;  in  others,  the  skate  ;  in  others,  the  dogfish  ; 
in  others,  the  golden  fish  for  its  beauty  ;  in  others,  the  crawfish  ;  in 
others,  for  want  of  larger  gods,  the  crabs,  where  they  had  no  other 
fish,  or  where  they  knew  not  how  to  catch  and  kill  them.  In  short, 
they  had  whatever  fish  was  most  serviceable  to  them  as  their  gods.” 
The  Kwakiutl  Indians  of  British  Columbia  think  that  when  a  salmon 
is  killed  its  soul  returns  to  the  salmon  country.  Hence  they  take 
care  to  throw  the  bones  and  offal  into  the  sea,  in  order  that  the  soul 
may  reanimate  them  at  the  resurrection  of  the  salmon.  Whereas  if 
they  burned  the  bones  the  soul  would  be  lost,  and  so  it  would  be  quite 
impossible  for  that  salmon  to  rise  from  the  dead.  In  like  manner  the 
Otawa  Indians  of  Canada,  believing  that  the  souls  of  dead  fish  passed 
into  other  bodies  of  fish,  never  burned  fish  bones,  for  fear  of  displeasing 
the  souls  of  the  fish,  who  would  come  no  more  to  the  nets.  The  Hurons 
also  refrained  from  throwing  fish  bones  into  the  fire,  lest  the  souls 
of  the  fish  should  go  and  warn  the  other  fish  not  to  let  themselves 
be  caught,  since  the  Hurons  would  burn  their  bones.  Moreover,  they 
had  men  who  preached  to  the  fish  and  persuaded  them  to  come  and 
be  caught.  A  good  preacher  was  much  sought  after,  for  they  thought 
that  the  exhortations  of  a  clever  man  had  a  great  effect  in  drawing 
the  fish  to  the  nets.  In  the  Huron  fishing  village  where  the  French 
missionary  Sagard  stayed,  the  preacher  to  the  fish  prided  himself 
very  much  on  his  eloquence,  which  was  of  a  florid  order.  Every 
evening  after  supper,  having  seen  that  all  the  people  were  in  their 
places  and  that  a  strict  silence  was  observed,  he  preached  to  the  fish. 
His  text  was  that  the  Hurons  did  not  bum  fish  bones.  “  Then  en¬ 
larging  on  this  theme  with  extraordinary  unction,  he  exhorted  and 
conjured  and  invited  and  implored  the  fish  to  come  and  be  caught 
and  to  be  of  good  courage  and  to  fear  nothing,  for  it  was  all  to  serve 
their  friends  who  honoured  them  and  did  not  burn  their  bones.”  I  he 
natives  of  the  Duke  of  York  Island  annually  decorate  a  canoe  with 
flowers  and  ferns,  lade  it,  or  are  supposed  to  lade  it,  with  shell-money, 
and  set  it  adrift  to  compensate  the  fish  for  their  fellows  who  have 


528  PROPITIATION  OF  WILD  ANIMALS  BY  HUNTERS  ch. 

been  caught  and  eaten.  It  is  especially  necessary  to  treat  the  first 
fish  caught  with  consideration  in  order  to  conciliate  the  rest  of  the 
fish,  whose  conduct  may  be  supposed  to  be  influenced  by  the  recep¬ 
tion  given  to  those  of  their  kind  which  were  the  first  to  be  taken. 
Accordingly  the  Maoris  always  put  back  into  the  sea  the  first  fish 
caught,  “  with  a  prayer  that  it  may  tempt  other  fish  to  come  and  be 
caught.” 

Still  more  stringent  are  the  precautions  taken  when  the  fish  are 
the  first  of  the  season.  On  salmon  rivers,  when  the  fish  begin  to  run 
up  the  stream  in  spring,  they  are  received  with  much  deference  by 
tribes  who,  like  the  Indians  of  the  Pacific  Coast  of  North  America, 
subsist  largely  upon  a  fish  diet.  In  British  Columbia  the  Indians 
used  to  go  out  to  meet  the  first  fish  as  they  came  up  the  river  :  “  They 
paid  court  to  them,  and  would  address  them  thus  :  ‘You  fish,  you 
fish  ;  you  are  all  chiefs,  you  are  ;  you  are  all  chiefs.’  ”  Amongst 
the  Tlingit  of  Alaska  the  first  halibut  of  the  season  is  carefully  handled 
and  addressed  as  a  chief,  and  a  festival  is  given  in  his  honour,  after 
which  the  fishing  goes  on.  In  spring,  when  the  winds  blow  soft  from 
the  south  and  the  salmon  begin  to  run  up  the  Klamath  river,  the 
Karoks  of  California  dance  for  salmon,  to  ensure  a  good  catch.  One 
of  the  Indians,  called  the  Kareya  or  God-man,  retires  to  the  mountains 
and  fasts  for  ten  days.  On  his  return  the  people  flee,  while  he  goes 
to  the  river,  takes  the  first  salmon  of  the  catch,  eats  some  of  it,  and 
with  the  rest  kindles  the  sacred  fire  in  the  sweating-house.  “  No 
Indian  may  take  a  salmon  before  this  dance  is  held,  nor  for  ten  days 
after  it,  even  if  his  family  are  starving.”  The  Karoks  also  believe 
that  a  fisherman  will  take  no  salmon  if  the  poles  of  which  his  spearing- 
booth  is  made  were  gathered  on  the  river-side,  where  the  salmon 
might  have  seen  them.  The  poles  must  be  brought  from  the  top  of 
the  highest  mountain.  The  fisherman  will  also  labour  in  vain  if  he 
uses  the  same  poles  a  second  year  in  booths  or  weirs,  “  because  the 
old  salmon  will  have  told  the  young  ones  about  them.”  There  is  a 
favourite  fish  of  the  Aino  which  appears  in  their  rivers  about  May 
and  June.  They  prepare  for  the  fishing  by  observing  rules  of  cere¬ 
monial  purity,  and  when  they  have  gone  out  to  fish,  the  women  at 
home  must  keep  strict  silence  or  the  fish  would  hear  them  and  dis¬ 
appear.  When  the  first  fish  is  caught  he  is  brought  home  and  passed 
through  a  small  opening  at  the  end  of  the  hut,  but  not  through  the 
door  ;  for  if  he  were  passed  through  the  door,  “  the  other  fish  would 
certainly  see  him  and  disappear.”  This  may  partly  explain  the 
custom  observed  by  other  savages  of  bringing  game  in  certain  cases 
into  their  huts,  not  by  the  door,  but  by  the  window,  the  smoke-hole, 
or  by  a  special  opening  at  the  back  of  the  hut. 

With  some  savages  a  special  reason  for  respecting  the  bones  of 
game,  and  generally  of  the  animals  which  they  eat,  is  a  belief  that, 
if  the  bones  are  preserved,  they  will  in  course  of  time  be  reclothed 
with  flesh,  and  thus  the  animal  will  come  to  life  again.  It  is,  there¬ 
fore,  clearly  for  the  interest  of  the  hunter  to  leave  the  bones  intact, 


Lin  PROPITIATION  OF  WILD  ANIMALS  BY  HUNTERS  529 

since  to  destroy  them  would  be  to  diminish  the  future  supply  of  game. 
Many  of  the  Minnetaree  Indians  "  believe  that  the  bones  of  those 
bi.sons  which  they  have  slain  and  divested  of  flesh  rise  again  clothed 
with  renewed  flesh,  and  quickened  with  life,  and  become  fat,  and  fit 
for  slaughter  the  succeeding  June.  Hence  on  the  western  prairies 
of  America  the  skulls  of  buffaloes  may  be  seen  arranged  in  circles 
and  symmetrical  piles,  awaiting  the  resurrection.  After  feasting  on 
a  dog,  the  Dacotas  carefully  collect  the  bones,  scrape,  wash,  and  bury 
them,  partly,  as  it  is  said,  to  testify  to  the  dog-species,  that  in  feast¬ 
ing  upon  one  of  their  number  no  disrespect  was  meant  to  the  species 
itself,  and  partly  also  from  a  belief  that  the  bones  of  the  animal  will 
rise  and  reproduce  another.”  In  sacrificing  an  animal  the  Lapps 
regularly,  put  aside  the  bones,  eyes,  ears,  heart,  lungs,  sexual  parts 
(if  the  animal  was  a  male),  and  a  morsel  of  flesh  from  each  limb.  Then, 
after,  eating  the  remainder  of  the  flesh,  they  laid  the  bones  and  the 
rest  in  anatomical  order  in  a  coffin  and  buried  them  with  the  usual 
rites,  believing  that  the  god  to  whom  the  animal  was  sacrificed  would 
reclothe  the  bones  with  flesh  and  restore  the  animal  to  life  in  Jabme- 
Aimo,  the  subterranean  world  of  the  dead.  Sometimes,  as  after  feast¬ 
ing  on  a  bear,  they  seem  to  have  contented  themselves  with  thus 
burying  the.  bones.  Thus  the  Lapps  expected  the  resurrection  of 
the  slain  animal  to  take  place  in  another  world,  resembling  in  this 
respect  the  Kamtchatkans,  who  believed  that  every  creature,  down 
to  the  smallest  fly,  would  rise  from  the  dead  and  live  underground. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  North  American  Indians  looked  for  the  resur¬ 
rection  of  the  animals  in  the  present  world.  The  habit,  observed 
especially  by  Mongolian  peoples,  of  stuffing  the  skin  of  a  sacrificed 
animal,  or  stretching  it  on  a  framework,  points  rather  to  a  belief  in 
a  resurrection  of  the  latter  sort.  The  objection  commonly  entertained 
by  primitive  peoples  to  break  the  bones  of  the  animals  which  they 
have  eaten  or  sacrificed  may  be  based  either  on  a  belief  in  the  resur¬ 
rection  of  the  animals,  or  on  a  fear  of  intimidating  other  creatures  of 
the  same  species  and  offending  the  ghosts  of  the  slain  animals.  The 
reluctance  of  North  American  Indians  and  Esquimaux  to  let  dogs 
gnaw  the  bones  of  animals  is  perhaps  only  a  precaution  to  prevent 
the  bones  from  being  broken. 

But  after  all  the  resurrection  of  dead  game  may  have  its  incon¬ 
veniences,.  and  accordingly  some  hunters  take  steps  to  prevent  it  by 
hamstringing  the  animal  so  as  to  prevent  it  or  its  ghost  from  getting 
up  and  running  away.  This  is  the  motive  alleged  for  the  practice  by 
Koui  hunters  in  Laos  ;  they  think  that  the  spells  which  they  utter  in 
the  chase  may  lose  their  magical  virtue,  and  that  the  slaughtered 
animal  may  consequently  come  to  life  again  and  escape.  To  prevent 
that  catastrophe  they  therefore  hamstring  the  beast  as  soon  as  they 
have  butchered  it.  When  an  Esquimau  of  Alaska  has  killed  a  fox, 
he  carefully  cuts  the  tendons  of  all  the  animal’s  legs  in  order  to  prevent 
the  ghost  from  reanimating  the  body  and  walking  about.  But  ham¬ 
stringing  the  carcase  is  not  the  only  measure  which  the  prudent  savage 


530  PROPITIATION  OF  WILD  ANIMALS  BY  HUNTERS  ch. 

adopts  for  the  sake  of  disabling  the  ghost  of  his  victim.  In  old  days, 
when  the  Aino  went  out  hunting  and  killed  a  fox  first,  they  took  care 
to  tie  its  mouth  up  tightly  in  order  to  prevent  the  ghost  of  the  animal 
from  sallying  forth  and  warning  its  fellows  against  the  approach  of 
the  hunter.  "  The  Gilyaks  of  the  Amoor  River  put  out  the  eyes  of  the 
seals  they  have  killed,  lest  the  ghosts  of  the  slain  animals  should  know 
their  slayers  and  avenge  their  death  by  spoiling  the  seal-hunt. 

Besides  the  animals  which  primitive  man  dreads  for  their  strength 
and  ferocity,  and  those  which  he  reveres  on  account  of  the  benefits 
which  he  expects  from  them,  there  is  another  class  of  creatuies  which 
he  sometimes  deems  it  necessary  to  conciliate  by  worship  and  sacrifice. 
These  are  the  vermin  that  infest  his  crops  and  his  cattle.  To  rid  him¬ 
self  of  these  deadly  foes  the  farmer  has  recourse  to  many  superstitious 
devices,  of  which,  though  some  are  meant  to  destroy  or  intimidate  the 
vermin,  others  aim  at  propitiating  them  and  peisuading  them  by  fair 
means  to  spare  the  fruits  of  the  earth  and  the  herds.  Thus  Esthonian 
peasants,  in  the  island  of  Oesel,  stand  in  great  awe  of  the  weevil,,  an 
insect  which  is  exceedingly  destructive  to  the  grain.  They  give  it  a 
fine  name,  and  if  a  child  is  about  to  kill  a  weevil  they  say,  “  Don’t  do 
it  ;  the  more  we  hurt  him,  the  more  he  hurts  us.”  If  they  find  a 
weevil  they  bury  it  in  the  earth  instead  of  killing  it.  Some  even  put 
the  weevil  under  a  stone  in  the  field  and  offer  corn  to  it.  They  think 
that  thus  it  is  appeased  and  does  less  harm.  Amongst  the  Saxons  of 
Transylvania,  in  order  to  keep  sparrows  from  the  corn,  the  sower  begins 
by  throwing  the  first  handful  of  seed  backwards  over  his  head,  saying, 

“  That  is  for  you,  sparrows.”  To  guard  the  corn  against  the  attacks 
of  leaf-flies  he  shuts  his  eyes  and  scatters  three  handful  of  oats  in 
different  directions.  Having  made  this  offering  to  the  leaf-flies  he 
feels  sure  that  they  will  spare  the  corn.  A  Transylvanian  way  of 
securing  the  crops  against  all  birds,  beasts,  and  insects,  is  this  .  after 
he  has  finished  sowing,  the  sower  goes  once  more  from  end  to  end  of 1 
the  field  imitating  the  gesture  of  sowing,  but  with  an  empty  hand. 
As  he  does  so  he  says,  “  I  sow  this  for  the  animals  ;  I  sow  it  for  every¬ 
thing  that  flies  and  creeps,  that  walks  and  stands,  that  sings  and  springs, 
in  the  name  of  God  the  Father,  etc.”  The  following  is  a  German  way 
of  freeing  a  garden  from  caterpillars.  After  sunset  or  at  midnight  the 
mistress  of  the  house,  or  another  female  member  of  the  family,  walks 
all  round  the  garden  dragging  a  broom  after  her.  She  may  not  look 
behind  her,  and  must  keep  murmuring,  “  Good  evening,  Mother 
Caterpillar,  you  shall  come  with  your  husband  to  church.”  The 
garden  gate  is  left  open  till  the  following  morning. 

Sometimes  in  dealing  with  vermin  the  farmer  aims  at  hitting  a 
happy  mean  between  excessive  rigour  on  the  one  hand  and  weak 
indulgence  on  the  other  ;  kind  but  firm,  he  tempers  severity  with 
mercy.  An  ancient  Greek  treatise  on  farming  advises  the  husband¬ 
man  who  would  rid  his  lands  of  mice  to  act  thus  :  “  Take  a  sheet  of 
paper  and  write  on  it  as  follows  :  *  I  adjure  you,  ye  mice  here  present,! 
that  ye  neither  injure  me  nor  suffer  another  mouse  to  do  so.  I  give 


Lin  PROPITIATION  OF  WILD  ANIMALS  BY  HUNTERS  531 

you  yonder  field  ’  (here  you  specify  the  field)  ;  ‘  but  if  ever  I  catch 
you  here  again,  by  the  Mother  of  the  Gods  I  will  rend  you  in  seven 
pieces.  Write  this,  and  stick  the  paper  on  an  unhewn  stone  in  the 
field  before  sunrise,  taking  care  to  keep  the  written  side  up.”  In  the 
Aidennes  they  say  that  to  get  rid  of  rats  you  should  repeat  the  folio  win0- 
words  :  "  Erat  verbum ,  apud  Deum  vestrum.  Male  rats  and  female 
rats,  I  conjure  you,  by  the  great  God,  to  go  out  of  my  house,  out  of 
all  my  habitations,  and  to  betake  yourselves  to  such  and  such  a  place, 
there  to  end  your  days.  Decretis,  r  ever  sis  et  desembarassis  virgo  potens, 
clemens,  justitiae.  ’  Then  write  the  same  words  on  pieces  of  paper, 
fold  them  up,  and  place  one  of  them  under  the  door  by  which  the  rats 
are  to  go  forth,  and  the  other  on  the  road  which  they  are  to  take. 
This  exoicism  should  be  performed  at  sunrise.  Some  years  ago  an 
Ameiican  farmer  was  reported  to  have  written  a  civil  letter  to  the  rats 
telling  them  that  his  crops  were  short,  that  he  could  not  afford  to  keep 
them  through  the  winter,  that  he  had  been  very  kind  to  them,  and  that 
for  their  own  good  he  thought  they  had  better  leave  him  and  go  to 
some  of  his  neighbours  who  had  more  grain.  This  document  he  pinned 
to  a  post  in  his  barn  for  the  rats  to  read. 

Sometimes  the  desired  object  is  supposed  to  be  attained  by  treating 
with  high  distinction  one  or  two  chosen  individuals  of  the  obnoxious 
species,  while  the  rest  are  pursued  with  relentless  rigour.  In  the  East 
Indian  island  of  Bali,  the  mice  which  ravage  the  rice-fields  are  caught 
in  great  numbers,  and  burned  in  the  same  way  that  corpses  are  burned. 
But  two  of  the  captuied  mice  are  allowed  to  live,  and  receive  a  little 
packet  of  white  linen.  Then  the  people  bow  down  before  them,  as 
before  gods,  and  let  them  go.  When  the  farms  of  the  Sea  Dyaks  or 
Ibans  of  Sarawak  are  much  pestered  by  birds  and  insects,  they  catch  a 
specimen  of  each  kind  of  vermin  (one  sparrow,  one  grasshopper,  and 
so  on),  put  them  in  a  tiny  boat  of  bark  well-stocked  with  provisions, 
and  then  allow  the  little  vessel  with  its  obnoxious  passengers  to  float 
i  down  the  river.  If  that  does  not  drive  the  pests  away,  the  Dyaks 
resort  to  what  they  deem  a  more  effectual  mode  of  accomplishing  the 
same  purpose.  They  make  a  clay  crocodile  as  large  as  life  and  set  it 
up  in  the  fields,  where  they  offer  it  food,  rice-spirit,  and  cloth,  and 
sacrifice  a  fowl  and  a  pig  before  it.  Mollified  by  these  attentions,  the 
ferocious  animal  very  soon  gobbles  up  all  the  creatures  that  devour 
the  ci  ops.  In  Albania,  if  the  fields  or  vineyards  are  ravaged  by  locusts 
or  beetles,  some  of  the  women  will  assemble  with  dishevelled  hair, 
f catch  a  few  of  the  insects,  and  march  with  them  in  a  funeral  procession 
to  a  spring  or  stream,  in  which  they  drown  the  creatures.  Then  one 
of  the  women  sings,.  “  0  locusts  and  beetles  who  have  left  us  bereaved,” 
and  the  dirge  is  taken  up  and  repeated  by  all  the  women  in  chorus. 
Thus  by  celebrating  the  obsequies  of  a  few  locusts  and  beetles,  they 
hope  to  bring  about  the  death  of  them  all.  When  caterpillars  invaded 
a  vineyard  or  field  in  Syria,  the  virgins  were  gathered,  and  one  of  the 
caterpillars  was  taken  and  a  girl  made  its  mother.  Then  they  bewailed 
and  buried  it.  Thereafter  they  conducted  the  “  mother  ”  to  the  place 


532  TYPES  OF  ANIMAL  SACRAMENT  ch. 

where  the  caterpillars  were,  consoling  her,  in  order  that  all  the  cater¬ 
pillars  might  leave  the  garden. 

CHAPTER  LIV 

TYPES  OF  ANIMAL  SACRAMENT 

§  i.  The  Egyptian  and  the  Aino  Types  of  Sacrament. — We  are  now 
perhaps  in  a  position  to  understand  the  ambiguous  behaviour  of  the 
Aino  and  Gilyaks  towards  the  bear.  It  has  been  shown  that  the 
sharp  line  of  demarcation  which  we  draw  between  mankind  and  the 
lower  animals  does  not  exist  for  the  savage..  To  him  many  of  the 
other  animals  appear  as  his  equals  or  even  his  superiors,  not  merely 
in  brute  force  but  in  intelligence  ;  and  if  choice  or  necessity  leads 
him  to  take  their  lives,  he  feels  bound,  out  of  regard  to  his  own  safety, 
to  do  it  in  a  way  which  *vill  be  as  inoffensive  as  possible  not  merely  to 
the  living  animal,  but  to  its  departed  spirit  and  to  all  the  other  animals 
of  the  same  species,  which  would  resent  an  affront  put  upon  one  of 
their  kind  much  as  a  tribe  of  savages  would  revenge  an  injury  or  insult 
offered  to  a  tribesman.  We  have  seen  that  among  the  many  devices 
by  which  the  savage  seeks  to  atone  for  the  wrong  done  by  him  to  his 
animal  victims  one  is  to  show  marked  deference  to  a  few  chosen 
individuals  of  the  species,  for  such  behaviour  is  apparently  regarded 
as  entitling  him  to  exterminate  with  impunity  all  the  rest  of  the  species 
upon  which  he  can  lay  hands.  This  principle  perhaps  explains  the 
attitude,  at  first  sight  puzzling  and  contradictory,  of  the  Aino  towards 
the  bear.  The  flesh  and  skin  of  the  bear  regularly  afford  them  food 
and  clothing  ;  but  since  the  bear  is  an  intelligent  and  powerful  animal 
it  is  necessary  to  offer  some  satisfaction  or  atonement  to  the  beai 
species  for  the  loss  which  it  sustains  in  the  death  of  so  many  of  its 
members.  This  satisfaction  or  atonement  is  made  by  rearing  youn£ 
bears,  treating  them,  so  long  as  they  live,  with  respect,  and  killing 
them  with  extraordinary  marks  of  sorrow  and  devotion.  So  the  other 
bears  are  appeased,  and  do  not  resent  the  slaughter  of  their  kind  bj 
attacking  the  slayers  or  deserting  the  country,  which  would  deprivt 
the  Aino  of  one  of  their  means  of  subsistence. 

Thus  the  primitive  worship  of  animals  conforms  to  two  types,  whicl 
are  in  some  respects  the  converse  of  each  other.  On  the  one  hand 
animals  are  worshipped,  and  are  therefore  neither  killed  nor  eaten 
On  the  other  hand,  animals  are  worshipped  because  they  are  habitualh 
killed  and  eaten.  In  both  types  of  worship  the  animal  is  revered  01 
account  of  some  benefit,  positive  or  negative,  which  the  savage  hope 
to  receive  from  it.  In  the  former  worship  the  benefit  comes  either  ii 
the  positive  shape  of  protection,  advice,  and  help  which  the  anima 
affords  the  man,  or  in  the  negative  shape  of  abstinence  from  injurie 
which  it  is  in  the  power  of  the  animal  to  inflict.  In  the  latter  worshij 
the  benefit  takes  the  material  form  of  the  animal’s  flesh  and  skin 
The  two  types  of  worship  are  in  some  measure  antithetical :  in  th 


liv  EGYPTIAN  AND  AINO  TYPES  OF  SACRAMENT  533 

one,  the  animal  is  not  eaten  because  it  is  revered  ;  in  the  other,  it  is 
revered  because  it  is  eaten.  But  both  may  be  practised  by  the  same 
people,  as  we  see  in  the  case  of  the  North  American  Indians,  who, 
while  they  apparently  revere  and  spare  their  totem  animals,  also 
revere  the  animals  and  fish  upon  which  they  subsist.  The  aborigines 
of  Australia  have .  totemism  in  the  most  primitive  form  known 
to  us  ;  but  there  is  no  clear  evidence  that  they  attempt,  like  the 
North  American  Indians,  to  conciliate  the  animals  which  they  kill 
and  eat.  The  means  which  the  Australians  adopt  to  secure  a 
plentiful  supply  of  game  appear  to  be  primarily  based,  not  on  con¬ 
ciliation,  but  on  sympathetic  magic,  a  principle  to  which  the  North 
American  Indians  also  resort  for  the  same  purpose.  Hence,  as  the 
Australians  undoubtedly  represent  a  ruder  and  earlier  stage  of  human 
progress  than  the  American  Indians,  it  would  seem  that  before  hunters 
think  of  worshipping  the  game  as  a  means  of  ensuring  an  abundant 
suppiy  of  it,  they  seek  to  attain  the  same  end  by  sympathetic  magic. 
This,  again,  would  show  what  there  is  good  reason  for  believing — - 
that  sympathetic  magic  is  one  of  the  earliest  means  by  which  man 
endeavours  to  adapt  the  agencies  of  nature  to  his  needs. 

Corresponding  to  the  two  distinct  types  of  animal  worship,  there 
are  two  distinct  types  of  the  custom  of  killing  the  animal  god.  On  the 
one  hand,  when  the  revered  animal  is  habitually  spared,  it  is  never- 
f  fheless  killed  and  sometimes  eaten — on  rare  and  solemn  occasions. 
Examples  of  this  custom  have  been  already  given  and  an  explanation 
of  them  offered.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  revered  animal  is 
habitually  killed,  the  slaughter  of  any  one  of  the  species  involves  the 
killing  of  the  god,  and  is  atoned  for  on  the  spot  by  apologies  and 
sacrifices,  especially  when  the  animal  is  a  powerful  and  dangerous  one  ; 
and,,  in  addition  to  this  ordinary  and  everyday  atonement,  there  is  a 
special  annual  atonement,  at  which  a  select  individual  of  the  species 
is  slain  with  extraordinary  marks  of  respect  and  devotion.  Clearly 
the  two  types  of  sacramental  killing— the  Egyptian  and  the  Aino 
types,  as  we  may  call  them  for  distinction — are  liable  to  be  confounded 
by  an  observer  ;  and,  before  we  can  say  to  which  type  any  particular 
example  belongs,  it  is  necessary  to  ascertain  whether  the  animal  sacra¬ 
mentally  slain  belongs  to  a  species  which  is  habitually  spared,  or  to 
one  which  is  habitually  killed  by  the  tribe.  In  the  former  case  the 

example  belongs  to  the  Egyptian  type  of  sacrament,  in  the  latter  to 
the  Aino  type. 

The  practice  of  pastoral  tribes  appears  to  furnish  examples  of 
both  types  of  sacrament.  “  Pastoral  tribes/ *  says  Adolf  Bastian, 
being  sometimes  obliged  to  sell  their  herds  to  strangers  who  may 
handle  the  bones  disrespectfully,  seek  to  avert  the  danger  which  such 
a  sacrilege  would  entail  by  consecrating  one  of  the  herd  as  an  object 
of  worship,  eating  it  sacramentally  in  the  family  circle  with  closed 
doors,  and  afterwards  treating  the  bones  with  all  the  ceremonious 
respect  which,  strictly  speaking,  should  be  accorded  to  every  head  of 
cattle,  but  which,  being  punctually  paid  to  the  representative  animal, 


TYPES  OF  ANIMAL  SACRAMENT 


CH. 


534 


is  deemed  to  be  paid  to  all.  Such  family  meals  are  found  among 
various  peoples,  especially  those  of  the  Caucasus.  When  amongst  the 
Abchases  the  shepherds  in  spring  eat  their  common  meal  with  their 
loins  girt  and  their  staves  in  their  hands,  this  may  be  looked  upon 
both  as  a  sacrament  and  as  an  oath  of  mutual  help  and  support.  For 
the  strongest  of  all  oaths  is  that  which  is  accompanied  with  the  eating 
of  a  sacred  substance,  since  the  perjured  person  cannot  possibly  escape 
the  avenging  god  whom  he  has  taken  into  his  body  and  assimilated.” 
This  kind  of  sacrament  is  of  the  Aino  or  expiatory  type,  since  it  is 
meant  to  atone  to  the  species  for  the  possible  ill-usage  of  individuals. 
An  expiation,  similar  in  principle  but  different  in  details,  is  offered  by 
the  Kalmucks  to  the  sheep,  whose  flesh  is  one  of  their  staple  foods. 
Rich  Kalmucks  are  in  the  habit  of  consecrating  a  white  ram  under  the 
title  of  “  the  ram  of  heaven  ”  or  “  the  ram  of  the  spirit.”  The  animal 
is  never  shorn  and  never  sold  ;  but  when  it  grows  old  and  its  owner 
washes  to  consecrate  a  new  one,  the  old  ram  must  be  killed  and  eaten 
at  a  feast  to  which  the  neighbours  are  invited.  On  a  lucky  day, 
generally  in  autumn  when  the  sheep  are  fat,  a  sorcerer  kills  the  old 
ram,  after  sprinkling  it  with  milk.  Its  flesh  is  eaten  ;  the  skeleton, 
with  a  portion  of  the  fat,  is  burned  on  a  turf  altar  ;  and  the  skin,  with 
the  head  and  feet,  is  hung  up. 

An  example  of  a  sacrament  of  the  Egyptian  type  is  furnished  by 
the  Todas,  a  pastoral  people  of  Southern  India,  who  subsist  largely 
upon  the  milk  of  their  buffaloes.  Amongst  them  “  the  buffalo  is  to  a 
certain  degree  held  sacred  ”  and  “  is  treated  with  great  kindness,  even 
with  a  degree  of  adoration,  by  the  people.”  They  never  eat  the  flesh 
of  the  cow  buffalo,  and  as  a  rule  abstain  from  the  flesh  of  the  male. 
But  to  the  latter  rule  there  is  a  single  exception.  Once  a  year  all  the 
adult  males  of  the  village  join  in  the  ceremony  of  killing  and  eating  a 
very  young  male  calf — seemingly  under  a  month  old.  They  take  the 
animal  into  the  dark  recesses  of  the  village  wood,  where  it  is  killed 
with  a  club  made  from  the  sacred  tree  of  the  Todas  (the  Millingtonia). 
A  sacred  fire  having  been  made  by  the  rubbing  of  sticks,  the  flesh  of 
the  calf  is  roasted  on  the  embers  of  certain  trees,  and  is  eaten  by  the 
men  alone,  women  being  excluded  from  the  assembly.  This  is  the 
only  occasion  on  which  the  Todas  eat  buffalo  flesh.  The  Madi  or 
Moru  tribe  of  Central  Africa,  whose  chief  wealth  is  their  cattle,  though 
they  also  practise  agriculture,  appear  to  kill  a  lamb  sacramentally  on 
certain  solemn  occasions.  The  custom  is  thus  described  by  Dr.  Felkin  : 
“  A  remarkable  custom  is  observed  at  stated  times — once  a  year,  I  am 
led  to  believe.  I  have  not  been  able  to  ascertain  what  exact  meaning 
is  attached  to  it.  It  appears,  however,  to  relieve  the  people’s  minds, 
for  beforehand  they  evince  much  sadness,  and  seem  very  joyful  when 
the  ceremony  is  duly  accomplished.  The  following  is  what  takes 
place :  A  large  concourse  of  people  of  all  ages  assemble,  and  sit  down 
round  a  circle  of  stones,  which  is  erected  by  the  side  of  a  road  (really 
a  narrow  path).  A  very  choice  lamb  is  then  fetched  by  a  boy,  who 
leads  it  four  times  round  the  assembled  people.  As  it  passes  they 


LIV 


PROCESSIONS  WITH  SACRED  ANIMALS 


535 


pluck  off  little  bits  of  its  fleece  and  place  them  in  their  hair,  or  on  to 
some  other  part  of  their  body.  The  lamb  is  then  led  up  to  the  stones, 
and  there  killed  by  a  man  belonging  to  a  kind  of  priestly  order,  who 
takes  some  of  the  blood  and  sprinkles  it  four  times  over  the  people. 
He  then  applies  it  individually.  On  the  children  he  makes  a  small 
ring  of  blood  over  the  lower  end  of  the  breast  bone,  on  women  and 
girls  he  makes  a  mark  above  the  breasts,  and  the  men  he  touches  on 
each  shoulder.  He  then  proceeds  to  explain  the  ceremony,  and  to 
exhort  the  people  to  show  kindness.  .  .  .  When  this  discourse,  which 
is  at  times  of  great  length,  is  over,  the  people  rise,  each  places  a  leaf 
on  or  by  the  circle  of  stones,  and  then  they  depart  with  signs  of  great 
joy.  The  lamb’s  skull  is  hung  on  a  tree  near  the  stones,  and  its  flesh 
is  eaten  by  the  poor.  This  ceremony  is  observed  on  a  small  scale  at 
other  times.  If  a  family  is  in  any  great  trouble,  through  illness  or 
bereavement,  their  friends  and  neighbours  come  together  and  a  lamb 
is  killed  ;  this  is  thought  to  avert  further  evil.  The  same  custom 
prevails  at  the  grave  of  departed  friends,  and  also  on  joyful  occasions, 
such  as  the  return  of  a  son  home  after  a  very  prolonged  absence.” 
The  sorrow  thus  manifested  by  the  people  at  the  annual  slaughter  of 
the  lamb  seems  to  show  that  the  lamb  slain  is  a  sacred  or  divine 
animal,  whose  death  is  mourned  by  his  worshippers,  just  as  the  death 
of  the  sacred  buzzard  was  mourned  by  the  Californians  and  the  death 
of  the  Theban  ram  by  the  Egyptians.  The  smearing  each  of  the 
worshippers  with  the  blood  of  the  lamb  is  a  form  of  communion  with 
the  divinity  ;  the  vehicle  of  the  divine  life  is  applied  externally  instead 
of  being  taken  internally,  as  when  the  blood  is  drunk  or  the  flesh  eaten. 

§  2.  Processions  with  Sacred  Animals. — The  form  of  communion 
in  which  the  sacred  animal  is  taken  from  house  to  house,  that  all  may 
enjoy  a  share  of  its  divine  influence,  has  been  exemplified  by  the  Gilyak 
custom  of  promenading  the  bear  through  the  village  before  it  is  slain. 
A  similar  form  of  communion  with  the  sacred  snake  is  observed  by  a 
Snake  tribe  in  the  Punjaub.  Once  a  year  in  the  month  of  September 
the  snake  is  worshipped  by  all  castes  and  religions  for  nine  days  only. 
At  the  end  of  August  the  Mirasans,  especially  those  of  the  Snake 
tribe,  make  a  snake  of  dough  which  they  paint  black  and  red,  and 
place  on  a  winnowing  basket.  This  basket  they  carry  round  the 
village,  and  on  entering  any  house  they  say  :  “  God  be  with  you  all  ! 
May  every  ill  be  far  !  May  our  patron’s  (Gugga’s)  word  thrive  !  ” 
Then  they  present  the  basket  with  the  snake,  saying  :  “A  small 
cake  of  flour  :  a  little  bit  of  butter  :  if  you  obey  the  snake,  you  and 
yours  shall  thrive  !  ”  Strictly  speaking,  a  cake  and  butter  should  be 
given,  but  it  is  seldom  done.  Every  one,  however,  gives  something, 
generally  a  handful  of  dough  or  some  corn.  In  houses  where  there 
is  a  new  bride  or  whence  a  bride  has  gone,  or  where  a  son  has  been 
born,  it  is  usual  to  give  a  rupee  and  a  quarter,  or  some  cloth.  Some¬ 
times  the  bearers  of  the  snake  also  sing : 


“  Give  the  snake  a  piece  of  cloth,  and  he  will  send  a  lively  bride  !  ” 


536  TYPES  OF  ANIMAL  SACRAMENT  ch. 

When  every  house  has  been  thus  visited,  the  dough  snake  is  buried 
and  a  small  grave  is  erected  over  it.  Thither  during  the  nine  days 
of  September  the  women  come  to  worship.  They  bring  a  basin  of 
curds,  a  small  portion  of  which  they  offer  at  the  snake’s  grave,  kneeling 
on  the  ground  and  touching  the  earth  with  their  foreheads.  Then 
they  go  home  and  divide  the  rest  of  the  curds  among  the  children. 
Here  the  dough  snake  is  clearly  a  substitute  for  a  real  snake.  Indeed, 
in  districts  where  snakes  abound  the  worship  is  offered,  not  at  the 
grave  of  the  dough  snake,  but  in  the  jungles  where  snakes  are  known 
to  be.  Besides  this  yearly  worship,  performed  by  all  the  people,  the 
members  of  the  Snake  tribe  worship  in  the  same  way  every  morning 
after  a  new  moon.  The  Snake  tribe  is  not  uncommon  in  the  Punjaub. 
Members  of  it  will  not  kill  a  snake,  and  they  say  that  its  bite  does  not 
hurt  them.  If  they  find  a  dead  snake,  they  put  clothes  on  it  and  give 
it  a  regular  funeral. 

Ceremonies  closely  analogous  to  this  Indian  worship  of  the  snake 
have  survived  in  Europe  into  recent  times,  and  doubtless  date  from  a 
very  primitive  paganism.  The  best-known  example  is  the  “  hunting 
of  the  wren.”  By  many  European  peoples — the  ancient  Greeks  and 
Romans,  the  modern  Italians,  Spaniards,  French,  Germans,  Dutch, 
Danes,  Swedes,  English,  and  Welsh — the  wren  has  been  designated 
the  king,  the  little  king,  the  king  of  birds,  the  hedge  king,  and  so 
forth,  and  has  been  reckoned  amongst  those  birds  which  it  is  extremely 
unlucky  to  kill.  In  England  it  is  supposed  that  if  any  one  kills  a  wren 
or  harries  its  nest  he  will  infallibly  break  a  bone  or  meet  with  some 
dreadful  misfortune  within  the  year  ;  sometimes  it  is  thought  that 
the  cows  will  give  bloody  milk.  In  Scotland  the  wren  is  called  “  the 
Lady  of  Heaven’s  hen,”  and  boys  say  : 

“  Malisons,  malisons,  mair  than  ten, 

That  harry  the  Ladye  of  Heaven’s  hen  !  ” 

At  Saint  Donan,  in  Brittany,  people  believe  that  if  children  touch  the 
young  wrens  in  the  nest  they  will  suffer  from  the  fire  of  St.  Lawrence, 
that  is,  from  pimples  on  the  face,  legs,  and  so  on.  In  other  parts  of 
France  it  is  thought  that  if  a  person  kills  a  wren  or  harries  its  nest 
his  house  will  be  struck  by  lightning,  or  that  the  fingers  with  which 
he  did  the  deed  will  shrivel  up  and  drop  off,  or  at  least  be  maimed,  or 
that  his  cattle  will  suffer  in  their  feet. 

Notwithstanding  such  beliefs,  the  custom  of  annually  killing  the 
wren  has  prevailed  widely  both  in  this  country  and  in  France.  In 
the  Isle  of  Man  down  to  the  eighteenth  century  the  custom  was  observed 
on  Christmas  Eve,  or  rather  Christmas  morning.  On  the  twenty-fourth 
of  December,  towards  evening,  all  the  servants  got  a  holiday  ;  they 
did  not  go  to  bed  all  night,  but  rambled  about  till  the  bells  rang  in 
all  the  churches  at  midnight.  When  prayers  were  over,  they  went  to 
hunt  the  wren,  and  having  found  one  of  these  birds  they  killed  it  and 
fastened  it  to  the  top  of  a  long  pole  with  its  wings  extended.  Thus 


liv  PROCESSIONS  WITH  SACRED  ANIMALS  537 

they  carried  it  in  procession  to  every  house,  chanting  the  following 
rhyme  : 

We  hunted  the  wren  for  Robin  the  Bobbin, 

We  hunted  the  wren  for  Jack  of  the  Can, 

W e  hunted  the  wren  for  Robin  the  Bobbin, 

We  hunted  the  wren  for  every  one." 

When  they  had  gone  from  house  to  house  and  collected  all  the  money 
they  could,  they  laid  the  wren  on  a  bier  and  carried  it  in  procession 
to  the  parish  churchyard,  where  they  made  a  grave  and  buried  it 
"  with  the  utmost  solemnity,  singing  dirges  over  her  in  the  Manks 
language,  which  they  call  her  knell ;  after  which  Christmas  begins.” 
The  burial  over,  the  company  outside  the  churchyard  formed  a  circle 
and  danced  to  music. 

A  writer  of  the  eighteenth  century  says  that  in  Ireland  the  wren 
“  is  still  hunted  and  killed  by  the  peasants  on  Christmas  Day,  and  on 
the  following  (St.  Stephen’s  Day)  he  is  carried  about,  hung  by  the  leg, 
in  the  centre  of  two  hoops,  crossing  each  other  at  right  angles,  and  a 
procession  made  in  every  village,  of  men,  women,  and  children,  singing 
an  Irish  catch,  importing  him  to  be  the  king  of  all  birds.”  Down  to 
the  present  time  the  "  hunting  of  the  wren  ”  still  takes  place  in  parts 
of  Leinster  and  Connaught.  On  Christmas  Day  or  St.  Stephen’s  Day 
the  boys  hunt  and  kill  the  wren,  fasten  it  in  the  middle  of  a  mass  of 
holly  and  ivy  on  the  top  of  a  broomstick,  and  on  St.  Stephen's  Day 
go  about  with  it  from  house  to  house,  singing  : 

“  The  wren,  the  wren,  the  king  of  all  birds, 

St.  Stephen’s  Day  was  caught  in  the  furze  ; 

Although  he  is  little,  his  family  ‘s  great, 

I  pray  you,  good  landlady,  give  us  a  treat." 

Money  or  food  (bread,  butter,  eggs,  etc.)  were  given  them,  upon  which 
they  feasted  in  the  evening. 

In  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  similar  customs  were 
still  observed  in  various  parts  of  the  south  of  France.  Thus  at  Car- 
cassone,  every  year  on  the  first  Sunday  of  December  the  young  people 
of  the  street  Saint  Jean  used  to  go  out  of  the  town  armed  with  sticks, 
with  which  they  beat  the  bushes,  looking  for  wrens.  The  first  to  strike 
down  one  of  these  birds  was  proclaimed  King.  Then  they  returned 
to  the  town  in  procession,  headed  by  the  King,  who  carried  the  wren 
on  a  pole.  On  the  evening  of  the  last  day  of  the  year  the  King  and  all 
who  had  hunted  the  wren  marched  through  the  streets  of  the  town  to 
the  light  of  torches,  with  drums  beating  and  fifes  playing  in  front  of 
them.  At  the  door  of  every  house  they  stopped,  and  one  of  them 
wrote  with  chalk  on  the  door  vive  le  roi  !  with  the  number  of  the  year 
which  was  about  to  begin.  On  the  morning  of  Twelfth  Day  the 
King  again  marched  in  procession  with  great  pomp,  wearing  a  crown 
and  a  blue  mantle  and  carrying  a  sceptre.  In  front  of  him  was  borne 
the  wren  fastened  to  the  top  of  a  pole,  which  was  adorned  with  a  verdant 
wreath  of  olive,  of  oak,  and  sometimes  of  mistletoe  grown  on  an  oak. 


538  THE  TRANSFERENCE  OF  EVIL  ch. 

After  hearing  high  mass  in  the  parish  church  of  St.  Vincent,  surrounded 
by  his  officers  and  guards,  the  King  visited  the  bishop,  the  mayor, 
the  magistrates,  and  the  chief  inhabitants,  collecting  money  to  defray 
the  expenses  of  the  royal  banquet  which  took  place  in  the  evening 
and  wound  up  with  a  dance. 

The  parallelism  between  this  custom  of  "  hunting  the  wren  ”  and 
some  of  those  which  we  have  considered,  especially  the  Gilyak  pro¬ 
cession  with  the  bear,  and  the  Indian  one  with  the  snake,  seems  too 
close  to  allow  us  to  doubt  that  they  all  belong  to  the  same  circle  of 
ideas.  The  worshipful  animal  is  killed  with  special  solemnity  once  a 
year  ;  and  before  or  immediately  after  death  he  is  promenaded  from 
door  to  door,  that  each  of  his  worshippers  may  receive  a  portion  of  the 
divine  virtues  that  are  supposed  to  emanate  from  the  dead  or  dying 
god.  Religious  processions  of  this  sort  must  have  had  a  great  place 
in  the  ritual  of  European  peoples  in  prehistoric  times,  if  we  may  judge 
from  the  numerous  traces  of  them  which  have  survived  in  folk-custom. 
For  example,  on  the  last  day  of  the  year,  or  Hogmanay  as  it  was  called, 
it  Used  to  be  customary  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  for  a  man  to  dress 
himself  up  in  a  cow's  hide  and  thus  attired  to  go  from  house  to  house, 
attended  by  young  fellows,  each  of  them  armed  with  a  staff,  to  which 
a  bit  of  raw  hide  was  tied.  Round  every  house  the  hide-clad  man  used 
to  run  thrice  deiseal ,  that  is,  according  to  the  course  of  the  sun,  so  as  to 
keep  the  house  on  his  right  hand;  while  the  others  pursued  him, 
beating  the  hide  with  their  staves  and  thereby  making  a  loud  noise  like 
the  beating  of  a  drum.  In  this  disorderly  procession  they  also  struck 
the  walls  of  the  house.  On  being  admitted,  one  of  the  party,  standing 
within  the  threshold,  pronounced  a  blessing  on  the  family  in  these 
words  :  “  May  God  bless  the  house  and  all  that  belongs  to  it,  cattle, 
stones,  and  timber  !  In  plenty  of  meat,  of  bed  and  body  clothes,  and 
health  of  men  may  it  ever  abound  !  "  Then  each  of  the  party  singed 
in  the  fire  a  little  bit  of  the  hide  which  was  tied  to  his  staff ;  and  having 
done  so  he  applied  the  singed  hide  to  the  nose  of  every  person  and  of 
every  domestic  animal  belonging  to  the  house.  This  was  imagined  to 
secure  them  from  diseases  and  other  misfortunes,  particularly  from 
witchcraft,  throughout  the  ensuing  year.  The  whole  ceremony  was 
called  calluinn  because  of  the  great  noise  made  in  beating  the  hide. 
It  was  observed  in  the  Hebrides,  including  St.  Kilda,  down  to  the 
second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  at  least,  and  it  seems  to  have 
survived  well  into  the  nineteenth  century. 


CHAPTER  LV 

THE  TRANSFERENCE  OF  EVIL 

§  i.  The  Transference  to  Inanimate  Objects. — We  have  now  traced 
the  practice  of  killing  a  god  among  peoples  in  the  hunting,  pastoral, 
and  agricultural  stages  of  society ;  and  I  have  attempted  to  explain 


lv  THE  TRANSFERENCE  TO  INANIMATE  OBJECTS  539 

the  motives  which  led  men  to  adopt  so  curious  a  custom.  One  aspect 
of  the  custom  still  remains  to  be  noticed.  The  accumulated  mis¬ 
fortunes  and  sins  of  the  whole  people  are  sometimes  laid  upon  the 
dying  gpd,  who  is  supposed  to  bear  them  away  for  ever,  leaving  the 
people  innocent  and  happy.  The  notion  that  we  can  transfer  our 
guilt  and  sufferings  to  some  other  being  who  will  bear  them  for  us 
is  .familiar  to  the  savage  mind.  It  arises  from  a  very  obvious  con¬ 
fusion  between  the  physical  and  the  mental,  between  the  material 
and  the  immaterial.  Because  it  is  possible  to  shift  a  load  of  wood, 
stones,  or  what  not,  from  our  own  back  to  the  back  of  another,  the 
savage  fancies  that  it  is  equally  possible  to  shift  the  burden  of  his 
pains  and  sorrows  to  another,  who  will  suffer  them  in  his  stead.  Upon 
this  idea  he  acts,  and  the  result  is  an  endless  number  of  very  unamiable 
devices  for  palming  off  upon  some  one  else  the  trouble  which  a  man 
shi  inks  from  bearing  himself.  In  short,  the  principle  of  vicarious 
suffering  is  commonly  understood  and  practised  by  races  who  stand 
on  a  low  level  of  social  and  intellectual  culture.  In  the  following 
pages  I  shall  illustrate  the  theory  and  the  practice  as  they  are  found 
among  savages  in  all  their  naked  simplicity,  undisguised  by  the  refine¬ 
ments  of  metaphysics  and  the  subtleties  of  theology. 

The  devices  to  which  the  cunning  and  selfish  savage  resorts  for  the 
sake  of  easing  himself  at  the  expense  of  his  neighbour  are  manifold  ; 
only  a  few  typical  examples  out  of  a  multitude  can  be  cited.  At  the 
outset  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  evil  of  which  a  man  seeks  to  rid 
himself  need  not  be  transferred  to  a  person  ;  it  may  equally  well  be 
transferred  to  an  animal  or  a  thing,  though  in  the  last  case  the  thing 
is  often  only  a  vehicle  to  convey  the  trouble  to  the  first  person  who 
touches  it.  In  some  of  the  East  Indian  islands  they  think  that  epilepsy 
can  be  cured  by  striking  the  patient  on  the  face  with  the  leaves  of 
certain  trees  and  then  throwing  them  away.  The  disease  is  believed 
to  have  passed  into  the  leaves,  and  to  have  been  thrown  away  with 
them.  To  cure  toothache  some  of  the  Australian  blacks  apply  a  heated 
spear-thrower  to  the  cheek.  The  spear-thrower  is  then  cast  away,  and 
the  toothache  goes  with  it  in  the  shape  of  a  black  stone  called  karriitch. 
Stones  of  this  kind  are  found  in  old  mounds  and  sandhills.  They  are 
carefully  collected  and  thrown  in  the  direction  of  enemies  in  order  to 
give  them  toothache.  The  Bahima,  a  pastoral  people  of  Uganda, 
often  suffer  from  deep-seated  abscesses  :  “  their  cure  for  this  is  to 
transfer  the  disease  to  some  other  person  by  obtaining  herbs  from  the 
medicine-man,  rubbing  them  over  the  place  where  the  swelling  is,  and 
burying  them  in  the  road  where  people  continually  pass  ;  the  first 
person  who  steps  over  these  buried  herbs  contracts  the  disease,  and 
the  original  patient  recovers.” 

Sometimes  in  case  of  sickness  the  malady  is  transferred  to  an  effigy 
as  a  preliminary  to  passing  it  on  to  a  human  being.  Thus  among  the 
Baganda  the  medicine-man  would  sometimes  make  a  model  of  his 
patient  in  clay  ;  then  a  relative  of  the  sick  man  would  rub  the  image 
over  the  sufferer’s  body  and  either  bury  it  in  the  road  or  hide  it  in 

. 

* 


540 


THE  TRANSFERENCE  OF  EVIL 


CH. 


the  grass  by  the  wayside.  The  first  person  who  stepped  over  the 
image  or  passed  by  it  would  catch  the  disease.  Sometimes  the  effigy 
was  made  out  of  a  plantain-flower  tied  up  so  as  to  look  like  a  person  ; 
it  was  used  in  the  same  way  as  the  clay  figure.  But  the  use  of  images 
for  this  maleficent  purpose  was  a  capital  crime  ;  any  person  caught 
in  the  act  of  burying  one  of  them  in  the  public  road  would  surely  have 
been  put  to  death. 

In  the  western  district  of  the  island  of  Timor,  when  men  or  women 
are  making  long  and  tiring  journeys,  they  fan  themselves  with  leafy 
branches,  which  they  afterwards  throw  away  on  particular  spots  where 
their  forefathers  did  the  same  before  them.  The  fatigue  which  they 
felt  is  thus  supposed  to  have  passed  into  the  leaves  and  to  be  left 
behind.  Others  use  stones  instead  of  leaves.  Similarly  in  the  Babar 
Archipelago  tired  people  will  strike  themselves  with  stones,  believing 
that  they  thus  transfer  to  the  stones  the  weariness  which  they  felt  in 
their  own  bodies.  They  then  throw  away  the  stones  in  places  which 
are  specially  set  apart  for  the  purpose.  A  like  belief  and  practice  in 
many  distant  parts  of  the  world  have  given  rise  to  those  cairns  or 
heaps  of  sticks  and  leaves  which  travellers  often  observe  beside  the 
path,  and  to  which  every  passing  native  adds  his  contribution  in  the 
shape  of  a  stone,  or  stick,  or  leaf.  Thus  in  the  Solomon  and  Banks’ 
Islands  the  natives  are  wont  to  throw  sticks,  stones,  or  leaves  upon 
a  heap  at  a  place  of  steep  descent,  or  where  a  difficult  path  begins, 
saying,  "  There  goes  my  fatigue.”  The  act  is  not  a  religious  rite, 
for  the  thing  thrown  on  the  heap  is  not  an  offering  to  spiritual  powers, 
and  the  words  which  accompany  the  act  are  not  a  prayer.  It  is  nothing 
but  a  magical  ceremony  for  getting  rid  of  fatigue,  which  the  simple 
savage  fancies  he  can  embody  in  a  stick,  leaf,  or  stone,  and  so  cast  it 
from  him. 

§  2.  The  Transference  to  Animals. — Animals  are  often  employed  as 
a  vehicle  for  carrying  away  or  transferring  the  evil.  When  a  Moor  has 
a  headache  he  will  sometimes  take  a  lamb  or  a  goat  and  beat  it  till  it 
falls  down,  believing  that  the  headache  will  thus  be  transferred  to  the 
animal.  In  Morocco  most  wealthy  Moors  keep  a  wild  boar  in  their 
stables,  in  order  that  the  jinn  and  evil  spirits  may  be  diverted  from  the 
horses  and  enter  into  the  boar.  Amongst  the  Caffres  of  South  Africa, 
when  other  remedies  have  failed,  “  natives  sometimes  adopt  the 
custom  of  taking  a  goat  into  the  presence  of  a  sick  man,  and  confess 
the  sins  of  the  kraal  over  the  animal.  Sometimes  a  few  drops  of  blood 
from  the  sick  man  are  allowed  to  fall  on  the  head  of  the  goat,  which 
is  turned  out  into  an  uninhabited  part  of  the  veldt.  The  sickness  is 
supposed  to  be  transferred  to  the  animal,  and  to  become  lost  in  the 
desert.”  In  Arabia,  when  the  plague  is  raging,  the  people  will  some¬ 
times  lead  a  camel  through  all  the  quarters  of  the  town  in  order  that 
the  animal  may  take  the  pestilence  on  itself.  Then  they  strangle  it 
in  a  sacred  place  and  imagine  that  they  have  rid  themselves  of  the 
camel  and  of  the  plague  at  one  blow.  It  is  said  that  when  smallpox 
is  raging  the  savages  of  Formosa  will  drive  the  demon  of  disease  into 


LV 


THE  TRANSFERENCE  TO  ANIMALS 


54i 


a  sow,  then  cut  off  the  animal’s  ears  and  burn  them  or  it,  believing  that 
in  this  way  they  rid  themselves  of  the  plague. 

Amongst  the  Malagasy  the  vehicle  for  carrying  away  evils  is  called 
a  faditra.  “  The  faditra  is  anything  selected  by  the  sikidy  [divining 
board]  for  the  purpose  of  taking  away  any  hurtful  evils  or  diseases  that 
might  prove  injurious  to  an  individual’s  happiness,  peace,  or  prosperity. 
The  faditra  may  be  either  ashes,  cut  money,  a  sheep,  a  pumpkin,  or 
anything  else  the  sikidy  may  choose  to  direct.  After  the  particular 
article  is  appointed,  the  priest  counts  upon  it  all  the  evils  that  may 
prove  injurious  to  the  person  for  whom  it  is  made,  and  which  he  then 
charges  the  faditra  to  take  away  for  ever.  If  the  faditra  be  ashes,  it 
is  blown,  to  be  carried  away  by  the  wind.  If  it  be  cut  money,  it  is 
thrown  to  the  bottom  of  deep  water,  or  where  it  can  never  be  found. 
If  it  be  a  sheep,  it  is  carried  away  to  a  distance  on  the  shoulders  of  a 
man,  who  runs  with  all  his  might,  mumbling  as  he  goes,  as  if  in  the 
greatest  rage  against  the  faditra,  for  the  evils  it  is  bearing  away.  If 
it  be  a  pumpkin,  it  is  carried  on  the  shoulders  to  a  little  distance,  and 
there  dashed  upon  the  ground  with  every  appearance  of  fury  and 
indignation.”  A  Malagasy  was  informed  by  a  diviner  that  he  was 
doomed  to  a  bloody  death,  but  that  possibly  he  might  avert  his  fate 
by  performing  a  certain  rite.  Carrying  a  small  vessel  full  of  blood 
upon  his  head,  he  was  to  mount  upon  the  back  of  a  bullock ;  while 
thus  mounted,  he  was  to  spill  the  blood  upon  the  bullock’s  head,  and 
then  send  the  animal  away  into  the  wilderness,  whence  it  might  never 
return. 

The  Bataks  of  Sumatra  have  a  ceremony  which  they  call  "  making 
the  curse  to  fly  away.”  When  a  woman  is  childless,  a  sacrifice  is 
offered  to  the  gods  of  three  grasshoppers,  representing  a  head  of  cattle, 
a  buffalo,  and  a  horse.  Then  a  swallow  is  set  free,  with  a  prayer 
that  the  curse  may  fall  upon  the  bird  and  fly  away  with  it.  “  The 
entrance  into  a  house  of  an  animal  which  does  not  generally  seek  to 
share  the  abode  of  man  is  regarded  by  the  Malays  as  ominous  of  mis¬ 
fortune.  If  a  wild  bird  flies  into  a  house,  it  must  be  carefully  caught 
and  smeared  with  oil,  and  must  then  be  released  in  the  open  air,  a 
formula  being  recited  in  which  it  is  bidden  to  fly  away  with  all  the 
ill-luck  and  misfortunes  of  the  occupier.”  In  antiquity  Greek  women 
seem  to  have  done  the  same  with  swallows  which  they  caught  in  the 
house  :  they  poured  oil  on  them  and  let  them  fly  away,  apparently  for 
the  purpose  of  removing  ill-luck  from  the  household.  The  Huzuls  of 
the  Carpathians  imagine  that  they  can  transfer  freckles  to  the  first 
swallow  they  see  in  spring  by  washing  their  face  in  flowing  water  and 
saying,  “  Swallow,  swallow,  take  my  freckles,  and  give  me  rosy  cheeks.” 

Among  the  Badagas  of  the  Neilgherry  Hills  in  Southern  India, 
when  a  death  has  taken  place,  the  sins  of  the  deceased  are  laid  upon  a 
buffalo  calf.  For  this  purpose  the  people  gather  round  the  corpse  and 
carry  it  outside  of  the  village.  There  an  elder  of  the  tribe,  standing  at 
the  head  of  the  corpse,  recites  or  chants  a  long  list  of  sins  such  as  any 
Badaga  may  commit,  and  the  people  repeat  the  last  words  of  each 


542 


THE  TRANSFERENCE  OF  EVIL 


CH. 


line  after  him.  The  confession  of  sins  is  thrice  repeated.  "  By  a 
conventional  mode  of  expression,  the  sum  total  of  sins  a  man  may  do 
is  said  to  be  thirteen  hundred.  Admitting  that  the  deceased  has 
committed  them  all,  the  performer  cries  aloud,  ‘  Stay  not  their  flight 
to  God’s  pure  feet/  As  he  closes,  the  whole  assembly  chants  aloud 
‘  Stay  not  their  flight.’  Again  the  performer  enters  into  details,  and 
cries,  ‘  He  killed  the  crawling  snake.  It  is  a  sin.’  In  a  moment  the 
last  word  is  caught  up,  and  all  the  people  cry  ‘  It  is  a  sin.’  As  they 
shout,  the  performer  lays  his  hand  upon  the  calf.  The  sin  is  trans¬ 
ferred  to  the  calf.  Thus  the  whole  catalogue  is  gone  through  in  this 
impressive  way.  But  this  is  not  enough.  As  the  last  shout  ‘  Let  all 
be  well  ’  dies  away,  the  performer  gives  place  to  another,  and  again 
confession  is  made,  and  all  the  people  shout  *  It  is  a  sin.’  A  third 
time  it  is  done.  Then,  still  in  solemn  silence,  the  calf  is  let  loose. 
Like  the  Jewish  scapegoat,  it  may  never  be  used  for  secular  work.” 
At  a  Badaga  funeral  witnessed  by  the  Rev.  A.  C.  Clayton  the  buffalo 
calf  was  led  thrice  round  the  bier,  and  the  dead  man’s  hand  was  laid 
on  its  head.  “  By  this  act,  the  calf  was  supposed  to  receive  all  the  , 
sins  of  the  deceased.  It  was  then  driven  away  to  a  great  distance,  •; 
that  it  might  contaminate  no  one,  and  it  was  said  that  it  would  never 
be  sold,  but  looked  on  as  a  dedicated  sacred  animal.”  “  The  idea  of 
this  ceremony  is,  that  the  sins  of  the  deceased  enter  the  calf,  or  that 
the  task  of  his  absolution  is  laid  on  it.  They  say  that  the  calf  very  , 
soon  disappears,  and  that  it  is  never  after  heard  of.” 

§  3.  The  Transference  to  Men. — Again,  men  sometimes  play  the 
part  of  scapegoat  by  diverting  to  themselves  the  evils  that  threaten 
others.  When  a  Cingalese  is  dangerously  ill,  and  the  physicians  can 
do  nothing,  a  devil-dancer  is  called  in,  who  by  making  offerings  to 
the  devils,  and  dancing  in  the  masks  appropriate  to  them,  conjures 
these  demons  of  disease,  one  after  the  other,  out  of  the  sick  man’s 
body  and  into  his  own.  Having  thus  successfully  extracted  the  cause 
of  the  malady,  the  artful  dancer  lies  down  on  a  bier,  and  shamming 
death  is  carried  to  an  open  place  outside  the  village.  Here,  being 
left  to  himself,  he  soon  comes  to  life  again,  and  hastens  back  to  claim 
his  reward.  In  1590  a  Scotch  witch  of  the  name  of  Agnes  Sampson 
was  convicted  of  curing  a  certain  Robert  Kers  of  a  disease  "  laid  upon 
him  by  a  westland  warlock  when  he  was  at  Dumfries,  whilk  sickness 
she  took  upon  herself,  and  kept  the  same  with  great  groaning  and 
torment  till  the  morn,  at  whilk  time  there  was  a  great  din  heard  in 
the  house.”  The  noise  was  made  by  the  witch  in  her  efforts  to  shift 
the  disease,  by  means  of  clothes,  from  herself  to  a  cat  or  dog.  Un¬ 
fortunately  the  attempt  partly  miscarried.  The  disease  missed  the 
animal  and  hit  Alexander  Douglas  of  Dalkeith,  who  dwined  and  died 
of  it,  while  the  original  patient,  Robert  Kers,  was  made  whole. 

“  In  one  part  of  New  Zealand  an  expiation  for  sin  was  felt  to  be 
necessary  ;  a  service  was  performed  over  an  individual,  by  which  all 
the  sins  of  the  tribe  were  supposed  to  be  transferred  to  him,  a  fern 
stalk  was  previously  tied  to  his  person,  with  which  he  jumped  into 


LV 


THE  TRANSFERENCE  TO  MEN 


543 


the  river,  and  there  unbinding,  allowed  it  to  float  away  to  the  sea, 
bearing  their  sins  with  it.”  In  great  emergencies  the  sins  of  the 
Rajah  of  Manipur  used  to  be  transferred  to  somebody  else,  usually 
to  a  criminal,  who  earned  his  pardon  by  his  vicarious  sufferings.  To 
effect  the  transference  the  Rajah  and  his  wife,  clad  in  fine  robes, 
bathed  on  a  scaffold  erected  in  the  bazaar,  while  the  criminal  crouched 
beneath  it.  With  the  water  which  dripped  from  them  on  him  their 
sins  also  were  washed  away  and  fell  on  the  human  scapegoat.  To 
complete  the  transference  the  Rajah  and  his  wife  made  over  their 
fine  robes  to  their  substitute,  while  they  themselves,  clad  in  new 
raiment,  mixed  with  the  people  till  evening.  In  Travancore,  when 
a  Rajah  is  near  his  end,  they  seek  out  a  holy  Brahman,  who 

consents  to  take  upon  himself  the  sins  of  the  dying  man  in 

consideration  of  the  sum  of  ten  thousand  rupees.  Thus  prepared 
to  immolate  himself  on  the  altar  of  duty,  the  saint  is  introduced 
into  the  chamber  of  death,  and  closely  embraces  the  dying  Rajah, 
saying  to  him,  “  O  King,  I  undertake  to  bear  all  your  sins  and 

diseases.  May  your  Highness  live  long  and  reign  happily.”  Having 

thus  taken  to  himself  the  sins  of  the  sufferer,  he  is  sent  away  from 
the  country  and  never  more  allowed  to  return.  At  Utch  Kurgan  in 
Turkestan  Mr.  Schuyler  saw  an  old  man  who  was  said  to  get  his 
living  by  taking  on  himself  the  sins  of  the  dead,  and  thenceforth 
devoting  his  life  to  prayer  for  their  souls. 

In  Uganda,  when  an  army  had  returned  from  war,  and  the  gods 
warned  the  king  by  their  oracles  that  some  evil  had  attached  itself 
to  the  soldiers,  it  was  customary  to  pick  out  a  woman  slave  from  the 
captives,  together  with  a  cow,  a  goat,  a  fowl,  and  a  dog  from  the 
booty,  and  to  send  them  back  under  a  strong  guard  to  the  borders 
of  the  country  from  which  they  had  come.  There  their  limbs  were 
broken  and  they  were  left  to  die  ;  for  they  were  too  crippled  to  crawl 
back  to  Uganda.  In  order  to  ensure  the  transference  of  the  evil  to 
these  substitutes,  bunches  of  grass  were  rubbed  over  the  people  and 
cattle  and  then  tied  to  the  victims.  After  that  the  army  was  pro¬ 
nounced  clean  and  was  allowed  to  return  to  the  capital.  So  on  his 
accession  a  new  king  of  Uganda  used  to  wound  a  man  and  send  him 
away  as  a  scapegoat  to  Bunyoro  to  carry  away  any  uncleanness  that 
might  attach  to  the  king  or  queen. 

§  4.  The  Transference  of  Evil  in  Europe. — The  examples  of  the 
transference  of  evil  hitherto  adduced  have  been  mostly  drawn  from 
the  customs  of  savage  or  barbarous  peoples.  But  similar  attempts 
to  shift  the  burden  of  disease,  misfortune,  and  sin  from  one's  self  to 
another  person,  or  to  an  animal  or  thing,  have  been  common  also 
among  the  civilised  nations  of  Europe,  both  in  ancient  and  modern 
times.  A  Roman  cure  for  fever  was  to  pare  the  patient's  nails,  and 
stick  the  parings  with  wax  on  a  neighbour’s  door  before  sunrise  ; 
the  fever  then  passed  from  the  sick  man  to  his  neighbour.  Similar 
devices  must  have  been  resorted  to  by  the  Greeks  ;  for  in  laying 
down  laws  for  his  ideal  state,  Plato  thinks  it  too  much  to  expect  that 


544 


THE  TRANSFERENCE  OF  EVIL 


CH. 


men  should  not  be  alarmed  at  finding  certain  wax  figures  adhering 
to  their  doors  or  to  the  tombstones  of  their  parents,  or  lying  at  cross¬ 
roads.  In  the  fourth  century  of  our  era  Marcellus  of  Bordeaux  pre¬ 
scribed  a  cure  for  warts,  which  has  still  a  great  vogue  among  the 
superstitious  in  various  parts  of  Europe.  You  are  to  touch  your 
warts  with  as  many  little  stones  as  you  have  warts  ;  then  wrap 
the  stones  in  an  ivy  leaf,  and  throw  them  away  in  a  thoroughfare. 
Whoever  picks  them  up  will  get  the  warts,  and  you  will  be  rid  of 
them.  People  in  the  Orkney  Islands  will  sometimes  wash  a  sick  man, 
and  then  throw  the  water  down  at  a  gateway,  in  the  belief  that  the 
sickness  will  leave  the  patient  and  be  transferred  to  the  first  person 
who  passes  through  the  gate.  A  Bavarian  cure  for  fever  is  to  write 
upon  a  piece  of  paper,  “  Fever,  stay  away,  I  am  not  at  home,”  and 
to  put  the  paper  in  somebody’s  pocket.  The  latter  then  catches  the 
fever,  and  the  patient  is  rid  of  it.  A  Bohemian  prescription  for  the 
same  malady  is  this.  Take  an  empty  pot,  go  with  it  to  a  cross-road, 
throw  it  down,  and  run  away.  The  first  person  who  kicks  against 
the  pot  will  catch  your  fever,  and  you  will  be  cured. 

Often  in  Europe,  as  among  savages,  an  attempt  is  made  to  transfer 
a  pain  or  malady  from  a  man  to  an  animal.  Grave  writers  of  antiquity 
recommended  that,  if  a  man  be  stung  by  a  scorpion,  he  should 
sit  upon  an  ass  with  his  face  to  the  tail,  or  whisper  in  the  animal’s 
ear,  "  A  scorpion  has  stung  me”;  in  either  case,  they  thought,  the 
pain  would  be  transferred  from  the  man  to  the  ass.  Many  cures  of 
this  sort  are  recorded  by  Marcellus.  For  example,  he  tells  us  that 
the  following  is  a  remedy  for  toothache.  Standing  booted  under  the 
open  sky  on  the  ground,  you  catch  a  frog  by  the  head,  spit  into  its 
mouth,  ask  it  to  carry  away  the  ache,  and  then  let  it  go.  But  the 
ceremony  must  be  performed  on  a  lucky  day  and  at  a  lucky  hour. 
In  Cheshire  the  ailment  known  as  aphtha  or  thrush,  which  affects 
the  mouth  or  throat  of  infants,  is  not  uncommonly  treated  in  much 
the  same  manner.  A  young  frog  is  held  for  a  few  moments  with  its 
head  inside  the  mouth  of  the  sufferer,  whom  it  is  supposed  to  relieve 
by  taking  the  malady  to  itself.  “  I  assure  you,”  said  an  old  woman 
who  had  often  superintended  such  a  cure,  "  we  used  to  hear  the  poor 
frog  whooping  and  coughing,  mortal  bad,  for  days  after  ;  it  would 
have  made  your  heart  ache  to  hear  the  poor  creature  coughing  as  it 
did  about  the  garden.”  A  Northamptonshire,  Devonshire,  and  Welsh 
cure  for  a  cough  is  to  put  a  hair  of  the  patient’s  head  between  two 
slices  of  buttered  bread  and  give  the  sandwich  to  a  dog.  The  animal 
will  thereupon  catch  the  cough  and  the  patient  will  lose  it.  Some¬ 
times  an  ailment  is  transferred  to  an  animal  by  sharing  food  with  it. 
Thus  in  Oldenburg,  if  you  are  sick  of  a  fever  you  set  a  bowl  of  sweet 
milk  before  a  dog  and  say,  "  Good  luck,  you  hound  !  may  you  be 
sick  and  I  be  sound  !  ”  Then  when  the  dog  has  lapped  some  of  the 
milk,  you  take  a  swig  at  the  bowl ;  and  then  the  dog  must  lap  again, 
and  then  you  must  swig  again  ;  and  when  you  and  the  dog  have 
done  it  the  third  time,  he  will  have  the  fever  and  you  will  be  quit  of  it. 


lv  THE  TRANSFERENCE  OF  EVIL  IN  EUROPE  545 

A  Bohemian  cure  for  fever  is  to  go  out  into  the  forest  before  the 
sun  is  up  and  look  for  a  snipe’s  nest.  When  you  have  found  it,  take 
out  one  of  the  young  birds  and  keep  it  beside  you  for  three  days. 
Then  go  back  into  the  wood  and  set  the  snipe  free.  The  fever  will 
leave  you  at  once.  The  snipe  has  taken  it  away.  So  in  Vedic  times 
the  Hindoos  of  old  sent  consumption  away  with  a  blue  jay.  They 
said,  “  O  consumption,  fly  away,  fly  away  with  the  blue  jay  !  With 
the  wild  rush  of  the  storm  and  the  whirlwind,  oh,  vanish  away!  ” 
In  the  village  of  Llandegla  in  Wales  there  is  a  church  dedicated  to 
the  virgin  martyr  St.  Tecla,  where  the  falling  sickness  is,  or  used  to 
be,  cured  by  being  transferred  to  a  fowl.  .  The  patient  first  washed 
his  limbs  in  a  sacred  well  hard  by,  dropped  fourpence  into  it  as  an 
offering,  walked  thrice  round  the  well,  and  thrice  repeated  the  Lord’s 
prayer.  Then  the  fowl,  which  was  a  cock  or  a  hen  according  as  the 
patient  was  a  man  or  a  woman,  was  put  into  a  basket  and  carried 
round  first  the  well  and  afterwards  the  church.  Next  the  sufferer 
entered  the  church  and  lay  down  under  the  communion  table  till 
break  of  day.  After  that  he  offered  sixpence  and  departed,  leaving 
the  fowl  in  the  church.  If  the  bird  died,  the  sickness  was  supposed 
to  have  been  transferred  to  it  from  the  man  or  woman,  who  was  now 
rid  of  the  disorder.  As  late  as  1855  the  old  parish  clerk  of  the  village 
remembered  quite  well  to  have  seen  the  birds  staggering  about  from 
the  effects  of  the  fits  which  had  been  transferred  to  them. 

Often  the  sufferer  seeks  to  shift  his  burden  of  sickness  or  ill-luck 
to  some  inanimate  object.  In  Athens  there  is  a  little  chapel  of  St. 
John  the  Baptist  built  against  an  ancient  column.  Fever  patients 
resort  thither,  and  by  attaching  a  waxed  thread  to  the  inner  side  of 
the  column  believe  that  they  transfer  the  fever  from  themselves  to 
the  pillar..  In  the  Mark  of  Brandenburg  they  say  that  if  you  suffer 
from  giddiness  you  should  strip  yourself  naked  and  run  thrice  round 
a  flax-field  after  sunset ;  in  that  way  the  flax  will  get  the  giddiness 
and  you  will  be  rid  of  it. 

But  perhaps  the  thing  most  commonly  employed  in  Europe  as  a 
receptacle  for  sickness  and  trouble  of  all  sorts  is  a  tree  or  bush.  A 
Bulgarian  cure  for  fever  is  to  run  thrice  round  a  willow-tree  at  sunrise, 
crying,  “  The  fever  shall  shake  thee,  and  the  sun  shall  warm  me.” 
In  the  Greek  island  of  Karpathos  the  priest  ties  a  red  thread  round 
the  neck  of  a  sick  person.  Next  morning  the  friends  of  the  patient 
remove  the  thread  and  go  out  to  the  hillside,  where  they  tie  the'  thread 
to  a  tree,  thinking  that  they  thus  transfer  the  sickness  to  the  tree. 
Italians  attempt  to  cure  fever  in  like  manner  by  tethering  it  to  a  tree. 
The  sufferer  ties  a  thread  round  his  left  wrist  at  night,  and  hangs 
the  thread  on  a  tree  next  morning.  The  fever  is  thus  believed  to 
be  tied  up  to  the  tree,  and  the  patient  to  be  rid  of  it ;  but  he  must 
be  careful  not  to  pass  by  that  tree  again,  otherwise  the  fever  would 
break  loose  from  its  bonds  and  attack  him  afresh.  A  Flemish  cure 
for  the  ague  is  to  go  early  in  the  morning  to  an  old  willow,  tie  three 
knots  in  one  of  its  branches,  say,  “  Good-morrow,  Old  One,  I  give 

2  N 


THE  PUBLIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS 


CH. 


546 


thee  the  cold  ;  good-morrow,  Old  One,”  then  turn  and  run  away 
without  looking  round.  In  Sonnenberg,  if  you  would  rid  yourself 
of  gout  you  should  go  to  a  young  fir-tree  and  tie  a  knot  in  one  of  its 
twigs,  saying,  “  God  greet  thee,  noble  fir.  I  bring  thee  my  gout. 
Here  will  I  tie  a  knot  and  bind  my  gout  into  it.  In  the  name,”  etc. 

Another  way  of  transferring  gout  from  a  man  to  a  tree  is  this. 
Pare  the  nails  of  the  sufferer’s  fingers  and  clip  some  hairs  from  his 
legs.  Bore  a  hole  in  an  oak,  stuff  the  nails  and  hair  in  the  hole,  stop 
up  the  hole  again,  and  smear  it  with  cow’s  dung.  If,  for  three  months 
thereafter,  the  patient  is  free  of  gout,  you  may  be  sure  the  oak  has 
it  in  his  stead.  In  Cheshire  if  you  would  be  rid  of  warts,  you  have 
only  to  rub  them  with  a  piece  of  bacon,  cut  a  slit  in  the  bark  of  an 
ash-tree,  and  slip  the  bacon  under  the  bark.  Soon  the  warts  will 
disappear  from  your  hand,  only  however  to  reappear  in  the  shape 
of  rough  excrescences  or  knobs  on  the  bark  of  the  tree.  At  Berk- 
hampstead,  in  Hertfordshire,  there  used  to  be  certain  oak-trees  which 
were  long  celebrated  for  the  cure  of  ague.  The  transference  of  the 
malady  to  the  tree  was  simple  but  painful.  A  lock  of  the  sufferer’s  j 
hair  was  pegged  into  an  oak  ;  then  by  a  sudden  wrench  he  left  his 
hair  and  his  ague  behind  him  in  the  tree. 


CHAPTER  LVI 

THE  PUBLIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS 

§  i.  The  Omnipresence  of  Demons. — In  the  foregoing  chapter  the 
primitive  principle  of  the  transference  of  ills  to  another  person, 
animal,  or  thing  was  explained  and  illustrated.  But  similar  means 
have  been  adopted  to  free  a  whole  community  from  diverse  evils 
that  afflict  it.  Such  attempts  to  dismiss  at  once  the  accumulated  ! 
sorrows  of  a  people  are  by  no  means  rare  or  exceptional ;  on  the  « 
contrary  they  have  been  made  in  many  lands,  and  from  being  occasional 
they  tend  to  become  periodic  and  annual. 

It  needs  some  effort  on  our  part  to  realise  the  frame  of  mind 
which  prompts  these  attempts.  Bred  in  a  philosophy  which  strips 
nature  of  personality  and  reduces  it  to  the  unknown  cause  of  an 
orderly  series  of  impressions  on  our  senses,  we  find  it  hard  to  put 
ourselves  in  the  place  of  the  savage,  to  whom  the  same  impressions 
appear  in  the  guise  of  spirits  or  the  handiwork  of  spirits.  For  ages 
the  army  of  spirits,  once  so  near,  has  been  receding  farther  and 
farther  from  11s,  banished  by  the  magic  wand  of  science  from  hearth 
and  home,  from  ruined  cell  and  ivied  tower,  from  haunted  glade  and 
lonely  mere,  from  the  riven  murky  cloud  that  belches  forth  the 
lightning,  and  from  those  fairer  clouds  that  pillow  the  silver  moon 
or  fret  with  flakes  of  burning  red  the  golden  eve.  The  spirits  are 
gone  even  from  their  last  stronghold  in  the  sky,  whose  blue  arch  no 


lvi  THE  OCCASIONAL  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS  547 

longer  passes,  except  with  children,  for  the  screen  that  hides  from 
mortal  eyes  the  glories  of  the  celestial  world.  Only  in  poets’  dreams 
or  impassioned  flights  of  oratory  is  it  given  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the 
last  flutter  of  the  standards  of  the  retreating  host,  to  hear  the  beat 
of  their  invisible  wings,  the  sound  of  their  mocking  laughter,  or  the 
swell  of  angel  music  dying  away  in  the  distance.  Far  otherwise  is 
it  with  the  savage.  To  his  imagination  the  world  still  teems  with 
those  motley  beings  whom  a  more  sober  philosophy  has  discarded. 
Fames  and  goblins,  ghosts  and  demons,  still  hover  about  him  both 
waking  and  sleeping.  They  dog  his  footsteps,  dazzle  his  senses,  enter 
into  him,  harass  and  deceive  and  torment  him  in  a  thousand  freakish 
and  mischievous  ways.  The  mishaps  that  befall  him,  the  losses  he 
sustains,  the  pains  he  has  to  endure,  he  commonly  sets  down,  if  not 
to  the  magic  of  his  enemies,  to  the  spite  or  anger  or  caprice  of  the 
spirits.  Their  constant  presence  wearies  him,  their  sleepless  malignity 
exasperates  him  ,  he  longs  with  an  unspeakable  longing  to  be  rid  of 
them  altogether,  and  fi  om  time  to  time,  driven  to  bay,  his  patience 
utterly  exhausted,  he  turns  fiercely  on  his  persecutors  and  makes  a 
desperate  effort  to  chase  the  whole  pack  0/  them  from  the  land,  to 
clear  the  air  of  their  swarming  multitudes,  that  he  may  breathe  more 
freely  and  go  on  his  way  unmolested,  at  least  for  a  time.  Thus  it 
comes  about  that  the  endeavour  of  primitive  people  to  make  a  clean 
sweep  of  all  their  troubles  generally  takes  the  form  of  a  grand  hunting 
out  and  expulsion  of  devils  or  ghosts.  They  think  that  if  they  can 
only  shake  off  these  their  accursed  tormentors,  they  will  make  a 
fresh  start  in  life,  happy  and  innocent ;  the  tales  of  Eden  and  the  old 
poetic  golden  age  will  come  true  again. 

§  2.  The  Occasional  Expulsion  of  Evils. — We  can  therefore  under¬ 
stand-why  those  general  clearances  of  evil,  to  which  from  time  to  time 
the  savage  resorts,  should  commonly  take  the  form  of  a  forcible  expulsion 
of  devils.  In  these  evil  spirits  primitive  man  sees  the  cause  of  many 
if  not  of  most  of  his  troubles,  and  he  fancies  that  if  he  can  only  deliver 
himself  from  them,  things  will  go  better  with  him.  The  public 
attempts  to  expel  the  accumulated  ills  of  a  whole  community  may 
be  divided  into  two  classes,  according  as  the  expelled  evils  are  im¬ 
material  and  invisible  or  are  embodied  in  a  material  vehicle  or  scape¬ 
goat.  The  former  may  be  called  the  direct  or  immediate  expulsion 
of  evils  ;  the  latter  the  indirect  or  mediate  expulsion,  or  the  expulsion 
by  scapegoat.  We  begin  with  examples  of  the  former. 

In  the  island  of  Rook,  between  New  Guinea  and  New  Britain, 
when  any  misfortune  has  happened,  all  the  people  run  together, 
scream,  curse,  howl,  and  beat  the  air  with  sticks  to  drive  away  the 
devil,  who  is  supposed  to  be  the  author  of  the  mishap.  From  the 
spot  where  the  mishap  took  place  they  drive  him  step  by  step  to 
the  sea,  and  on  reaching  the  shore  they  redouble  their  shouts  and 
blows  in  order  to  expel  him  from  the  island.  He  generally  retires 
to  the  sea  or  to  the  island  of  Lottin.  The  natives  of  New  Britain 
ascribe  sickness,  drought,  the  failure  of  crops,  and  in  short  all  mis- 


548  THE  PUBLIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS  ch. 

fortunes,  to  the  influence  of  wicked  spirits.  So  at  times  when  many 
people  sicken  and  die,  as  at  the  beginning  of  the  rainy  season, 
all  the  inhabitants  of  a  district,  armed  with  branches  and  clubs, 
go  out  by  moonlight  to  the  fields,  where  they  beat  and  stamp  on 
the  ground  with  wild  howls  till  morning,  believing  that  this  drives 
away  the  devils  ;  and  for  the  same  purpose  they  rush  through  the 
village  with  burning  torches.  The  natives  of  New  Caledonia  are  said 
to  believe  that  all  evils  are  caused  by  a  powerful  and  malignant 
spirit  ;  hence  in  order  to  rid  themselves  of  him  they  will  from  time 
to  time  dig  a  great  pit,  round  which  the  whole  tribe  gathers.  After 
cursing  the  demon,  they  fill  up  the  pit  with  earth,  and  trample  on 
the  top  with  loud  shouts.  This  they  call  burying  the  evil  spirit. 
Among  the  Dieri  tribe  of  Central  Australia,  when  a  serious  illness 
occurs,  the  medicine-men  expel  Cootchie  or  the  devil  by  beating  the 
ground  in  and  outside  of  the  camp  with  the  stuffed  tail  of  a  kangaroo, 
until  they  have  chased  the  demon  away  to  some  distance  from  the 
camp. 

When  a  village  has  been  visited  by  a  series  of  disasters  or  a  severe 
epidemic,  the  inhabitants  of  Minahassa  in  Celebes  lay  the  blame 
upon  the  devils  who  are  infesting  the  village  and  who  must  be  expelled 
from  it.  Accordingly,  early  one  morning  all  the  people,  men,  women, 
and  children,  quit  their  homes,  carrying  their  household  goods  with 
them,  and  take  up  their  quarters  in  temporary  huts  which  have  been 
erected  outside  the  village.  Here  they  spend  several  days,  offering 
sacrifices  and  preparing  for  the  final  ceremony.  At  last  the  men, 
some  wearing  masks,  others  with  their  faces  blackened,  and  so  on, 
but  all  armed  with  swords,  guns,  pikes,  or  brooms,  steal  cautiously 
and  silently  back  to  the  deserted  village.  Then,  at  a  signal  from  the 
priest,  they  rush  furiously  up  and  down  the  streets  and  into  and 
under  the  houses  (which  are  raised  on  piles  above  the  ground),  yelling 
and  striking  on  walls,  doors,  and  windows,  to  drive  away  the  devils.  ■ 
Next,  the  priests  and  the  rest  of  the  people  come  with  the  holy  fire 
and  march  nine  times  round  each  house  and  thrice  round  the  ladder 
that  leads  up  to  it,  carrying  the  fire  with  them.  Then  they  take  the 
fire  into  the  kitchen,  where  it  must  burn  for  three  days  continuously. 
The  devils  are  now  driven  away,  and  great  and  general  is  the  joy. 

The  Alfoors  of  Halmahera  attribute  epidemics  to  the  devil  who  comes 
from  other  villages  to  carry  them  off.  .So,  in  order  to  rid  the  village 
of  the  disease,  the  sorcerer  drives  away  the  devil.  From  all  the 
villagers  he  receives  a  costly  garment  and  places  it  on  four  vessels, 
which  he  takes  to  the  forest  and  leaves  at  the  spot  where  the  devil  is 
supposed  to  be.  Then  with  mocking  words  he  bids  the  demon  abandon 
the  place.  In  the  Kei  Islands  to  the  south-west  of  New  Guinea, 
the  evil  spirits,  who  are  quite  distinct  from  the  souls  of  the  dead, 
form  a  mighty  host.  Almost  every  tree  and  every  cave  is  the  lodging- 
place  of  one  of  these  fiends,  who  are  moreover  extremely  irascible 
and  apt  to  fly  out  on  the  smallest  provocation.  They  manifest 
their  displeasure  by  sending  sickness  and  other  calamities.  Hence 


LVI 


THE  OCCASIONAL  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS 


549 


in  times  of  public  misfortune,  as  when  an  epidemic  is  raging,  and  all 
other  remedies  have  failed,  the  whole  population  go  forth  with  the 
priest  at  their  head  to  a  place  at  some  distance  from  the  village. 
Here  at  sunset  they  erect  a  couple  of  poles  with  a  cross-bar  between 
them,  to  which  they  attach  bags  of  rice,  wooden  models  of  pivot- 
guns,  gongs,  bracelets,  and  so  on.  Then,  when  everybody  has  taken 
his  place  at  the  poles  and  a  death-like  silence  reigns,  the  priest  lifts 
up  his  voice  and  addresses  the  spirits  in  their  own  language  as  follows  : 
“  Ho  !  ho  !  ho  !  ye  evil  spirits  who  dwell  in  the  trees,  ye  evil  spirits 
who  live  in  the  grottoes,  ye  evil  spirits  who  lodge  in  the  earth,  we  give 
you  these  pivot-guns,  these  gongs,  etc.  Let  the  sickness  cease  and 
not  so  many  people  die  of  it.”  Then  everybody  runs  home  as  fast 
as  their  legs  can  carry  them. 

In  the  island  of  Nias,  when  a  man  is  seriously  ill  and  other  remedies 
have  been  tried  in  vain,  the  sorcerer  proceeds  to  exorcise  the  devil 
who  is  causing  the  illness.  A  pole  is  set  up  in  front  of  the  house,  and 
from  the  top  of  the  pole  a  rope  of  palm-leaves  is  stretched  to  the  roof 
of  the  house.  Then  the  sorcerer  mounts  the  roof  with  a  pig,  which 
he  kills  and  allows  to  roll  from  the  roof  to  the  ground.  The  devil, 
anxious  to  get  the  pig,  lets  himself  down  hastily  from  the  roof  by 
the  rope  of  palm-leaves,  and  a  good  spirit,  invoked  by  the  sorcerer, 
prevents  him  from  climbing  up  again.  If  this  remedy  fails,  it  is 
believed  that  other  devils  must  still  be  lurking  in  the  house.  So  a 
general  hunt  is  made  after  them.  All  the  doors  and  windows  in  the 
house  are  closed,  except  a  single  dormer-window  in  the  roof.  The 
men,  shut  up  in  the  house,  hew  and  slash  with  their  swords  right  and 
left  to  the  clash  of  gongs  and  the  rub-a-dub  of  drums.  Terrified  at 
this  onslaught,  the  devils  escape  by  the  dormer-window,  and  sliding 
down  the  rope  of  palm-leaves  take  themselves  off.  As  all  the  doors 
and  windows,  except  the  one  in  the  roof,  are  shut,  the  devils  cannot 
get  into  the  house  again.  In  the  case  of  an  epidemic,  the  proceedings 
are  similar.  All  the  gates  of  the  village,  except  one,  are  closed  ; 
every  voice  is  raised,  every  gong  and  drum  beaten,  every  sword 
brandished.  Thus  the  devils  are  driven  out  and  the  last  gate  is  shut 
behind  them.  For  eight  days  thereafter  the  village  is  in  a  state  of 
siege,  no  one  being  allowed  to  enter  it. 

When  cholera  has  broken  out  in  a  Burmese  village  the  able- 
bodied  men  scramble  on  the  roofs  and  lay  about  them  with  bamboos 
and  billets  of  wood,  while  all  the  rest  of  the  population,  old  and  young, 
stand  below  and  thump  drums,  blow  trumpets,  yell,  scream,  beat 
floors,  walls,  tin  pans,  everything  to  make  a  din.  This  uproar, 
repeated  on  three  successive  nights,  is  thought  to  be  very  effective 
in  driving  away  the  cholera  demons.  When  smallpox  first  appeared 
amongst  the  Kumis  of  South-eastern  India,  they  thought  it  was  a 
devil  come  from  Aracan.  The  villages  were  placed  in  a  state  of  siege, 
no  one  being  allowed  to  leave  or  enter  them.  A  monkey  was  killed 
by  being  dashed  on  the  ground,  and  its  body  was  hung  at  the  village 
gate.  Its  blood,  mixed  with  small  river  pebbles,  was  sprinkled  on 


CII 


550  THE  PUBLIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS 

the  houses,  the  threshold  of  every  house  was  swept  with  the  monkey’s 
tail,  and  the  fiend  was  adjured  to  depart. 

When  an  epidemic  is  raging  on  the  Gold  Coast  of  West  Africa, 
the  people  will  sometimes  turn  out,  armed  with  clubs  and  torches,  to 
drive  the  evil  spirits  away.  At  a  given  signal  the  whole  population 
begin  with  frightful  yells  to  beat  in  every  corner  of  the  houses,  then 
rush  like  mad  into  the  streets  waving  torches  and  striking  frantically 
in  the  empty  air.  The  uproar  goes  on  till  somebody  reports  that  the 
cowed  and  daunted  demons  have  made  good  their  escape  by  a  gate 
of  the  town  or  village  ;  the  people  stream  out  after  them,  pursue  them 
for  some  distance  into  the  forest,  and  warn  them  never  to  return.  The 
expulsion  of  the  devils  is  followed  by  a  general  massacre  of  all  the  cocks 
in  the  village  or  town,  lest  by  their  unseasonable  crowing  they  should 
betray  to  the  banished  demons  the  direction  they  must  take  to  return 
to  their  old  homes.  When  sickness  was  prevalent  in  a  Huron  village, 
and  all  other  remedies  had  been  tried  in  vain,  the  Indians  had  recourse 
to  the  ceremony  called  Lonouyroya,  “  which  is  the  principal  invention 
and  most  proper  means,  so  they  say,  to  expel  from  the  town  or  village 
the  devils  and  evil  spirits  which  cause,  induce,  and  import  all  the 
maladies  and  infirmities  which  they  suffer  in  body  and  mind. ’ ’  Accord¬ 
ingly,  one  evening  the  men  would  begin  to  rush  like  madmen  about  the 
village,  breaking  and  upsetting  whatever  they  came  across  in  the 
wigwams.  They  threw  fire  and  burning  brands  about  the  streets,  and 
all  night  long  they  ran  howling  and  singing  without  cessation.  Then 
they  all  dreamed  of  something,  a  knife,  dog,  skin,  or  whatever  it  might 
be,  and  when  morning  came  they  went  from  wigwam  to  wigwam  asking 
for  presents.  These  they  received  silently,  till  the  particular  thing 
was  given  them  which  they  had  dreamed  about.  On  receiving  it  they 
uttered  a  cry  of  joy  and  rushed  from  the  hut,  amid  the  congratulations 
of  all  present.  The  health  of  those  who  received  what  they  had 
dreamed  of  was  believed  to  be  assured  ;  whereas  those  who  did  not 
get  what  they  had  set  their  hearts  upon  regarded  their  fate  as  sealed. 

Sometimes,  instead  of  chasing  the  demon  of  disease  from  their 
homes,  savages  prefer  to  leave  him  in  peaceable  possession,  while  they 
themselves  take  to  flight  and  attempt  to  prevent  him  from  following 
in  their  tracks.  Thus  when  the  Patagonians  were  attacked  by  small¬ 
pox,  which  they  attributed  to  the  machinations  of  an  evil  spirit,  they 
used  to  abandon  their  sick  and  flee,  slashing  the  air  with  their  weapons 
and  throwing  water  about  in  order  to  keep  off  the  dreadful  pursuer; 
and  when  after  several  days’  march  they  reached  a  place  where  they 
hoped  to  be  beyond  his  reach,  they  used  by  way  of  precaution  to  plant 
all  their  cutting  weapons  with  the  sharp  edges  turned  towards  the 
quarter  from  which  they  had  come,  as  if  they  were  repelling  a  charge  of 
cavalry.  Similarly,  when  the  Lules  or  Tonocotes  Indians  of  the  Gran 
Chaco  were  attacked  by  an  epidemic,  they  regularly  sought  to  evade 
it  by  flight,  but  in  so  doing  they  always  followed  a  sinuous,  not  a  straight, 
course  ;  because  they  said  that  when  the  disease  made  after  them 
he  would  be  so  exhausted  by  the  turnings  and  windings  of  the  route 


THE  PERIODIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS 


55i 


I  LVI 

that  he  would  never  be  able  to  come  up  with  them.  When  the  Indians 
of  New  Mexico  were  decimated  by  smallpox  or  other  infectious  disease, 
they  used  to  shift  their  quarters  every  day,  retreating  into  the  most 
sequestered  parts  of  the  mountains  and  choosing  the  thorniest  thickets 
they  could  find,  in  the  hope  that  the  smallpox  would  be  too  afraid  of 
scratching  himself  on  the  thorns  to  follow  them.  When  some  Chins 
on  a  visit  to  Rangoon  were  attacked  by  cholera,  they  went  about 
with  drawn  swords  to  scare  away  the  demon,  and  they  spent  the 
day  hiding  under  bushes  so  that  he  might  not  be  able  to  find  them. 

§  3.  The  Periodic  Expulsion  of  Evils. — The  expulsion  of  evils,  from 
being  occasional,  tends  to  become  periodic.  It  comes  to  be  thought 
desirable  to  have  a  general  riddance  of  evil  spirits  at  fixed  times, 
usually  once  a  year,  in  order  that  the  people  may  make  a  fresh  start 
in  life,  freed  from  all  the  malignant  influences  which  have  been  long 
accumulating  about  them.  Some  of  the  Australian  blacks  annually 
expelled  the  ghosts  of  the  dead  from  their  territory.  The  ceremony 
was  witnessed  by  the  Rev.  W.  Ridley  on  the  banks  of  the  River  Barwan. 
“  A  chorus  of  twenty,  old  and  young,  were  singing  and  beating  time  with 
boomerangs.  .  .  .  Suddenly,  from  under  a  sheet  of  bark  darted  a 
man  with  his  body  whitened  by  pipeclay,  his  head  and  face  coloured 
with  lines  of  red  and  yellow,  and  a  tuft  of  feathers  fixed  by  means  of 
a  stick  two  feet  above  the  crown  of  his  head.  He  stood  twenty  minutes 
perfectly  still,  gazing  upwards.  An  aboriginal  who  stood  by  told  me 
he  was  looking  for  the  ghosts  of  dead  men.  At  last  he  began  to  move 
very  slowly,  and  soon  rushed  to  and  fro  at  full  speed,  flourishing 
a  branch  as  if  to  drive  away  some  foes  invisible  to  us.  When  I  thought 
this  pantomime  must  be  almost  over,  ten  more,  similarly  adorned, 
suddenly  appeared  from  behind  the  trees,  and  the  whole  party  joined 
in  a  brisk  conflict  with  their  mysterious  assailants.  ...  At  last,  after 
some  rapid  evolutions  in  which  they  put  forth  all  their  strength,  they 
rested  from  the  exciting  toil  which  they  had  kept  up  all  night  and  for 
some  hours  after  sunrise  ;  they  seemed  satisfied  that  the  ghosts  were 
driven  away  for  twelve  months.  They  were  performing  the  same 
ceremony  at  every  station  along  the  river,  and  I  am  told  it  is  an  annual 
custom.” 

Certain  seasons  of  the  year  mark  themselves  naturally  out  as 
appropriate  moments  for  a  general  expulsion  of  devils.  Such  a 
moment  occurs  towards  the  close  of  an  Arctic  winter,  when  the  sun 
reappears  on  the  horizon  after  an  absence  of  weeks  or  months.  Accord¬ 
ingly,  at  Point  Barrow,  the  most  northerly  extremity  of  Alaska,  and 
nearly  of  America,  the  Esquimaux  choose  the  moment  of  the  sun’s 
reappearance  to  hunt  the  mischievous  spirit  Tuna  from  every  house. 
The  ceremony  was  witnessed  by  the  members  of  the  United  States 
Polar  Expedition,  who  wintered  at  Point  Barrow.  A  fire  was  built 
in  front  of  the  council-house,  and  an  old  woman  was  posted  at  the 
entrance  to  every  house.  The  men  gathered  round  the  council-house, 
while  the  young  women  and  girls  drove  the  spirit  out  of  every  house 
with  their  knives,  stabbing  viciously  under  the  bunk  and  deer-skins. 


552 


THE  PUBLIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS 


CH. 


and  calling  upon  Tuna  to  be  gone.  When  they  thought  he  had  been 
driven  out  of  every  hole  and  corner,  they  thrust  him  down  through  the 
hole  in  the  floor  and  chased  him  into  the  open  air  with  loud  cries  and 
frantic  gestures.  Meanwhile  the  old  woman  at  the  entrance  of  the 
house  made  passes  with  a  long  knife  in  the  air  to  keep  him  from  return¬ 
ing.  Each  party  drove  the  spirit  towards  the  fire  and  invited  him  to 
go  into  it.  All  were  by  this  time  drawn  up  in  a  semicircle  round 
the  fire,  when  several  of  the  leading  men  made  specific  charges  against 
the  spirit ;  and  each  after  his  speech  brushed  his  clothes  violently, 
calling  on  the  spirit  to  leave  him  and  go  into  the  fire.  Two  men  now 
stepped  forward  with  rifles  loaded  with  blank  cartridges,  while  a  third 
brought  a  vessel  of  urine  and  flung  it  on  the  flames.  At  the  same  time 
one  of  the  men  fired  a  shot  into  the  fire  ;  and  as  the  cloud  of  steam 
rose  it  received  the  other  shot,  which  was  supposed  to  finish  Tuna 
for  the  time  being. 

In  late  autumn,  when  storms  rage  over  the  land  and  break  the 
icy  fetters  by  which  the  frozen  sea  is  as  yet  but  slightly  bound,  when 
the  loosened  floes  are  driven  against  each  other  and  break  with  loud 
crashes,  and  when  the  cakes  of  ice  are  piled  in  wild  disorder  one  upon 
another,  the  Esquimaux  of  Baffin  Land  fancy  they  hear  the  voices  of 
the  spirits  who  people  the  mischief-laden  air.  Then  the  ghosts  of  the 
dead  knock  wildly  at  the  huts,  which  they  cannot  enter,  and  woe  to 
the  hapless  wight  whom  they  catch  ;  he  soon  sickens  and  dies.  Then 
the  phantom  of  a  huge  hairless  dog  pursues  the  real  dogs,  which  expire 
in  convulsions  and  cramps  at  sight  of  him.  All  the  countless  spirits 
of  evil  are  abroad,  striving  to  bring  sickness  and  death,  foul  weather 
and  failure  in  hunting  on  the  Esquimaux.  Most  dreaded  of  all  these 
spectral  visitants  are  Sedna,  mistress  of  the  nether  world,  and  her 
father,  to  whose  share  dead  Esquimaux  fall.  While  the  other  spirits 
fill  the  air  and  the  water,  she  rises  from  under  ground.  It  is  then  a 
busy  season  for  the  wizards.  In  every  house  you  may  hear  them 
singing  and  praying,  while  they  conjure  the  spirits,  seated  in  a  mystic 
gloom  at  the  back  of  the  hut,  which  is  dimly  lit  by  a  lamp  burning 
low.  The  hardest  task  of  all  is  to  drive  away  Sedna,  and  this  is 
reserved  for  the  most  powerful  enchanter.  A  rope  is  coiled  on  the 
floor  of  a  large  hut  in  such  a  way  as  to  leave  a  small  opening  at  the 
top,  which  represents  the  breathing  hole  of  a  seal.  Two  enchanters 
stand  beside  it,  one  of  them  grasping  a  spear  as  if  he  were  watching 
a  seal-hole  in  winter,  the  other  holding  the  harpoon-line.  A  third 
sorcerer  sits  at  the  back  of  the  hut  chanting  a  magic  song  to  lure 
Sedna  to  the  spot.  Now  she  is  heard  approaching  under  the  floor  of 
the  hut,  breathing  heavily  ;  now  she  emerges  at  the  hole  ;  now  she  is 
harpooned  and  sinks  away  in  angry  haste,  dragging  the  harpoon  with 
her,  while  the  two  men  hold  on  to  the  line  with  all  their  might.  The 
struggle  is  severe,  but  at  last  by  a  desperate  wrench  she  tears  herself 
away  and  returns  to  her  dwelling  in  Adlivun.  When  the  harpoon  is 
drawn  up  out  of  the  hole  it  is  found  to  be  splashed  with  blood,  which  the 
enchanters  proudly  exhibit  as  a  proof  of  their  prowess.  Thus  Sedna 


lvi  THE  PERIODIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS  553 

and  the  other  evil  spirits  are  at  last  driven  away,  and  next  day  a  great 
festival  is  celebrated  by  old  and  young  in  honour  of  the  event.  But 
they  must  still  be  cautious,  for  the  wounded  Sedna  is  furious  and  wil] 
seize  any  one  she  may  find  outside  of  his  hut  ;  so  they  all  wear  amulets 
on  the  top  of  their  hoods  to  protect  themselves  against  her.  These 
amulets  consist  of  pieces  of  the  first  garments  that  they  wore  after 
birth. 

The  Iroquois  inaugurated  the  new  year  in  January,  February,  or 
March  (the  time  varied)  with  a  “  festival  of  dreams  ”  like  that  which 
the  Hurons  observed  on  special  occasions.  The  whole  ceremonies 
lasted  several  days,  or  even  weeks,  and  formed  a  kind  of  saturnalia. 
Men  and  women,  variously  disguised,  went  from  wigwam  to  wigwam 
smashing  and  throwing  down  whatever  they  came  across.  It  was  a 
time  of  general  license  ;  the  people  were  supposed  to  be  out  of  their 
senses,  and  therefore  not  to  be  responsible  for  what  they  did.  Ac¬ 
cordingly,  many  seized  the  opportunity  of  paying  off  old  scores  by 
belabouring  obnoxious  persons,  drenching  them  with  ice-cold  water, 
and  covering  them  with  filth  or  hot  ashes.  Others  seized  burning 
brands  or  coals  and  flung  them  at  the  heads  of  the  first  persons  they 
met.  The  only  way  of  escaping  from  these  persecutors  was  to  guess 
what  they  had  dreamed  of.  On  one  day  of  the  festival  the  ceremony 
of  driving  away  evil  spirits  from  the  village  took  place.  Men  clothed 
in  the  skins  of  wild  beasts,  their  faces  covered  with  hideous  masks, 
and  their  hands  with  the  shell  of  the  tortoise,  went  from  hut  to  hut 
making  frightful  noises  ;  in  every  hut  they  took  the  fuel  from  the  fire 
and  scattered  the  embers  and  ashes  about  the  floor  with  their  hands. 
The  general  confession  of  sins  which  preceded  the  festival  was  probably 
a  preparation  for  the  public  expulsion  of  evil  influences  ;  it  was  a  way 
of  stripping  the  people  of  their  moral  burdens,  that  these  might  be 
collected  and  cast  out. 

In  September  the  Incas  of  Peru  celebrated  a  festival  called  Situa, 
the  object  of  which  was  to  banish  from  the  capital  and  its  vicinity  all 
disease  and  trouble.  The  festival  fell  in  September  because  the  rains 
begin  about  this  time,  and  with  the  first  rains  there  was  generally 
much  sickness.  As  a  preparation  for  the  festival  the  people  fasted  on 
the  first  day  of  the  moon  after  the  autumnal  equinox.  Having  fasted 
during  the  day,  and  the  night  being  come,  they  baked  a  coarse  paste 
of  maize.  This  paste  was  made  of  two  sorts.  One  was  kneaded  with 
the  blood  of  children  aged  from  five  to  ten  years,  the  blood  being 
obtained  by  bleeding  the  children  between  the  eyebrows.  These  two 
kinds  of  paste  were  baked  separately,  because  they  were  for  different 
uses.  Each  family  assembled  at  the  house  of  the  eldest  brother  to 
celebrate  the  feast  ;  and  those  who  had  no  elder  brother  went  to  the 
house  of  their  next  relation  of  greater  age.  On  the  same  night  all  who 
had  fasted  during  the  day  washed  their  bodies,  and  taking  a  little  of 
the  blood-kneaded  paste,  rubbed  it  over  their  head,  face,  breast, 
shoulders,  arms,  and  legs.  They  did  this  in  order  that  the  paste  might 
take  away  all  their  infirmities.  After  this  the  head  of  the  family 


554 


THE  PUBLIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS 


CH. 


anointed  the  threshold  with  the  same  paste,  and  left  it  there  as  a  token 
that  the  inmates  of  the  house  had  performed  their  ablutions  and 
cleansed  their  bodies.  Meantime  the  High  Priest  performed  the  same 
ceremonies  in  the  temple  of  the  Sun.  As  soon  as  the  Sun  rose,  all 
the  people  worshipped  and  besought  him  to  drive  all  evils  out  of  the 
city,  and  then  they  broke  their  fast  with  the  paste  that  had  been 
kneaded  without  blood.  When  they  had  paid  their  worship  and 
broken  their  fast,  which  they  did  at  a  stated  hour,  in  order  that  all 
might  adore  the  Sun  as  one  man,  an  Inca  of  the  blood  royal  came 
forth  from  the  fortress,  as  a  messenger  of  the  Sun,  richly  dressed,  with 
his  mantle  girded  round  his  body,  and  a  lance  in  his  hand.  The  lance 
was  decked  with  feathers  of  many  hues,  extending  from  the  blade  to 
the  socket,  and  fastened  with  rings  of  gold.  He  ran  down  the  hill 
from  the  fortress  brandishing  his  lance,  till  he  reached  the  centre  of 
the  great  square,  where  stood  the  golden  urn,  like  a  fountain,  that  was. 
used  for  the  sacrifice  of  the  fermented  juice  of  the  maize.  Here  four 
other  Incas  of  the  blood  royal  awaited  him,  each  with  a  lance  in  his 
hand,  and  his  mantle  girded  up  to  run.  The  messenger  touched  their 
four  lances  with  his  lance,  and  told  them  that  the  Sun  bade  them,  as 
his  messengers,  drive  the  evils  out  of  the  city.  The  four  Incas  then 
separated  and  ran  down  the  four  royal  roads  which  led  out  of  the  city 
to  the  four  quarters  of  the  world.  While  they  ran,  all  the  people, 
great  and  small,  came  to  the  doors  of  their  houses,  and  with  great 
shouts  of  joy  and  gladness  shook  their  clothes,  as  if  they  were  shaking 
off  dust,  while  they  cried,  “  Let  the  evils  be  gone.  How  greatly 
desired  has  this  festival  been  by  us.  O  Creator  of  all  things,  permit  us 
to  reach  another  year,  that  we  may  see  another  feast  like  this.”  After 
they  had  shaken  their  clothes,  they  passed  their  hands  over  their  heads, 
faces,  arms,  and  legs,  as  if  in  the  act  of  washing.  All  this  was  done 
to  drive  the  evils  out  of  their  houses,  that  the  messengers  of  the  Sun 
might  banish  them  from  the  city  ;  and  it  was  done  not  only  in  the 
streets  through  which  the  Incas  ran,  but  generally  in  all  quarters  of 
the  city.  Moreover,  they  all  danced,  the  Inca  himself  amongst  them, 
and  bathed  in  the  rivers  and  fountains,  saying  that  their  maladies 
would  come  out  of  them.  Then  they  took  great  torches  of  straw, 
bound  round  with  cords.  These  they  lighted,  and  passed  from  one 
to  the  other,  striking  each  other  with  them,  and  saying,  “  Let  all  harm 
go  away.”  Meanwhile  the  runners  ran  with  their  lances  for  a  quarter 
of  a  league  outside  the  city,  where  they  found  four  other  Incas  ready, 
who  received  the  lances  from  their  hands  and  ran  with  them.  Thus 
the  lances  were  carried  by  relays  of  runners  for  a  distance  of  five  or 
six  leagues,  at  the  end  of  which  the  runners  washed  themselves  and 
their  weapons  in  rivers,  and  set  up  the  lances,  in  sign  of  a  boundary 
within  which  the  banished  evils  might  not  return. 

The  negroes  of  Guinea  annually  banish  the  devil  from  all  their 
towns  with  much  ceremony  at  a  time  set  apart  for  the  purpose.  At 
Axim,  on  the  Gold  Coast,  this  annual  expulsion  is  preceded  by  a  feast 
of  eight  days,  during  which  mirth  and  jollity,  skipping,  dancing,  and 


LVI 


THE  PERIODIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS 


555 


singing  prevail,  and  "  a  perfect  lampooning  liberty  is  allowed,  and 
scandal  so  highly  exalted,  that  they  may  freely  sing  of  all  the  faults, 
villanies,  and  frauds  of  their  superiors  as  well  as  inferiors,  without 
punishment,  or  so  much  as  the  least  interruption.”  On  the  eighth 
day  they  hunt  out  the  devil  with  a  dismal  cry,  running  after  him  and 
pelting  him  with  sticks,  stones,  and  whatever  comes  to  hand.  When 
they  have  driven  him  far  enough  out  of  the  town,  they  all  return.  In 
this  way  he  is  expelled  from  more  than  a  hundred  towns  at  the  same 
time.  To  make  sure  that  he  does  not  return  to  their  houses,  the  women 
wash  and  scour  all  their  wooden  and  earthen  vessels,  “  to  free  them 
from  all  uncleanness  and  the  devil.” 

At  Cape  Coast  Castle,  on  the  Gold  Coast,  the  ceremony  was  wit¬ 
nessed  on  the  ninth  of  October  1844  by  an  Englishman,  who  has 
described  it  as  follows  :  “  To-night  the  annual  custom  of  driving  the 
evil  spirit,  Abonsam,  out  of  the  town  has  taken  place.  As  soon  as 
the  eight  o'clock  gun  fired  in  the  fort  the  people  began  firing  muskets 
in  their  houses,  turning  all  their  furniture  out  of  doors,  beating  about 
in  every  corner  of  the  rooms  with  sticks,  etc.,  and  screaming  as  loudly 
as  possible,  in  order  to  frighten  the  devil.  Being  driven  out  of  the 
houses,  as  they  imagine,  they  sallied  forth  into  the  streets,  throwing 
lighted  torches  about,  shouting,  screaming,  beating  sticks  together, 
rattling  old  pans,  making  the  most  horrid  noise,  in  order  to  drive  him 
out  of  the  town  into  the  sea.  The  custom  is  preceded  by  four  weeks’ 
dead  silence  ;  no  gun  is  allowed  to  be  fired,  no  drum  to  be  beaten,  no 
palaver  to  be  made  between  man  and  man.  If,  during  these  weeks, 
two  natives  should  disagree  and  make  a  noise  in  the  town,  they  are 
immediately  taken  before  the  king  and  fined  heavily.  If  a  dog  or 
pig,  sheep  or  goat  be  found  at  large  in  the  street,  it  may  be  killed,  or 
taken  by  anyone,  the  former  owner  not  being  allowed  to  demand  any 
compensation.  This  silence  is  designed  to  deceive  Abonsam,  that, 
being  off  his  guard,  he  may  be  taken  by  surprise,  and  frightened  out 
of  the  place.  If  anyone  die  during  the  silence,  his  relatives  are  not 
allowed  to  weep  until  the  four  weeks  have  been  completed.” 

Sometimes  the  date  of  the  annual  expulsion  of  devils  is  fixed  with 
reference  to  the  agricultural  seasons.  Thus  among  the  Hos  of  Togo- 
land,  in  West  Africa,  the  expulsion  is  performed  annually  before  the 
people  partake  of  the  new  yams.  The  chiefs  summon  the  priests  and 
magicians  and  tell  them  that  the  people  are  now  to  eat  the  new  yams 
and  be  merry,  therefore  they  must  cleanse  the  town  and  remove  the 
evils.  Accordingly  the  evil  spirits,  witches,  and  all  the  ills  that  infest 
the  people  are  conjured  into  bundles  of  leaves  and  creepers,  fastened  to 
poles,  which  are  carried  away  and  set  up  in  the  earth  on  various  roads 
outside  the  town.  During  the  following  night  no  fire  may  be  Jit  and 
no  food  eaten.  Next  morning  the  women  sweep  out  their  hearths 
and  houses,  and  deposit  the  sweepings  on  broken  wooden  plates. 
Then  the  people  pray,  saying,  “  All  ye  sicknesses  that  are  in  our  body 
and  plague  us,  we  are  come  to-day  to  throw  you  out.”  Thereupon 
they  run  as  fast  as  they  can  in  the  direction  of  Mount  Adaklu,  smiting 


556  THE  PUBLIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS  cn 

their  months  and  screaming,  "  Out  to-day  !  Out  to-day !  lhat 
which  kills  anybody,  out  to-day  !  Ye  evil  spirits,  out  to-day  !  and  all 
that  causes  our  heads  to  ache,  out  to-day  !  Anlo  and  Adaklu  are  the 
places  whither  all  ill  shall  betake  itself  !  ”  When  they  have  come  to 
a  certain  tree  on  Mount  Adaklu,  they  throw  everything  away  and 
return  home. 

At  Kiriwina,  in  South-eastern  New  Guinea,  when  the  new  yams 
had  been  harvested,  the  people  feasted  and  danced  for  many  days,  and 
a  great  deal  of  property,  such  as  armlets,  native  money,  and  so  forth, 
was  displayed  conspicuously  on  a  platform  erected  for  the  purpose. 
When  the  festivities  were  over,  all  the  people  gathered  together  and 
expelled  the  spirits  from  the  village  by  shouting,  beating  the  posts  of 
the  houses,  and  overturning  everything  under  which  a  wily  spirit  might 
be  supposed  to  lurk.  The  explanation  which  the  people  gave  to  a 
missionary  was  that  they  had  entertained  and  feasted  the  spirits  and  t 
provided  them  with  riches,  and  it  was  now  time  for  them  to  take  their  i 
departure.  Had  they  not  seen  the  dances,  and  heard  the  songs,  and 
gorged  themselves  on  the  souls  of  the  yams,  and  appropriated  the  souls 
of  the  money  and  all  the  other  fine  things  set  out  on  the  platform  ?  ! 
What  more  could  the  spirits  want  ?  So  out  they  must  go. 

Among  the  Hos  of  North-eastern  Jjidia  the  great  festival  of  the 
year  is  the  harvest  home,  held  in  January,  when  the  granaries  are  full 
of  grain,  and  the  people,  to  use  their  own  expression,  are  full  of  devilry. 

“  They  have  a  strange  notion  that  at  this  period,  men  and  women  are 
so  overcharged  with  vicious  propensities,  that  it  is  absolutely  necessary 
for  the  safety  of  the  person  to  let  off  steam  by  allowing  for  a  time  full 
vent  to  the  passions.”  The  ceremonies  open  with  a  sacrifice  to  the 
village  god  of  three  fowls,  a  cock  and  two  hens,  one  of  which  must  be 
black.  Along  with  them  are  offered  flowers  of  the  Palas  tree  (Butea 
frondosa),  bread  made  from  rice-flour,  and  sesamum  seeds.  These 
offerings  are  presented  by  the  village  priest,  who  prays  that  during 
the  year  about  to  begin  they  and  their  children  may  be  preserved  from 
all  misfortune  and  sickness,  and  that  they  may  have  seasonable  rain 
and  good  crops.  Prayer  is  also  made  in  some  places  for  the  souls  of 
the  dead.  At  this  time  an  evil  spirit  is  supposed  to  infest  the  place, 
and  to  get  rid  of  it  men,  women,  and  children  go  in  procession  round 
and  through  every  part  of  the  village  with  sticks  in  their  hands,  as  if 
beating  for  game,  singing  a  wild  chant,  and  shouting  vociferously,  till 
they  feel  assured  that  the  evil  spirit  must  have  fled.  Then  they  give 
themselves  up  to  feasting  and  drinking  rice-beer,  till  they  are  in  a 
fit  state  for  the  wild  debauch  which  follows.  The  festival  now 
“  becomes  a  saturnale,  during  which  servants  forget  their  duty  to 
their  masters,  children  their  reverence  for  parents,  men  their  respect 
for  women,  and  women  all  notions  of  modesty,  delicacy,  and  gentle¬ 
ness  ;  they  become  raging  bacchantes.”  Usually  the  Hos  are  quiet 
and  reserved  in  manner,  decorous  and  gentle  to  women.  But  during 
this  festival  “  their  natures  appear  to  undergo  a  temporary  change. 
Sons  and  daughters  revile  their  parents  in  gross  language,  and  parents 


LV1 


THE  PERIODIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS 


557 


their  children  ;  men  and  women  become  almost  like  animals  in  the 
indulgence  of  their  amorous  propensities.”  The  Mundaris,  kinsmen 
and  neighbours  of  the  Hos,  keep  the  festival  in  much  the  same  manner. 

“  The  resemblance  to  a  Saturnale  is  very  complete,  as  at  this  festival 
the  farm  labourers  are  feasted  by  their  masters,  and  allowed  the  utmost 
freedom  of  speech  in  addressing  them.  It  is  the  festival  of  the  harvest 
home  ;  the  termination  of  one  year's  toil,  and  a  slight  respite  from  it 
before  they  commence  again.” 

Amongst  some  of  the  Hindoo  Koosh  tribes,  as  among  the  Hos  and 
Mundaris,  the  expulsion  of  devils  takes  place  after  harvest.  When 
the  last  crop  of  autumn  has  been  got  in,  it  is  thought  necessary  to 
drive  away  evil  spirits  from  the  granaries.  A  kind  of  porridge  is 
eaten,  and  the  head  of  the  family  takes  his  matchlock  and  fires  it 
into  the  floor.  Then,  going  outside,  he  sets  to  work  loading  and  firing . 
till  his  powder-horn  is  exhausted,  while  all  his  neighbours  are  similarly 
employed.  The  next  day  is  spent  in  rejoicings.  In  Chitral  this 
festival  is  called  “  devil-driving.”  On  the  other  hand  the  Khonds 
of  India  expel  the  devils  at  seed-time  instead  of  at  harvest.  At  this 
time  they  worship  Pitteri  Pennu,  the  god  of  increase  and  of  gain  in 
every  shape.  On  the  first  day  of  the  festival  a  rude  car  is  made  of  a 
basket  set  upon  a  few  sticks,  tied  upon  bamboo  rollers  for  wheels. 
The  priest  takes  this  car  first  to  the  house  of  the  lineal  head  of  the 
tribe,  to  whom  precedence  is  given  in  all  ceremonies  connected  with 
agriculture.  Here  he  receives  a  little  of  each  kind  of  seed  and  some 
feathers.  He  then  takes  the  car  to  all  the  other  houses  in  the  village, 
each  of  which  contributes  the  same  things.  Lastly,  the  car  is  con¬ 
ducted  to  a  field  without  the  village,  attended  by  all  the  young  men, 
who  beat  each  other  and  strike  the  air  violently  with  long  sticks. 
The  seed  thus  carried  out  is  called  the  share  of  the  “  evil  spirits,  spoilers 
of  the  seed.”  “  These  are  considered  to  be  driven  out  with  the  car  ; 
and  when  it  and  its  contents  are  abandoned  to  them,  they  are  held  to 
have  no  excuse  for  interfering  with  the  rest  of  the  seed-corn.” 

The  people  of  Bali,  an  island  to  the  east  of  Java,  have  periodical 
expulsions  of  devils  upon  a  great  scale.  Generally  the  time  chosen  for 
the  expulsion  is  the  day  of  the  “  dark  moon  ”  in  the  ninth  month. 
When  the  demons  have  been  long  unmolested  the  country  is  said  to  be 
“  warm,”  and  the  priest  issues  orders  to  expel  them  by  force,  lest  the 
whole  of  Bali  should  be  rendered  uninhabitable.  On  the  day  appointed 
the  people  of  the  village  or  district  assemble  at  the  principal  temple. 
Here  at  a  cross-road  offerings  are  set  out  for  the  devils.  After  prayers 
have  been  recited  by  the  priests,  the  blast  of  a  horn  summons  the 
devils  to  partake  of  the  meal  which  has  been  prepared  for  them.  At 
the  same  time  a  number  of  men  step  forward  and  light  their  torches 
at  the  holy  lamp  which  burns  before  the  chief  priest.  Immediately 
afterwards,  followed  by  the  bystanders,  they  spread  in  all  directions 
and  march  through  the  streets  and  lanes  crying,  “  Depart  !  go  away  !  ” 
Wherever  they  pass,  the  people  who  have  stayed  at  home  hasten,  by  a 
deafening  clatter  on  doors,  beams,  rice-blocks,  and  so  forth,  to  take 


558 


THE  PUBLIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS 


CH 


their  share  in  the  expulsion  of  devils.  Thus  chased  from  the  houses, 
the  fiends  flee  to  the  banquet  which  has  been  set  out  for  them  ;  but 
here  the  priest  receives  them  with  curses  which  finally  drive  them  from 
the  district.  When  the  last  devil  has  taken  his  departure,  the  uproar 
is  succeeded  by  a  dead  silence,  which  lasts  during  the  next  day  also. 
The  devils,  it  is  thought,  are  anxious  to  return  to  their  old  homes, 
and  in  order  to  make  them  think  that  Bali  is  not  Bali  but  some  desert 
island,  no  one  may  stir  from  his  own  abode  for  twenty-four  hours. 
Even  ordinary  household  work,  including  cooking,  is  discontinued. 
Only  the  watchmen  may  show  themselves  in  the  streets.  Wreaths  of 
thorns  and  leaves  are  hung  at  all  the  entrances  to  warn  strangers  from 
entering.  Not  till  the  third  day  is  this  state  of  siege  raised,  and  even 
then  it  is  forbidden  to  work  at  the  rice-fields  or  to  buy  and  sell  in  the 
market.  Most  people  still  stay  at  home,  whiling  away  the  time  with 
cards  and  dice. 

In  Tonquin  a  theckydaw  or  general  expulsion  of  malevolent  spirits 
commonly  took  place  once  a  year,  especially  if  there  was  a  great 
mortality  amongst  men,  the  elephants  or  horses  of  the  general's  stable, 
or  the  cattle  of  the  country,  “  the  cause  of  which  they  attribute  to  the 
malicious  spirits  of  such  men  as  have  been  put  to  death  for  treason, 
rebellion,  and  conspiring  the  death  of  the  king,  general,  or  princes, 
and  that  in  revenge  of  the  punishment  they  have  suffered,  they  are 
bent  to  destroy  everything  and  commit  horrible  violence.  To  prevent 
which  their  superstition  has  suggested  to  them  the  institution  of  this 
theckydaw,  as  a  proper  means  to  drive  the  devil  away,  and  purge  the 
country  of  evil  spirits."  The  day  appointed  for  the  ceremony  was 
generally  the  twenty-fifth  of  February,  one  month  after  the  beginning 
of  the  new  year,  which  fell  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  January.  The  inter¬ 
mediate  month  was  a  season  of  feasting,  merry-making  of  all  kinds, 
and  general  license.  During  the  whole  month  the  great  seal  was  kept 
shut  up  in  a  box,  face  downwards,  and  the  law  was,  as  it  were,  laid 
asleep.  All  courts  of  justice  were  closed  ;  debtors  could  not  be  seized  ; 
small  crimes,  such  as  petty  larceny,  fighting,  and  assault,  escaped  with 
impunity  ;  only  treason  and  murder  were  taken  account  of  and  the 
malefactors  detained  till  the  great  seal  should  come  into  operation 
again.  At  the  close  of  the  saturnalia  the  wicked  spirits  were  driven 
away.  Great  masses  of  troops  and  artillery  having  been  drawn  up 
with  flying  colours  and  all  the  pomp  of  war,  “  the  general  beginneth 
then  to  offer  meat  offerings  to  the  criminal  devils  and  malevolent 
spirits  (for  it  is  usual  and  customary  likewise  amongst  them  to  feast 
the  condemned  before  their  execution),  inviting  them  to  eat  and  drink, 
when  presently  he  accuses  them  in  a  strange  language,  by  characters 
and  figures,  etc.,  of  many  offences  and  crimes  committed  by  them, 
as  to  their  having  disquieted  the  land,  killed  his  elephants  and  horses, 
etc.,  for  all  which  they  justly  deserve  to  be  chastised  and  banished  the 
country.  Whereupon  three  great  guns  are  fired  as  the  last  signal ; 
upon  which  all  the  artillery  and  musquets  are  discharged,  that,  by 
their  most  terrible  noise  the  devils  may  be  driven  away  ;  and  they  are 


THE  PERIODIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS 


LVI 


559 


so  blind  as  to  believe  for  certain,  that  they  really  and  effectually  put 
them  to  flight/' 

In  Cambodia  the  expulsion  of  evil  spirits  took  place  in  March.  Bits 
of  broken  statues  and  stones,  considered  as  the  abode  of  the  demons, 
were  collected  and  brought  to  the  capital.  Here  as  many  elephants 
were  collected  as  could  be  got  together.  On  the  evening  of  the  full 
moon  volleys  of  musketry  were  fired  and  the  elephants  charged  furiously 
to  put  the  devils  to  flight.  The  ceremony  was  performed  on  three 
successive  days.  In  Siam  the  banishment  of  demons  is  annually  carried 
into  effect  on  the  last  day  of  the  old  year.  A  signal  gun  is  fired  from 
the  palace  ;  it  is  answered  from  the  next  station,  and  so  on  from  station 
to  station,  till  the  firing  has  reached  the  outer  gate  of  the  city.  Thus 
the  demons  are  driven  out  step  by  step.  As  soon  as  this  is  done  a 
consecrated  rope  is  fastened  round  the  circuit  of  the  city  walls  to  prevent 
the  banished  demons  from  returning.  The  rope  is  made  of  tough 
couch-grass  and  is  painted  in  alternate  stripes  of  red,  yellow,  and  blue. 

Annual  expulsions  of  demons,  witches,  or  evil  influences  appear 
to  have  been  common  among  the  heathen  of  Europe,  if  we  may  judge 
from  the  relics  of  such  customs  among  their  descendants  at  the  present 
day.  Thus  among  the  heathen  Wotyaks,  a  Finnish  people  of  Eastern 
Russia,  all  the  young  girls  of  the  village  assemble  on  the  last  day  of 
the  year  or  on  New  Year’s  Day,  armed  with  sticks,  the  ends  of  which 
are  split  in  nine  places.  With  these  they  beat  every  corner  of  the 
house  and  yard,  saying,  “  We  are  driving  Satan  out  of  the  village.” 
Afterwards  the  sticks  are  thrown  into  the  river  below  the  village,  and 
as  they  float  down  stream  Satan  goes  with  them  to  the  next  village, 
from  which  he  must  be  driven  out  in  turn.  In  some  villages  the 
expulsion  is  managed  otherwise.  The  unmarried  men  receive  from 
every  house  in  the  village  groats,  flesh,  and  brandy.  These  they 
take  to  the  fields,  light  a  fire  under  a  fir-tree,  boil  the  groats,  and  eat 
of  the  food  they  have  brought  with  them,  after  pronouncing  the 
words,  “  Go  away  into  the  wilderness,  come  not  into  the  house.” 
Then  they  return  to  the  village  and  enter  every  house  where  there 
are  young  women.  They  take  hold  of  the  young  women  and  throw 
them  into  the  snow,  saying,  “  May  the  spirits  of  disease  leave  you.” 
The  remains  of  the  groats  and  the  other  food  are  then  distributed 
among  all  the  houses  in  proportion  to  the  amount  that  each  con¬ 
tributed,  and  each  family  consumes  its  share.  According  to  a  Wotyak 
of  the  Malmyz  district  the  young  men  throw  into  the  snow  whomever 
they  find  in  the  houses,  and  this  is  called  “  driving  out  Satan  ”  ; 
moreover,  some  of  the  boiled  groats  are  cast  into  the  fire  with  the 
words,  “  O  god,  afflict  us  not  with  sickness  and  pestilence,  give  us  not 
up  as  a  prey  to  the  spirits  of  the  wood.”  But  the  most  antique 
form  of  the  ceremony  is  that  observed  by  the  Wotyaks  of  the  Kasan 
Government.  First  of  all  a  sacrifice  is  offered  to  the  Devil  at  noon. 
Then  all  the  men  assemble  on  horseback  in  the  centre  of  the 
village,  and  decide  with  which  house  they  shall  begin.  When  this 
question,  which  often  gives  rise  to  hot  disputes,  is  settled,  they  tether 


s6o 


THE  PUBLIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS 


CH. 


their  horses  to  the  paling,  and  arm  themselves  with  whips,  clubs  of 
lime-wood,  and  bundles  of  lighted  twigs.  The  lighted  twigs  are 
believed  to  have  the  greatest  terrors  for  Satan.  Thus  armed,  they 
proceed  with  frightful  cries  to  beat  every  corner  of  the  house  and 
yard,  then  shut  the  door,  and  spit  at  the  ejected  fiend.  So  they  go 
from  house  to  house,  till  the  Devil  has  been  driven  from  every  one. 
Then  they  mount  their  horses  and  ride  out  of  the  village,  yelling 
wildly  and  brandishing  their  clubs  in  every  direction.  Outside  of 
the  village  they  fling  away  the  clubs  and  spit  once  more  at  the  Devil. 
The  Cheremiss,  another  Finnish  people  of  Eastern  Russia,  chase 
Satan  from  their  dwellings  by  beating  the  walls  with  cudgels  of  lime- 
wood.  For  the  same  purpose  they  Are  guns,  stab  the  ground  with 
knives,  and  insert  burning  chips  of  wood  in  the  crevices.  Also  they 
leap  over  bonfires,  shaking  out  their  garments  as  they  do  so  ;  and 
in  some  districts  they  blow  on  long  trumpets  of  lime-tree  bark  to 
frighten  him  away.  When  he  has  fled  to  the  wood,  they  pelt  the 
trees  with  some  of  the  cheese-cakes  and  eggs  which  furnished  the 
feast. 

In  Christian  Europe  the  old  heathen  custom  of  expelling  the  powers 
of  evil  at  certain  times  of  the  year  has  survived  to  modem  times. 
Thus  in  some  villages  of  Calabria  the  month  of  March  is  inaugurated 
with  the  expulsion  of  the  witches.  It  takes  place  at  night  to  the 
sound  of  the  church  bells,  the  people  running  about  the  streets  and 
crying,  “  March  is  come.”  They  say  that  the  witches  roam  about 
in  March,  and  the  ceremony  is  repeated  every  Friday  evening  during 
the  month.  Often,  as  might  have  been  anticipated,  the  ancient 
pagan  rite  has  attached  itself  to  church  festivals.  In  Albania  on 
Easter  Eve  the  young  people  light  torches  of  resinous  wood  and  march 
in  procession,  swinging  them,  through  the  village.  At  last  they 
throw  the  torches  into  the  river,  crying,  “  Ha,  Kore  !  we  throw  you 
into  the  river,  like  these  torches,  that  you  may  never  return.”  Silesian 
peasants  believe  that  on  Good  Friday  the  witches  go  their  rounds 
and  have  great  power  for  mischief.  Hence  about  Oels,  near  Strehlitz, 
the  people  on  that  day  arm  themselves  with  old  brooms  and  drive 
the  witches  from  house  and  home,  from  farmyard  and  cattle-stall, 
making  a  great  uproar  and  clatter  as  they  do  so. 

In  Central  Europe  the  favourite  time  for  expelling  the  watches 
is,  or  was,  Walpurgis  Night,  the  Eve  of  May  Day,  when  the  baleful 
powders  of  these  mischievous  beings  were  supposed  to  be  at  their  height. 
In  the  Tyrol,  for  example,  as  in  other  places,  the  expulsion  of  the 
powders  of  evil  at  this  season  goes  by  the  name  of  “  Burning  out  the 
Witches.”  It  takes  place  on  May  Day,  but  people  have  been  busy 
with  their  preparations  for  days  before.  On  a  Thursday  at  midnight 
bundles  are  made  up  of  resinous  splinters,  black  and  red  spotted 
hemlock,  caperspurge,  rosemary,  and  twigs  of  the  sloe.  These  are 
kept  and  burned  on  May  Day  by  men  who  must  first  have  received 
plenary  absolution  from  the  Church.  On  the  last  three  days  of  April 
all  the  houses  are  cleansed  and  fumigated  with  juniper  berries  and 


lvi  THE  PERIODIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS  561 

rue.  On  May  Day,  when  the  evening  bell  has  rung  and  the  twilight 
is  falling,  the  ceremony  of  “  Burning  out  the  Witches  ”  begins.  Men 
and  boys  make  a  racket  with  whips,  bells,  pots,  and  pans  ;  the  women 
carry  censers  ;  the  dogs  are  unchained  and  run  barking  and  yelping 
about.  As  soon  as  the  church  bells  begin  to  ring,  the  bundles  of 
twigs,  fastened  on  poles,  are  set  on  fire  and  the  incense  is  ignited. 
Then  all  the  house-bells  and  dinner-bells  are  rung,  pots  and  pans 
are  clashed,  dogs  bark,  every  one  must  make  a  noise.  And  amid  this 
hubbub  all  scream  at  the  pitch  of  their  voices : 

“  Witch  flee,  flee  from  here,  or  it  will  go  ill  with  thee.” 

Then  they  run  seven  times  round  the  houses,  the  yards,  and  the 
village.  So  the  witches  are  smoked  out  of  their  lurking-places  and 
driven  away.  The  custom  of  expelling  the  witches  on  Walpurgis 
Night  is  still,  or  was  down  to  recent  years,  observed  in  many  parts  of 
Bavaria  and  among  the  Germans  of  Bohemia.  Thus  in  the  Bohmer- 
wald  Mountains  all  the  young  fellows  of  the  village  assemble  after 
sunset  on  some  height,  especially  at  a  cross-road,  and  crack  whips  for 
a  while  in  unison  with  all  their  strength.  This  drives  away  the  witches  ; 
for  so  far  as  the  sound  of  the  whips  is  heard,  these  maleficent  beings  can 
do  no  harm.  In  some  places,  while  the  young  men  are  cracking  their 
whips,  the  herdsmen  wind  their  horns,  and  the  long-drawn  notes,  heard 
far  off  in  the  silence  of  night,  are  very  effectual  for  banning  the  witches. 

Another  witching  time  is  the  period  of  twelve  days  between 
Christmas  and  Epiphany.  Hence  in  some  parts  of  Silesia  the  people 
burn  pine-resin  all  night  long  between  Christmas  and  the  New  Year  in 
order  that  the  pungent  smoke  may  drive  witches  and  evil  spirits  far 
away  from  house  and  homestead  ;  and  on  Christmas  Eve  and  New 
Year's  Eve  they  fire  shots  over  fields  and  meadows,  into  shrubs  and 
trees,  and  wrap  straw  round  the  fruit-trees,  to  prevent  the  spirits  from 
doing  them  harm.  On  New  Year’s  Eve,  which  is  Saint  Sylvester's 
Day,  Bohemian  lads,  armed  with  guns,  form  themselves  into  circles 
and  fire  thrice  into  the  air.  This  is  called  “  Shooting  the  Witches  ” 
and  is  supposed  to  frighten  the  witches  away.  The  last  of  the  mystic 
twelve  days  is  Epiphany  or  Twelfth  Night,  and  it  has  been  selected 
as  a  proper  season  for  the  expulsion  of  the  powers  of  evil  in  various 
parts  of  Europe.  Thus  at  Brunnen,  on  the  Lake  of  Lucerne,  boys  go 
about  in  procession  on  Twelfth  Night  carrying  torches  and  making  a 
great  noise  with  horns,  bells,  whips,  and  so  forth  to  frighten  away  two 
female  spirits  of  the  wood,  Strudeli  and  Stratteli.  The  people  think 
that  if  they  do  not  make  enough  noise  there  will  be  little  fruit  that 
year.  Again,  in  Labruguiere,  a  canton  of  southern  France,  on  the 
eve  of  Twelfth  Day  the  people  run  through  the  streets,  jangling  bells, 
clattering  kettles,  and  doing  everything  to  make  a  discordant  noise. 
Then  by  the  light  of  torches  and  blazing  faggots  they  set  up  a  pro¬ 
digious  hue  and  cry,  an  ear-splitting  uproar,  hoping  thereby  to  chase 
all  the  wandering  ghosts  and  devils  from  the  town. 


562 


PUBLIC  SCAPEGOATS 


CH. 


CHAPTER  LVII 

PUBLIC  SCAPEGOATS 

8  I.  The  Expulsion  of  Embodied  Evils.— Thus  far  we  have  dealt  with 
that  class  of  the  general  expulsion  of  evils  which  I  have  called  direct 
or  immediate.  In  this  class  the  evils  are  invisible,  at  least  to  common 
eyes,  and  the  mode  of  deliverance  consists  for  the  most  part  in  beating 
the  empty  air  and  raising  such  a  hubbub  as  may  scare  the  mischievous 
spirits  and  put  them  to  flight.  It  remains  to  illustrate  the  second 
class  of  expulsions,  in  which  the  evil  influences  are  embodied  in.  a 
visible  form  or  are  at  least  supposed  to  be  loaded  upon  a  material 
medium,  which  acts  as  a  vehicle  to  draw  them  off  from  the  people, 

village,  or  town.  ,  ,  .. 

The  Pomos  of  California  celebrate  an  expulsion  of  devils  every 

seven  years,  at  which  the  devils  are  represented  by  disguised  men. 

“  Twenty  or  thirty  men  array  themselves  in  harlequin  rig  and  barbaric 
paint,  and  put  vessels  of  pitch  on  their  heads  ;  then  they  secretly  go 
out  into  the  surrounding  mountains.  These  are  to  personify  the  ( 
devils  A  herald  goes  up  to  the  top  of  the  assembly-house,  and 
makes  a  speech  to  the  multitude.  At  a  signal  agreed  upon,  in  the 
evening  the  masqueraders  come  in  from  the  mountains,  with  the  ( 
vessels  of  pitch  flaming  on  their  heads,  and  with  all  the  frightful 
accessories  of  noise,  motion,  and  costume  which  the  savage  mind  can 
devise  in  representation  of  demons.  The  terrified  women  and  children 
flee  for  life,  the  men  huddle  them  inside  a  circle,  and,  on  the  principle 
of  fighting  the  devil  with  fire,  they  swing  blazing  firebrands  in  the  , 
air,  yell,  whoop,  and  make  frantic  dashes  at  the  marauding  and 
bloodthirsty  devils,  so  creating  a  terrific  spectacle,  and  striking  great 
fear  into  the  hearts  of  the  assembled  hundreds  of  women,  who  are 
screaming  and  fainting  and  clinging  to  their  valorous  protectors 
Finally  the  devils  succeed  in  getting  into  the  assembly-house,  and 
the  bravest  of  the  men  enter  and  hold  a  pailey  with  them.  As.  a 
conclusion  of  the  whole  farce,  the  men  summon  courage,  the  devils 
are  expelled  from  the  assembly-house,  and  with  a  prodigious,  row  and 
racket  of  sham  fighting  are  chased  away  into  the  mountains.”  In 
spring,  as  soon  as  the  willow-leaves  were  full,  grown  on  the  banks  of 
the  river,  the  Mandan  Indians  celebrated  their  great  annual  festival, 
one  of  the  features  of  which  was  the  expulsion  of  the  devil.  A  man, 
painted  black  to  represent  the  devil,  entered  the  village  from  the 
prairie  chased  and  frightened  the  women,  and  acted  the  part  of  a 
buffalo  bull  in  the  buffalo  dance,  the  object  of  which  was  to  ensure  a 
plentiful  supply  of  buffaloes  during  the  ensuing  year.  Finally  he 
was  chased  from  the  village,  the  women  pursuing  him  with  hisses 
and  gibes,  beating  him  with  sticks,  and  pelting  him  with  dirt. 

Some  of  the  native  tribes  of  Central  Queensland  believe  in  a  noxious 
being  called  Molonga,  who  prowls  unseen  and  would  kill  men  and 


lvii  THE  OCCASIONAL  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS  563 

violate  women  if  certain  ceremonies  were  not  performed.  These 
ceremonies  last  for  five  nights  and  consist  of  dances,  in  which  only 
men,  fantastically  painted  and  adorned,  take  part.  On  the  fifth 
night  Molonga  himself,  personified  by  a  man  tricked  out  with  red 
ochre  and  feathers  and  carrying  a  long  feather-tipped  spear,  rushes 
forth  from  the  darkness  at  the  spectators  and  makes  as  if  he  would 
run  them  through.  Great  is  the  excitement,  loud  are  the  shrieks 
and  shouts,  but  after  another  feigned  attack  the  demon  vanishes  in 
the  gloom.  On  the  last  night  of  the  year  the  palace  of  the  Kings 
of  Cambodia  is  purged  of  devils.  Men  painted  as  fiends  are  chased 
by  elephants  about  the  palace  courts.  When  they  have  been  expelled, 
a  consecrated  thread  of  cotton  is  stretched  round  the  palace  to  keep 
them  out.  In  Munzerabad,  a  district  of  Mysore  in  Southern  India, 
when  cholera  or  smallpox  has  broken  out  in  a  parish,  the  inhabitants 
assemble  and  conjure  the  demon  of  the  disease  into  a  wooden  image, 
which  they  carry,  generally  at  midnight,  into  the  next  parish.  The 
inhabitants  of  that  parish  in  like  manner  pass  the  image  on  to  their 
neighbours,  and  thus  the  demon  is  expelled  from  one  village  after 
another,  until  he  comes  to  the  bank  of  a  river  into  which  he  is  finally 
thrown. 

Oftener,  however,  the  expelled  demons  are  not  represented  at 
all,  but  are  understood  to  be  present  invisibly  in  the  material  and 
visible  vehicle  which  conveys  them  away.  Here,  again,  it  will  be 
convenient  to  distinguish  between  occasional  and  periodical  expulsions. 
We  begin  with  the  former. 

§  2.  The  Occasional  Expulsion  of  Evils  in  a  Material  Vehicle. — 
The  vehicle  which  conveys  away  the  demons  may  be  of  various  kinds. 
A  common  one  is  a  little  ship  or  boat.  Thus,  in  the  southern  district 
of  the  island  of  Ceram,  when  a  whole  village  suffers  from  sickness,  a 
small  ship  is  made  and  filled  with  rice,  tobacco,  eggs,  and  so  forth, 
which  have  been  contributed  by  all  the  people.  A  little  sail  is  hoisted 
on  the  ship.  When  all  is  ready,  a  man  calls  out  in  a  very  loud  voice, 
“  0  all  ye  sicknesses,  ye  smallpoxes,  agues,  measles,  etc.,  who  have 
visited  us  so  long  and  wasted  us  so  sorely,  but  who  now  cease  to  plague 
us,  we  have  made  ready  this  ship  for  you,  and  we  have  furnished  you 
with  provender  sufficient  for  the  voyage.  Ye  shall  have  no  lack  of 
food  nor  of  betel-leaves  nor  of  areca  nuts  nor  of  tobacco.  Depart, 
and  sail  away  from  us  directly  ;  never  come  near  us  again  ;  but  go 
to  a  land  which  is  far  from  here.  Let  all  the  tides  and  winds  waft 
you  speedily  thither,  and  so  convey  you  thither  that  for  the  time  to 
come  we  may  live  sound  and  well,  and  that  we  may  never  see  the  sun 
rise  on  you  again.”  Then  ten  or  twelve  men  carry  the  vessel  to  the 
shore,  and  let  it  drift  away  with  the  land-breeze,  feeling  convinced 
that  they  are  free  from  sickness  for  ever,  or  at  least  till  the  next  time. 
If  sickness  attacks  them  again,  they  are  sure  it  is  not  the  same  sickness, 
but  a  different  one,  which  in  due  time  they  dismiss  in  the  same  manner. 
When  the  demon-laden  bark  is  lost  to  sight,  the  bearers  return  to  the 
village,  whereupon  a  man  cries  out,  “  The  sicknesses  are  now  gone, 


CH. 


564  PUBLIC  SCAPEGOATS 

vanished,  expelled,  and  sailed  away.  At  this  all  the  people  come 
running  out  of  their  houses,  passing  the  word  from  one  to  the  other 
with  great  joy,  beating  on  gongs  and  on  tinkling  instruments. 

Similar  ceremonies  are  commonly  resorted  to  in  other  East  Indian 
islands.  Thus  in  Timor-laut,  to  mislead  the  demons  who  are  causing 
sickness,  a  small  proa,  containing  the  image  of  a  man  and  provisioned 
for  a  long  voyage,  is  allowed  to  drift  away  with  wind  and  tide. 
As  it  is  being  launched,  the  people  cry,  ‘  O  sickness,  go  fiom  here , 
turn  back  ;  what  do  you  here  in  this  poor  land  ?  ”  Three  days 
after  this  ceremony  a  pig  is  killed,  and  part  of  the  flesh  is  offered  to 
Dudilaa,  who  lives  in  the  sun.  One  of  the  oldest  men  says,  “  Old 
sir,  I  beseech  you  make  well  the  grand-children,  children,  women, 
and  men,  that  we  may  be  able  to  eat  pork  and  rice  and  to  drink  palm- 
wine.  I  will  keep  my  promise.  Eat  your  share,  and  make  all  the 
people  in  the  village  well.”  If  the  proa  is  stranded  at  any  inhabited 
spot,  the  sickness  will  break  out  there.  Hence  a  stranded  proa  excites 
much  alarm  amongst  the  coast  population,  and  they  immediately 
burn  it,  because  demons  fly  from  fire.  In  the  island  of  Burn  the  proa 
which  carries  away  the  demons  of  disease  is  about  twenty  feet  long,  1 
rigged  out  with  sails,  oars,  anchor,  and  so  on,  and  well  stocked  with 
provisions.  For  a  day  and  a  night  the  people  beat  gongs  and  drums, 
and  rush  about  to  frighten  the  demons.  Next  morning  ten  stalwart 
young  men  strike  the  people  with  branches,  which  have  been  pre¬ 
viously  dipped  in  an  earthen  pot  of  water.  As  soon  as  they  have 
done  so,  they  run  down  to  the  beach,  put  the  branches  on  board  the 
proa,  launch  another  boat  in  great  haste,  and  tow  the  disease-burdened 
bark  far  out  to  sea.  There  they  cast  it  off,  and  one  of  them  calls 
out,  "  Grandfather  Smallpox,  go  away— go  willingly  away— go  visit 
another  land  ;  we  have  made  you  food  ready  for  the  voyage,  we  have 
now  nothing  more  to  give.”  When  they  have  landed,  all  the  people 
bathe  together  in  the  sea.  In  this  ceremony  the  reason  for  striking 
the  people  with  the  branches  is  clearly  to  rid  them  of  the  disease- 
demons,  which  are  then  supposed  to  be  transferred  to  the  branches. 
Hence  the  haste  with  which  the  branches  are  deposited  in  the  proa 
and  towed  away  to  sea.  So  in  the  inland  districts  of  Ceram,  when 
smallpox  or  other  sickness  is  raging,  the  priest  strikes  all  the  houses 
with  consecrated  branches,  which  are  then  thrown  into  the  river,  to 
be  carried  down  to  the  sea  ;  exactly  as  amongst  the  Wotyaks  of 
Russia  the  sticks  which  have  been  used  for  expelling  the  devils  from 
the  village  are  thrown  into  the  river,  that  the  current  may  sweep 
the  baleful  burden  away.  The  plan  of  putting  puppets  in  the  boat 
to  represent  sick  persons,  in  order  to  lure  the  demons  after  them,  is 
not  uncommon.  For  example,  most  of  the  pagan  tribes  on  the  coast 
of  Borneo  seek  to  drive  away  epidemic  disease  as  follows.  They 
carve  one  or  more  rough  human  images  from  the  pith  of  the  sago 
palm  and  place  them  on  a  small  raft  or  boat  or  full-rigged  Malay 
ship  together  with  rice  and  other  food.  The  boat  is  decked  with 
blossoms  of  the  areca  palm  and  with  ribbons  made  from  its  leaves, 


lvii  THE  OCCASIONAL  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS  565 

and  thus  adorned  the  little  craft  is  allowed  to  float  out  to  sea  with  the 
ebb-tide,  bearing,  as  the  people  fondly  think  or  hope,  the  sickness 
away  with  it. 

Often  the  vehicle  which  carries  away  the  collected  demons  or  ills 
of  a  whole  community  is  an  animal  or  scapegoat.  In  the  Central 
Provinces  of  India,  when  cholera  breaks  out  in  a  village,  every  one 
retires  after  sunset  to  his  house.  The  priests  then  parade  the  streets, 
taking  from  the  roof  of  each  house  a  straw,  which  is  burnt  with  an 
offering  of  rice,  ghee,  and  turmeric,  at  some  shrine  to  the  east  of  the 
village.  Chickens  daubed  with  vermilion  are  driven  away  in  the 
direction  of  the  smoke,  and  are  believed  to  carry  the  disease  with 
them.  If  they  fail,  goats  are  tried,  and  last  of  all  pigs.  When  cholera 
rages  among  the  Bhars,  Malians,  and  Kurmis  of  India,  they  take  a 
goat  or  a  buffalo — in  either  case  the  animal  must  be  a  female,  and  as 
black  as  possible — then  having  tied  some  grain,  cloves,  and  red  lead 
in  a  yellow  cloth  on  its  back  they  turn  it  out  of  the  village.  The 
animal  is  conducted  beyond  the  boundary  and  not  allowed  to  return. 
Sometimes  the  buffalo  is  marked  with  a  red  pigment  and  driven  to 
the  next  village,  where  he  carries  the  plague  with  him. 

Amongst  the  Dinkas,  a  pastoral  people  of  the  White  Nile,  each 
family  possesses  a  sacred  cow.  When  the  country  is  threatened  with 
war,  famine,  or  any  other  public  calamity,  the  chiefs  of  the  village 
require  a  particular  family  to  surrender  their  sacred  cow  to  serve  as 
a  scapegoat.  The  animal  is  driven  by  the  women  to  the  brink  of 
the  river  and  across  it  to  the  other  bank,  there  to  wander  in  the  wilder¬ 
ness  and  fall  a  prey  to  ravening  beasts.  Then  the  women  return 
in  silence  and  without  looking  behind  them  ;  were  they  to  cast  a 
backward  glance,  they  imagine  that  the  ceremony  would  have  no 
effect.  In  1857,  when  the  Aymara  Indians  of  Bolivia  and  Peru  were 
suffering  from  a  plague,  they  loaded  a  black  llama  with  the  clothes 
of  the  plague-stricken  people,  sprinkled  brandy  on  the  clothes,  and 
then  turned  the  animal  loose  on  the  mountains,  hoping  that  it  would 
carry  the  pest  away  with  it. 

Occasionally  the  scapegoat  is  a  man.  For  example,  from  time 
to  time  the  gods  used  to  warn  the  King  of  Uganda  that  his  foes  the 
Banyoro  were  working  magic  against  him  and  his  people  to  make 
them  die  of  disease.  To  avert  such  a  catastrophe  the  king  would 
send  a  scapegoat  to  the  frontier  of  Bunyoro,  the  land  of  the  enemy. 
The  scapegoat  consisted  of  either  a  man  and  a  boy  or  a  woman  and 
her  child,  chosen  because  of  some  mark  or ‘bodily  defect,  which  the 
gods  had  noted  and  by  which  the  victims  were  to  be  recognised. 
With  the  human  victims  were  sent  a  cow,  a  goat,  a  fowl,  and  a  dog  ; 
and  a  strong  guard  escorted  them  to  the  land  which  the  god  had 
indicated.  There  the  limbs  of  the  victims  were  broken  and  they  were 
left  to  die  a  lingering  death  in  the  enemy's  country,  being  too  crippled 
to  crawl  back  to  Uganda.  The  disease  or  plague  was  thought  to 
have  been  thus  transferred  to  the  victims  and  to  have  been  conveyed 
back  in  their  persons  to  the  land  from  which  it  came. 


566  PUBLIC  SCAPEGOATS  ch. 

Some  of  the  aboriginal  tribes  of  China,  as  a  protection  against 
pestilence,  select  a  man  of  great  muscular  strength  to  act  the  part 
of  scapegoat.  Having  besmeared  his  face  with  paint,  he  pel  forms 
many  antics  with  the  view  of  enticing  all  pestilential  and  noxious 
influences  to  attach  themselves  to  him  only.  He  is  assisted  by  a 
priest.  Finally  the  scapegoat,  hotly  pursued  by  men  and  women 
beating  gongs  and  tom-toms,  is  driven  with  great  haste  out  of  the 
town  or  village.  In  the  Punjaub  a  cure  for  the  murrain  is  to  hire  a 
man  of  the  Chamar  caste,  turn  his  face  away  from  the  village,  brand 
him  with  a  red-hot  sickle,  and  let  him  go  out  into  the  jungle  taking 
the  murrain  with  him.  He  must  not  look  back. 

§  3.  The  Periodic  Expulsion  of  Evils  in  a  Material  Vehicle.— The 
mediate  expulsion  of  evils  by  means  of  a  scapegoat  or  other  material 
vehicle,  like  the  immediate  expulsion  of  them  in  invisible  form,  tends 
to  become  periodic,  and  for  a  like  reason.  Thus  every  year,  generally 
in  March,  the  people  of  Leti,  Moa,  and  Lakor,  islands  of  the  Indian 
Archipelago,  send  away  all  their  diseases  to  sea.  They  make  a  proa 
about  six  feet  long,  rig  it  with  sails,  oars,  rudder,  and  other  gear, 
and  every  family  deposits  in  it  some  rice,  fruit,  a  fowl,  two  eggs, 
insects  that  ravage  the  fields,  and  so  on.  Then  they  let  it  drift  away 
to  sea,  saying,  “  Take  away  from  here  all  kinds  of  sickness,  take  them  1 
to  other  islands,  to  other  lands,  distribute  them  in  places  that  lie 
eastward,  where  the  sun  rises/’  The  Biajas  of  Borneo  annually  send 
to  sea  a  little  bark  laden  with  the  sins  and  misfortunes  of  the  people. 
The  crew  of  any  ship  that  falls  in  with  the  ill-omened  bark  at  sea 
will  suffer  all  the  sorrows  with  which  it  is  laden.  A  like  custom  is 
annually  observed  by  the  Dusuns  of  the  Tuaran  district  in  British 
North  Borneo.  The  ceremony  is  the  most  important  of  the  whole 
year.  Its  aim  is  to  bring  good  luck  to  the  village  during  the  ensuing 
year  by  solemnly  expelling  all  the  evil  spirits  that  may  have  collected 
in  or  about  the  houses  throughout  the  last  twelve  months.  The 
task  of  routing  out  the  demons  and  banishing  them  devolves  chiefly 
on  women.  Dressed  in  their  finest  array,  they  go  in  procession 
through  the  village.  One  of  them  carries  a  small  sucking  pig  in  a 
basket  on  her  back  ;  and  all  of  them  bear  wands,  with  which  they 
belabour  the  little  pig  at  the  appropriate  moment  ;  its  squeals  help 
to  attract  the  vagrant  spirits.  At  every  house  the  women  dance 
and  sing,  clashing  castanets  or  cymbals  of  brass  and  jingling  bunches 
of  little  brass  bells  in  both  hands.  When  the  performance  has  been 
repeated  at  every  house  in  the  village,  the  procession  defiles  down 
to  the  river,  and  all  the  evil  spirits,  which  the  performers  have  chased 
from  the  houses,  follow  them  to  the  edge  of  the  water.  There  a  raft 
has  been  made  ready  and  moored  to  the  bank.  It  contains  offerings 
of  food,  cloth,  cooking-pots,  and  swords  ;  and  the  deck  is  crowded 
with  figures  of  men,  women,  animals,  and  birds,  all  made  out  of  the 
leaves  of  the  sago  palm.  The  evil  spirits  now  embark  on  the  raft, 
and  when  they  are  all  aboard,  it  is  pushed  off  and  allowed  to  float 
down  with  the  current,  carrying  the  demons  with  it.  Should  the  raft 


LVII 


THE  PERIODIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS 


567 

run  aground  near  the  village,  it  is  shoved  off  with  all  speed,  lest  the 
invisible  passengers  should  seize  the  opportunity  of  landing  and  re¬ 
turning  to  the  village.  Finally,  the  sufferings  of  the  little  pig,  whose 
squeals  served  to  decoy  the  demons  from  their  lurking-places,  are 
terminated  by  death,  for  it  is  killed  and  its  carcase  thrown  away. 

Every  year,  at  the  beginning  of  the  dry  season,  the  Nicobar  Islanders 
carry  the  model  of  a  ship  through  their  villages.  The  devils  are 
chased  out  of  the  huts,  and  driven  on  board  the  little  ship,  which 
is  then  launched  and  suffered  to  sail  away  with  the  wind.  The  cere¬ 
mony  has  been  described  by  a  catechist,  who  witnessed  it  at  Car 
Nicobar  in  July  1897.  For  three  days  the  people  were  busy  preparing 
two  very  large  floating  cars,  shaped  like  canoes,  fitted  with  sails, 
and  loaded  with  certain  leaves,  which  possessed  the  valuable  property 
of  expelling  devils.  While  the  young  people  were  thus  engaged,  the 
exorcists  and  the  elders  sat  in  a  house  singing  songs  by  turns  ;  but 
often  they  would  come  forth,  pace  the  beach  armed  with  rods, 

and  forbid  the  devil  to  enter  the  village.  The  fourth  day  of  the 

solemnity  bore  a  name  which  means  “  Expelling  the  Devil  by 
Sails.”  In  the  evening  all  the  villagers  assembled,  the  women  bring¬ 
ing  baskets  of  ashes  and  bunches  of  devil-expelling  leaves.  These 
leaves  were  then  distributed  to  everybody,  old  and  young.  When 
all  was  ready,  a  band  of  robust  men,  attended  by  a  guard  of  exorcists, 
carried  one  of  the  cars  down  to  the  sea  on  the  right  side  of  the  village 

graveyard,  and  set  it  floating  in  the  water.  As  soon  as  they  had 

returned,  another  band  of  men  carried  the  other  car  to  the  beach 
and  floated  it  similarly  in  the  sea  to  the  left  of  the  graveyard.  The 
demon-laden  barks  being  now  launched,  the  women  threw  ashes  from 
the  shore,  and  the  whole  crowd  shouted,  saying,  “  Fly  away,  devil, 
fly  away,  never  come  again  !  ”  The  wind  and  the  tide  being  favour¬ 
able,  the  canoes  sailed  quickly  away  ;  and  that  night  all  the  people 
feasted  together  with  great  joy,  because  the  devil  had  departed  in 
the  direction  of  Chowra.  A  similar  expulsion  of  devils  takes  place 
once  a  year  in  other  Nicobar  villages  ;  but  the  ceremonies  are  held 
at  different  times  in  different  places. 

Amongst  many  of  the  aboriginal  tribes  of  China,  a  great  festival 
is  celebrated  in  the  third  month  of  every  year.  It  is  held  by  way 
of  a  general  rejoicing  over  what  the  people  believe  to  be  a  total  annihi¬ 
lation  of  the  ills  of  the  past  twelve  months.  The  destruction  is  sup¬ 
posed  to  be  effected  in  the  following  way.  A  large  earthenware  jar 
filled  with  gunpowder,  stones,  and  bits  of  iron  is  buried  in  the  earth. 
A  train  of  gunpowder,  communicating  with  the  jar,  is  then  laid  ; 
and  a  match  being  applied,  the  jar  and  its  contents  are  blown  up. 
The  stones  and  bits  of  iron  represent  the  ills  and  disasters  of  the  past 
year,  and  the  dispersion  of  them  by  the  explosion  is  believed  to  remove 
the  ills  and  disasters  themselves.  The  festival  is  attended  with  much 
revelling  and  drunkenness. 

At  Old  Calabar  on  the  coast  of  Guinea,  the  devils  and  ghosts  are, 
or  used  to  be,  publicly  expelled  once  in  two  years.  Among  the  spirits 


PUBLIC  SCAPEGOATS 


CH. 


568 


thus  driven  from  their  haunts  are  the  souls  of  all  the  people  who  died 
since  the  last  lustration  of  the  town.  About  three  weeks  or  a  month 
before  the  expulsion,  which  according  to  one  account  takes  place  in 
the  month  of  November,  rude  effigies  representing  men  and  animals, 
such  as  crocodiles,  leopards,  elephants,  bullocks,  and  birds,  are  made 
of  wicker-work  or  wood,  and  being  hung  with  strips  of  cloth  and 
bedizened  with  gew-gaws,  are  set  before  the  door  of  every  house. 
About  three  o’clock  in  the  morning  of  the  day  appointed  for  the 
ceremony  the  whole  population  turns  out  into  the  streets,  and  proceeds 
with  a  deafening  uproar  and  in  a  state  of  the  wildest  excitement  to 
drive  all  lurking  devils  and  ghosts  into  the  effigies,  in  order  that  they 
may  be  banished  with  them  from  the  abodes  of  men.  For  this  purpose 
bands  of  people  roam  through  the  streets  knocking  on  doors,  firing 
guns,  beating  drums,  blowing  on  horns,  ringing  bells,  clattering  pots 
and  pans,  shouting  and  hallooing  with  might  and  main,  in  short 
making  all  the  noise  it  is  possible  for  them  to  raise.  The  hubbub 
goes  on  till  the  approach  of  dawn,  when  it  gradually  subsides  and 
ceases  altogether  at  sunrise.  By  this  time  the  houses  have  been 
thoroughly  swept,  and  all  the  frightened  spirits  are  supposed  to  have 
huddled  into  the  effigies  or  their  fluttering  drapery.  In  these  wicker 
figures  are  also  deposited  the  sweepings  of  the  houses  and  the  ashes 
of  yesterday’s  fires.  Then  the  demon-laden  images  are  hastily  snatched 
up,  carried  in  tumultuous  procession  down  to  the  brink  of  the  river, 
and  thrown  into  the  water  to  the  tuck  of  drums.  The  ebb-tide  bears 
them  away  seaward,  and  thus  the  town  is  swept  clean  of  ghosts  and 
devils  for  another  two  years. 

Similar  annual  expulsions  of  embodied  evils  are  not  unknown  in 
Europe.  On  the  evening  of  Easter  Sunday  the  gypsies  of  Southern 
Europe  take  a  wooden  vessel  like  a  band-box,  which  rests  cradle-wise 
on  two  cross  pieces  of  wood.  In  this  they  place  herbs  and  simples, 
together  with  the  dried  carcase  of  a  snake,  or  lizard,  which  every 
person  present  must  first  have  touched  with  his  fingers.  The  vessel 
is  then  wrapt  in  white  and  red  wool,  carried  by  the  oldest  man  from 
tent  to  tent,  and  finally  thrown  into  running  water,  not,  however, 
before  every  member  of  the  band  has  spat  into  it  once,  and  the 
sorceress  has  uttered  some  spells  over  it.  They  believe  that  by 
performing  this  ceremony  they  dispel  all  the  illnesses  that  would 
otherwise  have  afflicted  them  in  the  course  of  the  year ;  and  that  if  any 
one  finds  the  vessel  and  opens  it  out  of  curiosity,  he  and  his  will  be 
visited  by  all  the  maladies  which  the  others  have  escaped. 

The  scapegoat  by  means  of  which  the  accumulated  ills  of  a  whole 
year  are  publicly  expelled  is  sometimes  an  animal.  For  example, 
among  the  Garos  of  Assam,  “  besides  the  sacrifices  for  individual 
cases  of  illness,  there  are  certain  ceremonies  which  are  observed  once 
a  year  by  a  whole  community  or  village,  and  are  intended  to  safe¬ 
guard  its  members  from  dangers  of  the  forest,  and  from  sickness  and 
mishap  during  the  coming  twelve  months.  The  principal  of  these 
is  the  Asongtata  ceremony.  Close  to  the  outskirts  of  every  big 


lvii  THE  PERIODIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS  569 

village  a  number  of  stones  may  be  noticed  stuck  into  the  ground, 
apparently  without  order  or  method.  These  are  known  by  the  name 
of  asong,  and  on  them  is  offered  the  sacrifice  which  the  Asongtata 
demands.  The  sacrifice  of  a  goat  takes  place,  and  a  month  later, 
that  of  a  langur  ( Entellus  monkey)  or  a  bamboo-rat  is  considered 
necessary.  The  animal  chosen  has  a  rope  fastened  round  its  neck 
and  is  led  by  two  men,  one  on  each  side  of  it,  to  every  house  in  the 
village.  It  is  taken  inside  each  house  in  turn,  the  assembled  villagers, 
meanwhile,  beating  the  walls  from  the  outside,  to  frighten  and  drive 
out  any  evil  spirits  which  may  have  taken  up  their  residence  within. 
The  round  of  the  village  having  been  made  in  this  manner,  the  monkey 
or  rat  is  led  to  the  outskirts  of  the  village,  killed  by  a  blow  of  a  dao, 
which  disembowels  it,  and  then  crucified  on  bamboos  set  up  in  the 
ground.  Round  the  crucified  animal  long,  sharp  bamboo  stakes  are 
placed,  which  form  chevaux  de  frise  round  about  it.  These  com¬ 
memorate  the  days  when  such  defences  surrounded  the  villages  on  all 
sides  to  keep  off  human  enemies,  and  they  are  now  a  symbol  to  ward 
off  sickness  and  dangers  to  life  from  the  wild  animals  of  the  forest. 
The  langur  required  for  the  purpose  is  hunted  down  some  days  before, 
but  should  it  be  found  impossible  to  catch  one,  a  brown  monkey  may 
take  its  place  ;  a  hulock  may  not  be  used.”  Here  the  crucified  ape 
or  rat  is  the  public  scapegoat,  which  by  its  vicarious  sufferings  and 
death  relieves  the  people  from  all  sickness  and  mishap  in  the  coming 
year. 

Again,  on  one  day  of  the  year  the  Bhotiyas  of  Juhar,  in  the  Western 
Himalayas,  take  a  dog,  intoxicate  him  with  spirits  and  bhang  or 
hemp,  and  having  fed  him  with  sweetmeats,  lead  him  round  the 
village  and  let  him  loose.  They  then  chase  and  kill  him  with  sticks 
and  stones,  and  believe  that,  when  they  have  done  so,  no  disease  or 
misfortune  will  visit  the  village  during  the  year.  In  some  parts  of 
Breadalbane  it  was  formerly  the  custom  on  New  Year’s  Day  to  take 
a  dog  to  the  door,  give  him  a  bit  of  bread,  and  drive  him  out,  saying, 
“  Get  away,  you  dog  !  Whatever  death  of  men  or  loss  of  cattle 
would  happen  in  this  house  to  the  end  of  the  present  year,  may  it 
all  light  on  your  head  !  ”  On  the  Day  of  Atonement,  which  was  the 
tenth  day  of  the  seventh  month,  the  Jewish  high-priest  laid  both  his 
hands  on  the  head  of  a  live  goat,  confessed  over  it  all  the  iniquities 
of  the  Children  of  Israel,  and,  having  thereby  transferred  the  sins  of 
the  people  to  the  beast,  sent  it  away  into  the  wilderness. 

The  scapegoat  upon  whom  the  sins  of  the  people  are  periodically 
laid,  may  also  be  a  human  being.  At  Onitsha,  on  the  Niger,  two 
human  beings  used  to  be  annually  sacrificed  to  take  away  the  sins 
of  the  land.  The  victims  were  purchased  by  public  subscription. 
All  persons  who,  during  the  past  year,  had  fallen  into  gross  sins,  such 
as  incendiarism,  theft,  adultery,  witchcraft,  and  so  forth,  were  expected 
to  contribute  28  ngugas,  or  a  little  over  £2.  The  money  thus  collected 
was  taken  into  the  interior  of  the  country  and  expended  in  the  purchase 
of  two  sickly  persons  “  to  be  offered  as  a  sacrifice  for  all  these  abomin- 


570 


PUBLIC  SCAPEGOATS 


CH. 

able  crimes — one  for  the  land  and  one  for  the  river.”  A  man  from  a 
neighbouring  town  was  hired  to  put  them  to  death.  On  the  twenty- 
seventh  of  February  1858  the  Rev.  J.  C.  Taylor  witnessed  the  sacrifice 
of  one  of  these  victims.  The  sufferer  was  a  woman,  about  nineteen 
or  twenty  years  of  age.  They  dragged  her  alive  along  the  ground, 
face  downwards,  from  the  king’s  house  to  the  river,  a  distance  of 
two  miles,  the  crowds  who  accompanied  her  crying,  "  Wickedness  ! 
wickedness  !  ”  The  intention  was  “  to  take  away  the  iniquities  of 
the  land.  The  body  was  dragged  along  in  a  merciless  manner,  as  if 
the  weight  of  all  their  wickedness  was  thus  carried  away.”  Similar 
customs  are  said  to  be  still  secretly  practised  every  year  by  many 
tribes  in  the  delta  of  the  Niger  in  spite  of  the  vigilance  of  the  British 
Government.  Among  the  Yoruba  negroes  of  West  Africa  “  the  human 
victim  chosen  for  sacrifice,  and  who  may  be  either  a  freeborn  or  a 
slave,  a  person  of  noble  or  wealthy  parentage,  or  one  of  humble  birth, 
is,  after  he  has  been  chosen  and  marked  out  for  the  purpose,  called 
an  Olnwo.  He  is  always  well  fed  and  nourished  and  supplied  with  what¬ 
ever  he  should  desire  during  the  period  of  his  confinement.  When  the 
occasion  arrives  for  him  to  be  sacrificed  and  offered  up,  he  is  commonly 
led  about  and  paraded  through  the  streets  of  the  town  or  city  of  the 
Sovereign  who  would  sacrifice  him  for  the  well-being  of  his  government 
and  of  every  family  and  individual  under  it,  in  order  that  he  might 
carry  off  the  sin,  guilt,  misfortune  and  death  of  all  without  exception. 
Ashes  and  chalk  would  be  employed  to  hide  his  identity  by  the  one 
being  freely  thrown  over  his  head,  and  his  face  painted  with  the 
latter,  whilst  individuals  would  often  rush  out  of  their  houses  to  lay 
their  hands  upon  him  that  they  might  thus  transfer  to  him  their 
sin,  guilt,  trouble,  and  death.”  This  parade  over,  he  is  taken  to  an 
inner  sanctuary  and  beheaded.  His  last  words  or  dying  groans  are 
the  signal  for  an  outburst  of  joy  among  the  people  assembled  outside, 
who  believe  that  the  sacrifice  has  been  accepted  and  the  divine  wrath 
appeased. 

In  Siam  it  used  to  be  the  custom  on  one  day  of  the  year  to  single 
out  a  woman  broken  down  by  debauchery,  and  carry  her  on  a  litter 
through  all  the  streets  to  the  music  of  drums  and  hautboys.  The  mob 
insulted  her  and  pelted  her  with  dirt ;  and  after  having  carried  her 
through  the  whole  city,  they  threw  her  on  a  dunghill  or  a  hedge  of 
thorns  outside  the  ramparts,  forbidding  her  ever  to  enter  the  walls 
again.  They  believed  that  the  woman  thus  drew  upon  herself  all 
the  malign  influences  of  the  air  and  of  evil  spirits.  The  Bataks  of 
Sumatra  offer  either  a  red  horse  or  a  buffalo  as  a  public  sacrifice  to 
purify  the  land  and  obtain  the  favour  of  the  gods.  Formerly,  it  is 
said,  a  man  was  bound  to  the  same  stake  as  the  buffalo,  and  when 
they  killed  the  animal,  the  man  was  driven  away ;  no  one  might 
receive  him,  converse  with  him,  or  give  him  food.  Doubtless  he  was 
supposed  to  carry  away  the  sins  and  misfortunes  of  the  people. 

Sometimes  the  scapegoat  is  a  divine  animal.  The  people  of 
Malabar  share  the  Hindoo  reverence  for  the  cow,  to  kill  and  eat  which 


LVII 


THE  PERIODIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS 


571 


“  they  esteem  to  be  a  crime  as  heinous  as  homicide  or  wilful  murder.” 
Nevertheless  the  “  Bramans  transfer  the  sins  of  the  people  into  one 
or  more  Cows,  which  are  then  carry’d  away,  both  the  Cows  and  the 
Sins  wherewith  these  Beasts  are  charged,  to  what  place  the  Braman 
shall  appoint.”  When  the  ancient  Egyptians  sacrificed  a  bull,  they 
invoked  upon  its  head  all  the  evils  that  might  otherwise  befall  them¬ 
selves  and  the  land  of  Egypt,  and  thereupon  they  either  sold  the  bull’s 
head  to  the  Greeks  or  cast  it  into  the  river.  Now,  it  cannot  be  said 
that  in  the  times  known  to  us  the  Egyptians  worshipped  bulls  in 
general,  for  they  seem  to  have  commonly  killed  and  eaten  them. 
But  a  good  many  circumstances  point  to  the  conclusion  that  originally 
all  cattle,  bulls  as  well  as  cows,  were  held  sacred  by  the  Egyptians. 
For  not  only  were  all  cows  esteemed  holy  by  them  and  never  sacrificed, 
but  even  bulls  might  not  be  sacrificed  unless  they  had  certain  natural 
marks  ;  a  priest  examined  every  bull  before  it  was  sacrificed  ;  if  it 
had  the  proper  marks,  he  put  his  seal  on  the  animal  in  token  that  it 
might  be  sacrificed  ;  -and  if  a  man  sacrificed  a  bull  which  had  not  been 
sealed,  he  was  put  to  death.  Moreover,  the  worship  of  the  black  bulls 
Apis  and  Mnevis,  especially  the  former,  played  an  important  part 
in  Egyptian  religion  ;  all  bulls  that  died  a  natural  death  were  carefully 
buried  in  the  suburbs  of  the  cities,  and  their  bones  were  afterwards 
collected  from  all  parts  of  Egypt  and  interred  in  a  single  spot ;  and 
at  the  sacrifice  of  a  bull  in  the  great  rites  of  Isis  all  the  worshippers 
beat  their  breasts  and  mourned.  On  the  whole,  then,  we  are  perhaps 
entitled  to  infer  that  bulls  were  originally,  as  cows  were  always, 
esteemed  sacred  by  the  Egyptians,  and  that  the  slain  bull  upon  whose 
head  they  laid  the  misfortunes  of  the  people  was  once  a  divine  scape¬ 
goat.  It  seems  not  improbable  that  the  lamb  annually  slain  by  the 
Madis  of  Central  Africa  is  a  divine  scapegoat,  and  the  same  supposition 
may  partly  explain  the  Zuni  sacrifice  of  the  turtle. 

Lastly,  the  scapegoat  may  be  a  divine  man.  Thus,  in  November 
the  Gonds  of  India  worship  Ghansyam  Deo,  the  protector  of  the  crops, 
and  at  the  festival  the  god  himself  is  said  to  descend  on  the  head  of 
one  of  the  worshippers,  who  is  suddenly  seized  with  a  kind  of  fit  and, 
after  staggering  about,  rushes  off  into  the  jungle,  where  it  is  believed 
that,  if  left  to  himself,  he  would  die  mad.  However,  they  bring  him 
back,  but  he  does  not  recover  his  senses  for  one  or  two  days.  The 
people  think  that  one  man  is  thus  singled  out  as  a  scapegoat  for  the 
sins  of  the  rest  of  the  village.  In  the  temple  of  the  Moon  the  Albanians 
of  the  Eastern  Caucasus  kept  a  number  of  sacred  slaves,  of  whom 
many  were  inspired  and  prophesied.  When  one  of  these  men  exhibited 
more  than  usual  symptoms  of  inspiration  or  insanity,  and  wandered 
solitary  up  and  down  the  woods,  like  the  Gond  in  the  jungle,  the 
high  priest  had  him  bound  with  a  sacred  chain  and  maintained  him 
in  luxury  for  a  year.  At  the  end  of  the  year  he  was  anointed  with 
unguents  and  led  forth  to  be  sacrificed.  A  man  whose  business  it 
was  to  slay  these  human  victims,  and  to  whom  practice  had  given 
dexterity,  advanced  from  the  crowd  and  thrust  a  sacred  spear  into 


PUBLIC  SCAPEGOATS 


CH. 


572 


the  victim’s  side,  piercing  his  heart.  From  the  manner  in  which 
the  slain  man  fell,  omens  were  drawn  as  to  the  welfare  of  the  common¬ 
wealth.  Then  the  body  was  carried  to  a  certain  spot  where  all  the 
people  stood  upon  it  as  a  purificatory  ceremony.  This  last  circum¬ 
stance  clearly  indicates  that  the  sins  of  the  people  were  transferred 
to  the  victim,  just  as  the  Jewish  priest  transferred  the  sins  of  the 
people  to  the  scapegoat  by  laying  his  hands  on  the  animal’s  head  ; 
and  since  the  man  was  believed  to  be  possessed  by  the  divine  spirit, 
we  have  here  an  undoubted  example  of  a  man-god  slain  to  take  away 
the  sins  and.  misfortunes  of  the  people. 

In  Tibet  the  ceremony  of  the  scapegoat  presents  some  remarkable 
features.  The  Tibetan  new  year  begins  with  the  new  moon  which 
appears  about  the  fifteenth  of  February.  For  twenty-three  days 
afterwards  the  government  of  Lhasa,  the  capital,  is  taken  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  ordinary  rulers  and  entrusted  to  the  monk  of  the  Debang 
monastery  who  offers  to  pay  the  highest  sum  for  the  privilege.  The 
successful  bidder  is  called  the  Jalno,  and  he  announces  his  accession 
to  power  in  person,  going  through  the  streets  of  Lhasa  with  a  silver 
stick  in  his  hand.  Monks  from  all  the  neighbouring  monasteries  and 
temples  assemble  to  pay  him  homage.  The  Jalno  exercises  his 
authority  in  the  most  arbitrary  manner  for  his  own  benefit,  as  all  the 
fines  which  he  exacts  are  his  by  purchase.  The  profit  he  makes  is 
about  ten  times  the  amount  of  the  purchase  money.  His  men  go 
about  the  streets  in  order  to  discover  any  conduct  on  the  part  of  the 
inhabitants  that  can  be  found  fault  with.  Every  house  in  Lhasa  is 
taxed  at  this  time,  and  the  slightest  offence  is  punished  with  unsparing 
rigour  by  fines.  This  severity  of  the  Jalno  drives  all  working  classes 
out  of  the  city  till  the  twenty-three  days  are  over.  But  if  the  laity 
go  out,  the  clergy  come  in.  All  the  Buddhist  monasteries  of  the 
country  for  miles  rotlid  about  open  their  gates  and  disgorge  their 
inmates.  All  the  roads  that  lead  down  into  Lhasa  from  the  neighbour¬ 
ing  mountains  are  full  of  monks  hurrying  to  the  capital,  some  on  foot, 
some  on  horseback,  some  riding  asses  or  lowing  oxen,  all  carrying  their 
prayer-books  and  culinary  utensils.  In  such  multitudes  do  they  come 
that  the  streets  and  squares  of  the  city  are  encumbered  with  their 
swarms,  and  incarnadined  with  their  red  cloaks.  The  disorder  and 
confusion  are  indescribable.  Bands  of  the  holy  men  traverse  the 
streets  chanting  prayers  or  uttering  wild  cries.  They  meet,  they 
jostle,  they  quarrel,  they  fight  ;  bloody  noses,  black  eyes,  and  broken 
heads  are  freely  given  and  received.  All  day  long,  too,  from  before 
the  peep  of  dawn  till  after  darkness  has  fallen,  these  red-cloaked  monks 
hold  services  in  the  dim  incense-laden  air  of  the  great  Macliindranath 
temple,  the  cathedral  of  Lhasa  ;  and  thither  they  crowd  thrice  a  day 
to  receive  their  doles  of  tea  and  soup  and  money.  The  cathedral  is  a 
vast  building,  standing  in  the  centre  of  the  city,  and  surrounded  by 
bazaars  and  shops.  The  idols  in  it  are  richly  inlaid  with  gold  and 
precious  stones. 

Twenty-four  days  after  the  Jalno  has  ceased  to  have  authority, 


LVII 


THE  PERIODIC  EXPULSION  OF  EVILS 


573 


he  assumes  it  again,  and  for  ten  days  acts  in  the  same  arbitrary  manner 
as  before.  On  the  first  of  the  ten  days  the  priests  again  assemble  at 
the  cathedral,  pray  to  the  gods  to  prevent  sickness  and  other  evils 
among  the  people,  “  and,  as  a  peace-offering,  sacrifice  one  man.  The 
man  is  not  killed  purposely,  but  the  ceremony  he  undergoes  often 
proves  fatal.  Grain  is  thrown  against  his  head,  and  his  face  is  painted 
half  white,  half  black.”  Thus  grotesquely  disguised,  and  carrying  a 
coat  of  skin  on  his  arm,  he  is  called  the  King  of  the  Years,  and  sits 
daily  in  the  market-place,  where  he  helps  himself  to  whatever  he  likes 
and  goes  about  shaking  a  black  yak’s  tail  over  the  people,  who  thus 
transfer  their  bad  luck  to  him.  On  the  tenth  day,  all  the  troops  in 
Lhasa  march  to  the  great  temple  and  form  in  line  before  it.  The  King 
of  the  Years  is  brought  forth  from  the  temple  and  receives  small 
donations  from  the  assembled  multitude.  He  then  ridicules  the  Jalno, 
saying  to  him,  "  What  we  perceive  through  the  five  senses  is  no  illusion. 
All  you  teach  is  untrue,”  and  the  like.  The  Jalno,  who  represents  the 
Grand  Lama  for  the  time  being,  contests  these  heretical  opinions  ;  the 
dispute  waxes  warm,  and  at  last  both  agree  to  decide  the  questions  at 
issue  by  a  cast  of  the  dice,  the  Jalno  offering  to  change  places  with 
the  scapegoat  should  the  throw  be  against  him.  If  the  King  of  the 
Years  wins,  much  evil  is  prognosticated  ;  but  if  the  Jalno  wins,  there 
is  great  rejoicing,  for  it  proves  that  his  adversary  has  been  accepted 
by  the  gods  as  a  victim  to  bear  all  the  sins  of  the  people  of  Lhasa. 
Fortune,  however,  always  favours  the  Jalno,  who  throws  sixes  with 
unvarying  success,  while  his  opponent  turns  up  only  ones.  Nor  is 
this  so  extraordinary  as  at  first  sight  it  might  appear  ;  for  the  Jalno’s 
dice  are  marked  with  nothing  but  sixes  and  his  adversary’s  with  nothing 
but  ones.  When  he  sees  the  finger  of  Providence  thus  plainly  pointed 
against  him,  the  King  of  the  Years  is  terrified  and  flees  away  upon  a 
white  horse,  with  a  white  dog,  a  white  bird,  salt,  and  so  forth,  which 
have  all  been  provided  for  him  by  the  government.  His  face  is  still 
painted  half  white  and  half  black,  and  he  still  wears  his  leathern  coat. 
The  whole  populace  pursues  him,  hooting,  yelling,  and  firing  blank 
shots  in  volleys  after  him.  Thus  driven  out  of  the  city,  he  is  detained 
for  seven  days  in  the  great  chamber  of  horrors  at  the  Samyas  monastery, 
surrounded  by  monstrous  and  terrific  images  of  devils  and  skins  of 
huge  serpents  and  wild  beasts.  Thence  he  goes  away  into  the  moun¬ 
tains  of  Chetang,  where  he  has  to  remain  an  outcast  for  several  months 
or  a  year  in  a  narrow  den.  If  he  dies  before  the  time  is  out,  the  people 
say  it  is  an  auspicious  omen  ;  but  if  he  survives,  he  may  return  to 
Lhasa  and  play  the  part  of  scapegoat  over  again  the  following  year. 

This  quaint  ceremonial,  still  annually  observed  in  the  secluded 
capital  of  Buddhism— the  Rome  of  Asia— is  interesting  because,  it 
exhibits,  in  a  clearly  marked  religious  stratification,  a  series  of  divine 
redeemers  themselves  redeemed,  of  vicarious  sacrifices  vicariously 
atoned  for,  of  gods  undergoing  a  process  of  fossilisation,  who,  while 
they  retain  the  privileges,  have  disburdened  themselves  of  the  pains 
and  penalties  of  divinity.  'In  the  Jalno  we  may  without  undue 


CH. 


574  PUBLIC  SCAPEGOATS 

straining  discern  a  successor  of  those  temporary  kings,  those  mortal 
gods,  who  purchase  a  short  lease  of  power  and  glory  at  the  price  of 
their  lives.  That  he  is  the  temporary  substitute  of  the  Grand  Lama 
is  certain  ;  that  he  is,  or  was  once,  liable  to  act  as  scapegoat  for  the 
people  is  made  nearly  certain  by  his  offer  to  change  places  with  the 
real  scapegoat— the  King  of  the  Years— if  the  arbitrament  of  the  dice 
should  go  against  him.  It  is  true  that  the  conditions  under  which 
the  question  is  now  put  to  the  hazard  have  reduced  the  offer  to  an  idle 
form.  But  such  forms  are  no  mere  mushroom  growths,  springing  up 
of  themselves  in  a  night.  If  they  are  now  lifeless  formalities,  empty 
husks  devoid  of  significance,  we  may  be  sure  that  they  once  had  a 
life  and  a  meaning  ;  if  at  the  present  day  they  are  blind  alleys  leading 
nowhere,  we  may  be  certain  that  in  former  days  they  were  paths  that 
led  somewhere,  if  only  to  death.  That  death  was  the  goal  to  which 
of  old  the  Tibetan  scapegoat  passed  after  his  brief  period  of  license  in 
the  market-place,  is  a  conjecture  that  has  much  to  commend  it. 
Analogy  suggests  it  ;  the  blank  shots  fired  after  him,  the  statement 
that  the  ceremony  often  proves  fatal,  the  belief  that  his  death  is  a 
happy  omen,  all  confirm  it.  We  need  not  wonder  then  that  the  Jalno, 
after  paying  so  dear  to  act  as  deputy-deity  for  a  few  weeks,  should 
have  preferred  to  die  by  deputy  rather  than  in  his  own  person  when 
his  time  was  up.  The  painful  but  necessary  duty  was  accordingly 
laid  on  some  poor  devil,  some  social  outcast,  some  wretch  with  whom 
the  world  had  gone  hard,  who  readily  agreed  to  throw  away  his  life 
at  the  end  of  a  few  days  if  only  he  might  have  his  fling  in  the  meantime. 
For  observe  that  while  the  time  allowed  to  the  original  deputy— the 
Jalno — was  measured  by  weeks,  the  time  allowed  to  the  deputy  s 
deputy  was  cut  down  to  days,  ten  days  according  to  one  authority, 
seven  days  according  to  another.  So  short  a  rope  was  doubtless 
thought  a  long  enough  tether  for  so  black  or  sickly  a  sheep  ;  so  few 
sands  in  the  hour-glass,  slipping  so  fast  away,  sufficed  for  one  who  had 
wasted  so  many  precious  years.  Hence  in  the  jack-pudding  who  now 
masquerades  with  motley  countenance  in  the  market-place  of  Lhasa, 
sweeping  up  misfortune  with  a  black  yak’s  tail,  we  may  fairly  see  the 
substitute  of  a  substitute,  the  vicar  of  a  vicar,  the  proxy  on  whose 
back  the  heavy  burden  was  laid  when  it  had  been  lifted  from  nobler 
shoulders.  But  the  clue,  if  we  have  followed  it  aright,  does  not  stop 
at  the  Jalno  ;  it  leads  straight  back  to  the  pope  of  Lhasa  himself,  the 
Grand  Lama,  of  whom  the  Jalno  is  merely  the  temporary  vicar.  The 
analogy  of  many  customs  in  many  lands  points  to  the  conclusion  that, 
if  this  human  divinity  stoops  to  resign  his  ghostly  power  for  a  time  into 
the  hands  of  a  substitute,  it  is,  or  rather  was  once,  for  no  other  reason 
than  that  the  substitute  might  die  in  his  stead.  Thus  through  the  mist 
of  ages  unillumined  by  the  lamp  of  history,  the  tragic  figure  of  the 
pope  of  Buddhism— God’s  vicar  on  earth  for  Asia— looms  dim  and 
sad  as  the  man-god  who  bore  his  people’s  sorrows,  the  Good  Shepherd 

who  laid  down  his  life  for  the  sheep. 

§  4.  On  Scapegoats  in  General— The  foregoing  survey  of  the  custom 


lvii  ON  SCAPEGOATS  IN  GENERAL  575 

of  publicly  expelling  the  accumulated  evils  of  a  village  or  town  or 
country  suggests  a  few  general  observations. 

In  the  first  place,  it  will  not  be  disputed  that  what  I  have  called 
the  immediate  and  the  mediate  expulsions  of  evil  are  identical  in 
intention  ;  in  other  words,  that  whether  the  evils  are  conceived  of  as 
invisible  or  as  embodied  in  a  material  form,  is  a  circumstance  entirely 
subordinate  to  the  main  object  of  the  ceremony,  which  is  simply  to 
effect  a  total  clearance  of  all  the  ills  that  have  been  infesting  a  people. 
If  any  link  were  wanting  to  connect  the  two  kinds  of  expulsion,  it 
would  be  furnished  by  such  a  practice  as  that  of  sending  the  evils 
away  in  a  litter  or  a  boat.  For  here,  on  the  one  hand,  the  evils  are 
invisible  and  intangible  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  visible 
and  tangible  vehicle  to  convey  them  away.  And  a  scapegoat  is 
nothing  more  than  such  a  vehicle. 

In  the  second  place,  when  a  general  clearance  of  evils  is  resorted 
to  periodically,  the  interval  between  the  celebrations  of  the  ceremony 
is  commonly  a  year,  and  the  time  of  year  when  the  ceremony  takes 
place  usually  coincides  with  some  well-marked  change  of  season,  such 
as  the  beginning  or  end  of  winter  in  the  arctic  and  temperate  zones, 
and  the  beginning  or  end  of  the  rainy  season  in  the  tropics.  The 
increased  mortality  which  such  climatic  changes  are  apt  to  produce, 
especially  amongst  ill-fed,  ill-clothed,  and  ill-housed  savages,  is  set 
down  by  primitive  man  to  the  agency  of  demons,  who  must  accordingly 
be  expelled.  Hence,  in  the  tropical  regions  of  New  Britain  and  Peru, 
the  devils  are  or  were  driven  out  at  the  beginning  of  the  rainy  season  ; 
hence,  on  the  dreary  coasts  of  Baffin  Land,  they  are  banished  at  the 
approach  of  the  bitter  arctic  winter.  When  a  tribe  has  taken  to 
husbandry,  the  time  for  the  general  expulsion  of  devils  is  naturally 
made  to  agree  with  one  of  the  great  epochs  of  the  agricultural  year, 
as  sowing,  or  harvest ;  but,  as  these  epochs  themselves  naturally 
coincide  with  changes  of  season,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  transition 
from  the  hunting  or  pastoral  to  the  agricultural  life  involves  any 
alteration  in  the  time  of  celebrating  this  great  annual  rite.  Some  of 
the  agricultural  communities  of  India  and  the  Hindoo  Koosh,  as  we 
have  seen,  hold  their  general  clearance  of  demons  at  harvest,  others 
at  sowing-time.  But,  at  whatever  season  of  the  year  it  is  held,  the 
general' expulsion  of  devils  commonly  marks  the  beginning  of  the  new 
year.  For,  before  entering  on  a  new  year,  people  are  anxious  to  rid 
themselves  of  the  troubles  that  have  harassed  them  in  the  past ; 
hence  it  comes  about  that  in  so  many  communities  the  beginning  of 
the  new  year  is  inaugurated  with  a  solemn  and  public  banishment  of 
evil  spirits. 

In  the  third  place,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  this  public  and  periodic 
expulsion  of  devils  is  commonly  preceded  or  followed  by  a  period 
of  general  license,  during  which  the  ordinary  restraints  of  society 
are  thrown  aside,  and  all  offences,  short  of  the  gravest,  are  allowed  to 
pass  unpunished.  In  Guinea  and  Tonquin  the  period  of  license  pre¬ 
cedes  the  public  expulsion  of  demons  ;  and  the  suspension  of  the 


576  PUBLIC  SCAPEGOATS  ch. 

ordinary  government  in  Lhasa  previous  to  the  expulsion  of  the  scape¬ 
goat  is  perhaps  a  relic  of  a  similar  period  of  universal  license.  Amongst 
the  Hos  of  India  the  period  of  license  follows  the  expulsion  of  the  devil. 
Amongst  the  Iroquois  it  hardly  appears  whether  it  preceded  or  followed 
the  banishment  of  evils.  In  any  case,  the  extraordinary  relaxation  of 
all  ordinary  rules  of  conduct  on  such  occasions  is  doubtless  to  be 
explained  by  the  general  clearance  of  evils  which  precedes  or  follows  it. 
On  the  one  hand,  when  a  general  riddance  of  evil  and  absolution  from 
all  sin  is  in  immediate  prospect,  men  are  encouraged  to  give  the  rein 
to  their  passions,  trusting  that  the  coming  ceremony  will  wipe  out 
the  score  which  they  are  running  up  so  fast.  On  the  other  hand,  when 
the  ceremony  has  just  taken  place,  men’s  minds  are  freed  from  the 
oppressive  sense,  under  which  they  generally  labour,  of  an  atmosphere 
surcharged  with  devils  ;  and  in  the  first  revulsion  of  joy  they  overleap 
the  limits  commonly  imposed  by  custom  and  morality. .  When  the 
ceremony  takes  place  at  harvest-time,  the  elation  of  feeling  which  it 
excites  is  further  stimulated  by  the  state  of  physical  wellbeing  produced 
by  an  abundant  supply  of  food. 

Fourthly,  the  employment  of  a  divine  man  or  animal  as  a  scapegoat  | 
is  especially  to  be  noted  j  indeed,  we  are  heie  directly  concerned  with  | 
the  custom  of  banishing  evils  only  in  so  far  as  these  evils  are  believed  ' 
to  be  transferred  to  a  god  who  is  afterwards  slain.  It  may  be  suspected  , 
that  the  custom  of  employing  a  divine  man  or  animal  as  a  public  scape-  ; 
goat  is  much  more  widely  diffused  than  appears  from  the  examples  • 
cited.  For,  as  has  already  been  pointed  out,  the  custom  of  killing  a 
god  dates  from  so  early  a  period  of  human  history  that  in  later  ages, 
even  when  the  custom  continues  to  be  practised,  it  is  liable  to  be  mis¬ 
interpreted.  The  divine  character  of  the  animal  or  man  is  forgotten, 
and  he  comes  to  be  regarded  merely  as  an  ordinary  victim.  This  is 
especially  likely  to  be  the  case  when  it  is  a  divine  man  who  is  killed. 
For  when  a  nation  becomes  civilised,  if  it  does  not  drop  human  sacrifices  i 
altogether,  it  at  least  selects  as  victims  only  such  wretches  as  would  be 
put  to  death  at  any  rate.  Thus  the  killing  of  a  god  may  sometimes 
come  to  be  confounded  with  the  execution  of  a  criminal. 

If  we  ask  why  a  dying  god  should  be  chosen  to  take  upon  himself 
and  carry  away  the  sins  and  sorrows  of  the  people,  it  may  be  suggested 
that  in  the  practice  of  using  the  divinity  as  a  scapegoat  we  have  a 
combination  of  two  customs  which  were  at  one  time  distinct  and 
independent.  On  the  one  hand  we  have  seen  that  it  has  been  customary 
to  kill  the  human  or  animal  god  in  order  to  save  his  divine  life  from 
being  weakened  by  the  inroads  of  age.  On  the  other  hand  we  have 
seen  that  it  has  been  customary  to  have  a  general  expulsion  of  evils 
and  sins  once  a  year.  Now,  if  it  occurred  to  people  to  combine  these 
two  customs,  the  result  would  be  the  employment  of  the  dying  god  as 
a  scapegoat.  He  was  killed,  not  originally  to  take  away  sin,  but  to 
save  the  divine  life  from  the  degeneracy  of  old  age  ;  but,  since  he  had 
to  be  killed  at  any  rate,  people  may  have  thought  that  they  might  as 
well  seize  the  opportunity  to  lay  upon  him  the  burden  of  their  sufferings 


lviii  THE  HUMAN  SCAPEGOAT  IN  ANCIENT  ROME  577 

and  sins,  in  oidei  that  he  might  bear  it  away  with  him  to  the  unknown 
world  beyond  the  grave. 

The  use  of  the  divinity  as  a  scapegoat  clears  up  the  ambiguity 
which,  as  we  saw,  appears  to  hang  about  the  European  folk-custom  of 
carrying  out  Death.  Grounds  have  been  shown  for  believing  that 
in  this  ceiemony  the  so-called  Death  was  originally  the  spirit  of  vegeta¬ 
tion,  who  was  annually  slain  in  spring,  in  order  that  he  might  come  to 
life  again  with  all  the  vigour  of  youth.  But,  as  I  pointed  out,  there 
are  certain  features  in  the  ceremony  which  are  not  explicable  on  this 
hypothesis  alone.  Such  are  the  marks  of  joy  with  which  the  effigy 
of  Death  is  carried  out  to  be  buried  or  burnt,  and  the  fear  and  abhor¬ 
rence  of  it  manifested  by  the  bearers.  But  these  features  become  at 
once  intelligible  if  we  suppose  that  the  Death  was  not  merely  the  dying 
god  of  vegetation,  but  also  a  public  scapegoat,  upon  whom  were  laid 
all  the  evils  that  had  afflicted  the  people  during  the  past  year.  Joy 
on  such  an  occasion  is  natural  and  appropriate  and  if  the  dying  god 
appears  to  be  the  object  of  that  fear  and  abhorrence  which  are  properly 
due  not  to  himself,  but  to  the  sins  and  misfortunes  with  which  he  is 
1  laden,  this  arises  merely  from  the  difficulty  of  distinguishing,  or  at 
least  of  marking  the  distinction,  between  the  bearer  and  the  burden. 
Mdren  the  buiden  is  of  a  baleful  character,  the  bearer  of  it  will  be  feared 
and  shunned  just  as  much  as  if  he  were  himself  instinct  with  those 
dangerous  properties  of  which,  as  it  happens,  he  is  only  the  vehicle. 
Similarly  we  have  seen  that  disease-laden  and  sin-laden  boats  are 
dreaded  and  shunned  by  East  Indian  peoples.  Again,  the  view  that 
in  these  popular  customs  the  Death  is  a  scapegoat  as  well  as  a  repre¬ 
sentative  of  the  divine  spirit  of  vegetation  derives  some  support  from 
the  circumstance  that  its  expulsion  is  always  celebrated  in  spring  and 
chiefly  by  Slavonic  peoples.  For  the  Slavonic  year  began  in  spring  ; 
and  thus,  in  one  of  its  aspects,  the  ceremony  of  “  carrying  out  Death  ” 
would  be  an  example  of  the  widespread  custom  of  expelling  the  accumu¬ 
lated  evils  of  the  old  year  before  entering  on  a  new  one. 


CHAPTER  LVIII 

HUMAN  SCAPEGOATS  IN  CLASSICAL  ANTIQUITY 

§  i.  The  Human  Scapegoat  in  Ancient  Home. — We  are  now  prepared 
to  notice  the  use  of  the  human  scapegoat  in  classical  antiquity.  Every 
year  on  the  fourteenth  of  March  a  man  clad  in  skins  was  led  in  pro¬ 
cession  through  the  streets  of  Rome,  beaten  with  long  white  rods,  and 
driven  out  of  the  city.  He  was  called  Mamurius  Veturius,  that  is, 
the  old  Mars,  and  as  the  ceremony  took  place  on  the  day  preceding  the 
first  full  moon  of  the  old  Roman  year  (which  began  on  the  first  of  March), 
the  skin-clad  man  must  have  represented  the  Mars  of  the  past  year] 
who  was  driven  out  at  the  beginning  of  a  new  one.  Now  Mars  was 


578  HUMAN  SCAPEGOATS  IN  CLASSICAL  ANTIQUITY  ch. 

originally  not  a  god  of  war  but  of  vegetation.  For  it  was  to  Mars 
that  the  Roman  husbandman  prayed  for  the  prosperity  of  his  corn 
and  his  vines,  his  fruit-trees  and  his  copses  ;  it  was  to  Mars  that  the 
priestly  college  of  the  Arval  Brothers,  whose  business  it  was  to  sacrifice 
for  the  growth  of  the  crops,  addressed  their  petitions  almost  exclusively ; 
and  it  was  to  Mars,  as  we  saw,  that  a  horse  was  sacrificed  in  October 
to  secure  an  abundant  harvest.  Moreover,  it  was  to  Mars,  under  his 
title  of  “  Mars  of  the  woods  ”  {Mars  Silvanus),  that  farmers  offered 
sacrifice  for  the  welfare  of  their  cattle.  We  have  already  seen  that 
cattle  are  commonly  supposed  to  be  under  the  special  patronage  of 
tree-gods.  Once  more,  the  consecration  of  the  vernal  month  of  March 
to  Mars  seems  to  point  him  out  as  the  deity  of  the  sprouting  vegetation. 
Thus  the  Roman  custom  of  expelling  the  old  Mars  at  the  beginning 
of  the  new  year  in  spring  is  identical  with  the  Slavonic  custom  of 
“  carrying  out  Death,”  if  the  view  here  taken  of  the  latter  custom  is  • 
correct.  The  similarity  of  the  Roman  and  Slavonic  customs  has  been  i 
already  remarked  by  scholars,  who  appear,  however,  to  have  taken  i 
Mamurius  Veturius  and  the  corresponding  figures  in  the  Slavonic 
ceremonies  to  be  representatives  of  the  old  year  rather  than  of  the  old 
god  of  vegetation.  It  is  possible  that  ceremonies  of  this  kind  may  have 
come  to  be  thus  interpreted  in  later  times  even  by  the  people  who 
practised  them.  But  the  personification  of  a  period  of  time  is  too 
abstract  an  idea  to  be  primitive.  However,  in  the  Roman,  as  in  the 
Slavonic,  ceremony,  the  representative  of  the  god  appears  to  have  been 
treated  not  only  as  a  deity  of  vegetation  but  also  as  a  scapegoat.  His 
expulsion  implies  this  ;  for  there  is  no  reason  why  the  god  of  vegetation, 
as  such,  should  be  expelled  the  city.  But  it  is  otherwise  if  he  is  also 
a  scapegoat ;  it  then  becomes  necessary  to  drive  him  beyond  the 
boundaries,  that  he  may  carry  his  sorrowful  burden  away  to  other 
lands.  And,  in  fact,  Mamurius  Veturius  appears  to  have  been  driven 
away  to  the  land  of  the  Oscans,  the  enemies  of  Rome. 

§  2.  The  Human  Scapegoat  in  Ancient  Greece. — The  ancient  Greeks 
were  also  familiar  with  the  use  of  a  human  scapegoat.  In  Plutarch’s 
native  town  of  Chaeronea  a  ceremony  of  this  kind  was  performed  by 
the  chief  magistrate  at  the  Town  Hall,  and  by  each  householder  at 
his  own  home.  It  was  called  the  "  expulsion  of  hunger.”  A  slave 
was  beaten  with  rods  of  the  agnus  castus,  and  turned  out  of  doors  with 
the  words,  “  Out  with  hunger,  and  in  with  wealth  and  health.”  When 
Plutarch  held  the  office  of  chief  magistrate  of  his  native  town  he  per¬ 
formed  this  ceremony  at  the  Town  Hall,  and  he  has  recorded  the 
discussion  to  which  the  custom  afterwards  gave  rise. 

But  in  civilised  Greece  the  custom  of  the  scapegoat  took  darker 
forms  than  the  innocent  rite  over  which  the  amiable  and  pious  Plutarch 
presided.  Whenever  Marseilles,  one  of  the  busiest  and  most  brilliant 
of  Greek  colonies,  was  ravaged  by  a  plague,  a  man  of  the  poorer  classes 
used  to  offer  himself  as  a  scapegoat.  For  a  whole  year  he  was  main¬ 
tained  at  the  public  expense,  being  fed  on  choice  and  pure  food.  At 
the  expiry  of  the  year  he  was  dressed  in  sacred  garments,  decked  with 


579 


lviii  THE  HUMAN  SCAPEGOAT  IN  ANCIENT  GREECE 

•  holy  branches,  and  led  through  the  whole  city,  while  prayers  were 
uttered  that  all  the  evils  of  the  people  might  fall  on  his  head.^  He  was 
then  cast  out  of  the  city  or  stoned  to  death  by  the  people  outside  of 
the  walls.  The  Athenians  regularly  maintained  a  number  of  degraded 
and  useless  beings  at  the  public  expense  ;  and  when  any  calamity, 
such  as  plague,  drought,  or  famine,  befell  the  city,  they  sacrificed  two 
of  these  outcasts  as  scapegoats.  One  of  the  victims  was  sacrificed  for 
the  men  and  the  other  for  the  women.  The  former  wore  round  his 
neck  a  string  of  black,  the  latter  a  string  of  white  figs.  Sometimes, 
it  seems,  the  victim  slain  on  behalf  of  the  women  was  a  woman.  They 
were  led  about  the  city  and  then  sacrificed,  apparently  by  being  stoned 
to  death  outside  the  city.  But  such  sacrifices  were  not  confined  to 
extraordinary  occasions  of  public  calamity  *  it  appears  that  every  year, 
at  the  festival  of  the  Thargelia  in  May,  two  victims,  one  for  the  men 
and  one  for  the  women,  were  led  out  of  Athens  and  stoned  to  death. 
The  city  of  Abdera  in  Thrace  was  publicly  purified  once  a  year,  and 
one  of  the  burghers,  set  apart  for  the  purpose,  was  stoned  to  death  as 
a  scapegoat  or  vicarious  sacrifice  for  the  life  of  all  the  others  *  six  days 
before  his  execution  he  was  excommunicated,  “  in  order  that  he  alone 
might  bear  the  sins  of  all  the  people.” 

From  the  Lover’s  Leap,  a  white  bluff  at  the  southern  end  of  their 
island,  the  Leucadians  used  annually  to  hurl  a  criminal  into  the  sea  as 
a  scapegoat.  But  to  lighten  his  fall  they  fastened  live  birds  and 
feathers  to  him,  and  a  flotilla  of  small  boats  waited  below  to  catch  him 
and  convey  him  beyond  the  boundary.  Probably  these  humane  pre¬ 
cautions  were  a  mitigation  of  an  earlier  custom  of  flinging  the  scapegoat 
into  the  sea  to  drown.  The  Leucadian  ceremony  took  place  at  the 
time  of  a  sacrifice  to  Apollo,  who  had  a  temple  or  sanctuary  on  the  spot. 
Elsewhere  it  was  customary  to  cast  a  young  man  every  year  into  the 
sea,  with  the  prayer,  Be  thou  our  off  scouring.”  This  ceremony  was 
supposed  to  rid  the  people  of  the  evils  by  which  they  were  beset,  or 
according  to  a  somewhat  different  interpretation  it  redeemed  them  by 
paying  the  debt  they  owed  to  the  sea-god.  As  practised  by  the  Greeks 
of  Asia  Minor  in  the  sixth  century  before  our  era,  the  custom  of  the 
scapegoat  was  as  follows.  When  a  city  suffered  from  plague,  famine, 
or  other  public  calamity,  an  ugly  or  deformed  person  was  chosen  to 
take  upon  himself  all  the  evils  which  afflicted  the  community.  He 
was  brought  to  a  suitable  place,  where  dried  figs,  a  barley  loaf,  and 
cheese  were  put  into  his  hand.  These  he  ate.  Then  he  was  beaten 
seven  times  upon  his  genital  organs  with  squills  and  branches  of  the 
wild  fig  and  other  wild  trees,  while  the  flutes  played  a  particular  tune. 
Afterwards  he  was  burned  on  a  pyre  built  of  the  wood  of  forest  trees  ; 
and  his  ashes  were  cast  into  the  sea.  A  similar  custom  appears  to  have 
been  annually  celebrated  by  the  Asiatic  Greeks  at  the  harvest  festival 
of  the  Thargelia. 

In  the  ritual  just  described  the  scourging  of  the  victim  with  squills, 
branches  of  the  wild  fig,  and  so  forth,  cannot  have  been  intended  to 
aggravate  his  sufferings,  otherwise  any  stick  would  have  been  good 


580  human  scapegoats  in  CLASSICAL  ANTIQUITY  ch. 

enough  to  beat  him  with.  The  true  meaning  of  this  part  of  the  cere¬ 
mony  has  been  explained  by  W.  Mannhardt.  He  points  out  that  the 
ancients  attributed  to  squills  a  magical  power  of  averting  evil  influences, 
and  that  accordingly  they  hung  them  up  at  the  doors  of  their  houses 
and  made  use  of  them  in  purificatory  rites.  Hence  the  Arcadian 
custom  of  whipping  the  image  of  Pan  with  squills  at  a  festival,  or 
whenever  the  hunters  returned  empty-handed,  must  have  been  meant, 
not  to  punish  the  god,  but  to  purify  him  from  the  harmful  influences 
which  were  impeding  him  in  the  exercise  of  his  divine  functions  as  a 
god  who  should  supply  the  hunter  with  game.  Similarly  the  object 
of  beating  the  human  scapegoat  on  the  genital  organs  with  squills  and 
so  on  must  have  been  to  release  his  reproductive  energies  from  any 
restraint  or  spell  under  which  they  might  be  laid  by  demoniacal  or  other 
malignant  agency  ;  and  as  the  Thargelia  at  which  he  was  annually 
sacrificed  was  an  early  harvest  festival  celebrated  in  May,  we  must 
recognise  in  him  a  representative  of  the  creative  and  fertilising  god  of 
vegetation.  The  representative  of  the  god  was  annually  slain  for  the 
purpose  I  have  indicated,  that  of  maintaining  the  divine  life  in  per¬ 
petual  vigour,  untainted  by  the  weakness  of  age  ;  and  before  he  was 
put  to  death  it  was  not  unnatural  to  stimulate  his  reproductive  powers 
in  order  that  these  might  be  transmitted  in  full  activity  to  his  successor, 
the  new  god  or  new  embodiment  of  the  old  god,  who  was  doubtless 
supposed  immediately  to  take  the  place  of  the  one  slain.  Similar 
reasoning  would  lead  to  a  similar  treatment  of  the  scapegoat  on  special 
occasions,  such  as  drought  or  famine.  If  the  crops  did  not  answer  to 
the  expectation  of  the  husbandman,  this  would  be  attributed  to  some 
failure  in  the  generative  powers  of  the  god  whose  function  it  was  to 
produce  the  fruits  of  the  earth.  It  might  be  thought  that  he  was  under 
a  spell  or  was  growing  old  and  feeble.  Accordingly  he  v/as  slain  in  the 
person  of  his  representative,  with  all  the  ceremonies  already  described, 
in  order  that,  born  young  again,  he  might  infuse  his  own  youthful 
vigour  into  the  stagnant  energies  of  nature.  On  the  same  principle 
we  can  understand  why  Mamurius  Veturius  was  beaten  with  rods,  why 
the  slave  at  the  Chaeronean  ceremony  was  beaten  with  the  agnus  castus 
(a  tree  to  which  magical  properties  were  ascribed),  why  the  effigy  of 
Death  in  some  parts  of  Europe  is  assailed  with  sticks  and  stones,  and 
why  at  Babylon  the  criminal  who  played  the  god  was  scourged  before 
he  was  crucified.  The  purpose  of  the  scourging  was  not  to  intensify 
the  agony  of  the  divine  sufferer,  but  on  the  contrary  to  dispel  any 
malignant  influences  by  which  at  the  supreme  moment  he  might  con¬ 
ceivably  be  beset. 

Thus  far  I  have  assumed  that  the  human  victims  at  the  Thargelia 
represented  the  spirits  of  vegetation  in  general,  but  it  has  been  well 
remarked  by  Mr.  W.  R.  Paton  that  these  poor  wretches  seem  to  have 
masqueraded  as  the  spirits  of  fig-trees  in  particular.  He  points  out 
that  the  process  of  caprification,  as  it  is  called,  that  is,  the  artificial 
fertilisation  of  the  cultivated  fig-trees  by  hanging  strings  of  wild  figs 
among  the  boughs,  takes  place  in  Greece  and  Asia  Minor  in  June  about 


lviii  THE  HUMAN  SCAPEGOAT  IN  ANCIENT  GREECE  581 

a  month  after  the  date  of  the  Thargelia,  and  he  suggests  that  the 
hanging  of  the  black  and  white  figs  round  the  necks  of  the  two  human 
victims,  one  of  whom  represented  the  men  and  the  other  the  women, 
may  have  been  a  direct  imitation  of  the  process  of  caprification  designed, 
on  the  principle  of  imitative  magic,  to  assist  the  fertilisation  of  the 
fig-trees.  And  since  caprification  is  in  fact  a  marriage  of  the  male 
fig-tree  with  the  female  fig-tree,  Mr.  Paton  further  supposes  that  the 
loves  of  the  trees  may,  on  the  same  principle  of  imitative  magic,  have 
been  simulated  by  a  mock  or  even  a  real  marriage  between  the  two 
human  victims,  one  of  whom  appears  sometimes  to  have  been  a  woman. 
On  this  view  the  practice  of  beating  the  human  victims  on  their  genitals 
with  branches  of  wild  fig-trees  and  with  squills  was  a  charm  intended 
to  stimulate  the  generative  powers  of  the  man  and  woman  who  for  the 
time  being  personated  the  male  and  the  female  fig-trees  respectively, 
and  who  by  their  union  in  marriage,  whether  real  or  pretended,  were 
believed  to  help  the  trees  to  bear  fruit. 

The  interpretation  which  I  have  adopted  of  the  custom  of  beating 
the  human  scapegoat  with  certain  plants  is  supported  by  many 
analogies.  Thus  among  the  Kai  of  German  New  Guinea,  when  a  man 
wishes  to  make  his  banana  shoots  bear  fruit  quickly,  he  beats  them 
with  a  stick  cut  from  a  banana-tree  which  has  already  borne  fruit. 
Here  it  is  obvious  that  fruitfulness  is  believed  to  inhere  in  a  stick  cut 
from  a  fruitful  tree  and  to  be  imparted  by  contact  to  the  young  banana 
plants.  Similarly  in  New  Caledonia  a  man  will  beat  his  taro  plants 
lightly  with  a  branch,  saying  as  he  does  so,  “I  beat  this  taro  that  it 
may  grow/'  after  which  he  plants  the  branch  in  the  ground  at  the  end 
of  the  field.  Among  the  Indians  of  Brazil  at  the  mouth  of  the  Amazon, 
when  a  man  wishes  to  increase  the  size  of  his  generative  organ,  he 
strikes  it  with  the  fruit  of  a  white  aquatic  plant  called  an  aninga, 
which  grows  luxuriantly  on  the  banks  of  the  river.  The  fruit,  which 
is  inedible,  resembles  a  banana,  and  is  clearly  chosen  for  this  purpose 
on  account  of  its  shape.  The  ceremony  should  be  performed  three 
days  before  or  after  the  new  moon.  In  the  county  of  Bekes,  in 
Hungary,  barren  women  are  fertilised  by  being  struck  with  a  stick 
which  has  first  been  used  to  separate  pairing  dogs.  Here  a  fertilising 
virtue  is  clearly  supposed  to  be  inherent  in  the  stick  and  to  be  conveyed 
by  contact  to  the  women.  The  Toradjas  of  Central  Celebes  think 
that  the  plant  Dracaena  terminalis  has  a  strong  soul,  because  when 
it  is  lopped  it  soon  grows  up  again.  Hence  when  a  man  is  ill,  his 
friends  will  sometimes  beat  him  on  the  crown  of  the  head  with  Dracaena 
leaves  in  order  to  strengthen  his  weak  soul  with  the  strong  soul  of  the 
plant. 

These  analogies,  accordingly,  support  the  interpretation  which, 
following  my  predecessors  W.  Mannhardt  and  Mr.  W.  R.  Paton,  I 
have  given  of  the  beating  inflicted  on  the  human  victims  at  the  Greek 
harvest  festival  of  the  Thargelia.  That  beating,  being  administered 
to  the  generative  organs  of  the  victims  by  fresh  green  plants  and 
branches,  is  most  naturally  explained  as  a  charm  to  increase  the 


582  HUMAN  SCAPEGOATS  IN  CLASSICAL  ANTIQUITY  ch. 

reproductive  energies  of  the  men  or  women  either  by  communicating 
to  them  the  fruitfulness  of  the  plants  and  branches,  or  by  ridding 
then!  of  maleficent  influences  ;  and  this  interpretation  is  confirmed 
by  the  observation  that  the  two  victims  represented  the  two  sexes, 
one  of  them  standing  for  the  men  in  general  and  the  other  for  the 
-women.  The  season  of  the  year  when  the  ceremony  was  performed, 
namely  the  time  of  the  corn  harvest,  tallies  well  with  the  theory  that 
the  rite  had  an  agricultural  significance.  Further,  that  it  was  above 
all  intended  to  fertilise  the  fig-trees  is  strongly  suggested  by  the  strings 
of  black  and  white  figs  which  were  hung  round  the  necks  of  the 
victims,  as  well  as  by  the  blows  which  were  given  their  genital  organs 
with  the  branches  of  a  wild  fig-tree  ;  since  this  procedure  closely 
resembles  the  procedure  which  ancient  and  modern  husbandmen  in 
Greek  lands  have  regularly  resorted  to  for  the  purpose  of  actually 
fertilising  their  fig-trees.  When  we  remember  what  an  important 
part  the  artificial  fertilisation  of  the  date  palm-tree  appears  to  have 
played  of  old  not  only  in  the  husbandry  but  in  the  religion  of  Meso¬ 
potamia,  there  seems  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  artificial  fertilisation 
of  the  fig-tree  may  in  like  manner  have  vindicated  for  itself  a  place 
in  the  solemn  ritual  of  Greek  religion. 

If  these  considerations  are  just,  we  must  apparently  conclude 
that  while  the  human  victims  at  the  Thargelia  certainly  appear  in 
later  classical  times  to  have  figured  chiefly  as  public  scapegoats,  who 
carried  away  with  them  the  sins,  misfortunes,  and  sorrows  of  the 
whole  people,  at  an  earlier  time  they  may  have  been  looked  on  as 
embodiments  of  vegetation,  perhaps  of  the  corn  but  particularly  of 
the  fig-trees  ;  and  that  the  beating  which  they  received  and  the  death 
which  they  died  were  intended  primarily  to  brace  and  refresh  the 
powers  of  vegetation  then  beginning  to  droop  and  languish  under  the 
torrid  heat  of  the  Greek  summer. 

The  view  here  taken  of  the  Greek  scapegoat,  if  it  is  correct,  obviates 
an  objection  which  might  otherwise  be  brought  against  the  main 
argument  of  this  book.  To  the  theory  that  the  priest  of  Aricia  was 
slain  as  a  representative  of  the  spirit  of  the  grove,  it  might  have  been  ■ 
objected  that  such  a  custom  has  no  analogy  in  classical  antiquity. 
But  reasons  have  now  been  given  for  believing  that  the  human  being 
periodically  and  occasionally  slain  by  the  Asiatic  Greeks  was  regularly  1 
treated  as  an  embodiment  of  a  divinity  of  vegetation.  Probably 
the  persons  whom  the  Athenians  kept  to  be  sacrificed  were  similarly 
treated  as  divine.  That  they  were  social  outcasts  did  not  matter. 
On  the  primitive  view  a  man  is  not  chosen  to  be  the  mouth-piece  or 
embodiment  of  a  god  on  account  of  his  high  moral  qualities  or  social 
rank.  The  divine  afflatus  descends  equally  on  the  good  and  the  bad, 
the  lofty  and  the  lowly.  If  then  the  civilised  Greeks  of  Asia  and 
Athens  habitually  sacrificed  men  whom  they  regarded  as  incarnate 
gods,  there  can  be  no  inherent  improbability  in  the  supposition  that 
at  the  dawn  of  history  a  similar  custom  was  observed  by  the  semi- 
barbarous  Latins  in  the  Arician  Grove. 


LVIII 


THE  ROMAN  SATURNALIA 


5S3 

But  to  clinch  the  argument,  it  is  clearly  desirable  to  prove  that  the 
custom  of  putting  to  death  a  human  representative  of  a  god  was 
known  and  practised  in  ancient  Italy  elsewhere  than  in  the  Arician 
Grove.  This  proof  I  now  propose  to  adduce. 

§  3.  The  Roman  Saturnalia. — We  have  seen  that  many  peoples 
have  been  used  to  observe  an  annual  period  of  license,  when  the 
customary  restraints  of  law  and  morality  are  thrown  aside,  when 
the  whole  population  give"  themselves  up  to  extravagant  mirth 
and  jollity,  and  when  the  darker  passions  find  a  vent  which  would 
never  be  allowed  them  in  the  more  staid  and  sober  course  of 
ordinary  life.  Such  outbursts  of  the  pent-up  forces  of  human 
nature,  too  often  degenerating  into  wild  orgies  of  lust  and  crime, 
occur  most  commonly  at  the  end  of  the  year,  and  are  frequently 
associated,  as  I  have  had  occasion  to  point  out,  with  one  or  other  of 
the  agricultural  seasons,  especially  with  the  time  of  sowing  or  of 
harvest.  Now,  of  all  these  periods  of  license  the  one  which  is  best 
known  and  which  in  modern  language  has  given  its  name  to  the  rest 
is  the  Saturnalia.  This  famous  festival  fell  in  December,  the  last 
month  of  the  Roman  year,  and  was  popularly  supposed  to  commemorate 
the  merry  reign  of  Saturn,  the  god  of  sowing  and  of  husbandry,  who 
lived  on  earth  long  ago  as  a  righteous  and  beneficent  king  of  Italy, 
drew  the  rude  and  scattered  dwellers  on  the  mountains  together, 
taught  them  to  till  the  ground,  gave  them  laws,  and  ruled  in  peace. 
His  reign  was  the  fabled  Golden  Age  :  the  earth  brought  forth 
abundantly  :  no  sound  of  war  or  discord  troubled  the  happy  world  : 
no  baleful  love  of  lucre  worked  like  poison  in  the  blood  of  the 
industrious  and  contented  peasantry.  Slavery  and  private  property 
were  alike  unknown  :  all  men  had  all  things  in  common.  At  last  the 
good  god,  the  kindly  king,  vanished  suddenly ;  but  his  memory  was 
cherished  to  distant  ages,  shrines  were  reared  in  his  honour,  and 
many  hills  and  high  places  in  Italy  bore  his  name.  Yet  the  bright 
♦  tradition  of  his  reign  was  crossed  by  a  dark  shadow :  his  altars  are 
said  to  have  been  stained  with  the  blood  of  human  victims,  for  whom 
a  more  merciful  age  afterwards  substituted  effigies.  Of  this  gloomy 
side  of  the  god's  religion  there  is  little  or  no  trace  in  the  descriptions 
which  ancient  writers  have  left  us  of  the  Saturnalia.  Feasting  and 
revelry  and  all  the  mad  pursuit  of  pleasure  are  the  features  that  seem 
to  have  especially  marked  this  carnival  of  antiquity,  as  it  went  on 
for  seven  days  in  the  streets  and  public  squares  and  houses  of  ancient 
Rome  from  the  seventeenth  to  the  twenty-third  of  December. 

But  no  feature  of  the  festival  is  more  remarkable,  nothing  in  it 
seems  to  have  struck  the  ancients  themselves  more  than  the  license 
granted  to  slaves  at  this  time.  The  distinction  between  the  free 
and  the  servile  classes  was  temporarily  abolished.  The  slave  might 
rail  at  his  master,  intoxicate  himself  like  his  betters,  sit  down  at 
table  with  them,  and  not  even  a  word  of  reproof  would  be  administered 
to  him  for  conduct  which  at  any  other  season  might  have  been  punished 
with  stripes,  imprisonment,  or  death.  Nay,  more,  masters  actually 


584  HUMAN  SCAPEGOATS  IN  CLASSICAL  ANTIQUITY  ch. 

changed  places  with  their  slaves  and  waited  on  them  at  table  ;  and 
not  till  the  serf  had  done  eating  and  drinking  was  the  board  cleared 
and  dinner  set  for  his  master.  So  far  was  this  inversion  of  ranks 
carried,  that  each  household  became  for  a  time  a  mimic  republic  in 
which  the  high  offices  of  state  were  discharged  by  the  slaves,  who 
gave  their  orders  and  laid  down  the  law  as  if  they  were  indeed  invested 
with  all  the  dignity  of  the  consulship,  the  praetorship,  and  the  bench. 
Like  the  pale  reflection  of  power  thus  accorded  to  bondsmen  at  the 
Saturnalia  was  the  mock  kingship  for  which  freemen  cast  lots  at  the 
same  season.  The  person  on  whom  the  lot  fell  enjoyed  the  title  of 
king,  and  issued  commands  of  a  playful  and  ludicrous  nature  to  his 
temporary  subjects.  One  of  them  he  might  order  to  mix  the  wine, 
another  to  drink,  another  to  sing,  another  to  dance,  another  to  speak 
in  his  own  dispraise,  another  to  carry  a  flute-girl  on  his  back  round 
the  house. 

Now,  when  we  remember  that  the  liberty  allowed  to  slaves  at 
this  festive  season  was  supposed  to  be  an  imitation  of  the  state  of 
society  in  Saturn’s  time,  and  that  in  general  the  Saturnalia  passed 
for  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  temporary  revival  or  restoration  of 
the  reign  of  that  merry  monarch,  we  are  tempted  to  surmise  that 
the  mock  king  who  presided  over  the  revels  may  have  originally 
represented  Saturn  himself.  The  conjecture  is  strongly  confirmed, 
if  not  established,  by  a  very  curious  and  interesting  account  of  the 
way  in  which  the  Saturnalia  was  celebrated  by  the  Roman  soldiers  i 
stationed  on  the  Danube  in  the  reign  of  Maximian  and  Diocletian. 
The  account  is  preserved  in  a  narrative  of  the  martyrdom  of  St.  Dasius,  1 
which  was  unearthed  from  a  Greek  manuscript  in  the  Paris  library, 
and  published  by  Professor  Franz  Cumont  of  Ghent.  Two  briefer  1 
descriptions  of  the  event  and  of  the  custom  are  contained  in  manu¬ 
scripts  at  Milan  and  Berlin ;  one  of  them  had  already  seen  the  light 
in  an  obscure  volume  printed  at  Urbino  in  1727,  but  its  importance 
for  the  history  of  the  Roman  religion,  both  ancient  and  modern, 
appears  to  have  been  overlooked  until  Professor  Cumont  drew  the 
attention  of  scholars  to  all  three  narratives  by  publishing  them  together 
some  years  ago.  According  to  these  narratives,  which  have  all  the 
appearance  of  being  authentic,  and  of  which  the  longest  is  probably 
based  on  official  documents,  the  Roman  soldiers  at  Durostorum  in 
Lower  Moesia  celebrated  the  Saturnalia  year  by  year  in  the  following 
manner.  Thirty  days  before  the  festival  they  chose  by  lot  from 
amongst  themselves  a  young  and  handsome  man,  who  was  then 
clothed  in  royal  attire  to  resemble  Saturn.  Thus  arrayed  and  attended 
by  a  multitude  of  soldiers  he  went  about  in  public  with  full  license 
to  indulge  his  passions  and  to  taste  of  every  pleasure,  however  bas*e 
and  shameful.  But  if  his  reign  was  merry,  it  was  short  and  ended 
tragically  ;  for  when  the  thirty  days  were  up  and  the  festival  of  Saturn 
had  come,  he  cut  his  own  throat  on  the  altar  of  the  god  whom  he 
personated.  In  the  year  a.d.  303  the  lot  fell  upon  the  Christian 
soldier  Dasius,  but  he  refused  to  play  the  part  of  the  heathen  god 


LVIII 


THE  ROMAN  SATURNALIA 


585 


and  soil  his  last  days  by  debauchery.  The  threats  and  arguments 
of  his  commanding  officer  Bassus  failed  to  shake  his  constancy,  and 
accordingly  he  was  beheaded,  as  the  Christian  martyrologist  records 
with  minute  accuracy,  at  Durostorum  by  the  soldier  John  on  Friday 
the  twentieth  day  of  November,  being  the  twenty-fourth  day  of  the 
moon,  at  the  fourth  hour. 

Since  this  narrative  was  published  by  Professor  Cumont,  its 
historical  character,  which  had  been  doubted  or  denied,  has  received 
strong  confirmation  from  an  interesting  discovery.  In  the  crypt  of 
the  cathedral  which  crowns  the  promontory  of  Ancona  there  is  pre¬ 
served,  among  other  remarkable  antiquities,  a  white  marble  sarco¬ 
phagus  bearing  a  Greek  inscription,  in  characters  of  the  age  of  Justinian, 
to  the  following  effect  :  “  Here  lies  the  holy  martyr  Dasius,  brought 
from  Durostorum.”  The  sarcophagus  was  transferred  to  the  crypt 
of  the  cathedral  in  1848  from  the  church  of  San  Pellegrino,  under 
the  high  altar  of  which,  as  we  learn  from  a  Latin  inscription  let  into 
the  masonry,  the  martyr’s  bones  still  repose  with  those  of  two  other 
saints.  How  long  the  sarcophagus  was  deposited  in  the  church  of 
San  Pellegrino,  we  do  not  know ;  but  it  is  recorded  to  have  been  there 
in  the  year  1650.  We  may  suppose  that  the  saint’s  relics  were  trans¬ 
ferred  for  safety  to  Ancona  at  some  time  in  the  troubled  centuries 
which  followed  his  martyrdom,  when  Moesia  was  occupied  and 
ravaged  by  successive  hordes  of  barbarian  invaders.  At  all  events 
it  appears  certain  from  the  independent  and  mutually  confirmatory 
evidence  of  the  martyrology  and  the  monuments  that  Dasius  was  no 
mythical  saint,  but  a  real  man,  who  suffered  death  for  his  faith  at 
Durostorum  in  one  of  the  early  centuries  of  the  Christian  era.  Finding 
the  narrative  of  the  nameless  martyrologist  thus  established  as  to 
the  principal  fact  recorded,  namely,  the  martyrdom  of  St.  Dasius, 
we  may  reasonably  accept  his  testimony  as  to  the  manner  and  cause 
of  the  martyrdom,  all  the  more  because  his  narrative  is  precise, 
circumstantial,  and  entirely  free  from  the  miraculous  element.  Ac¬ 
cordingly  I  conclude  that  the  account  which  he  gives  of  the  celebration 
of  the  Saturnalia  among  the  Roman  soldiers  is  trustworthy. 

This  account  sets  in  a  new  and  lurid  light  the  office  of  the  King  of 
the  Saturnalia,  the  ancient  Lord  of  Misrule,  who  presided  over  the 
winter  revels  at  Rome  in  the  time  of  Horace  and  of  Tacitus.  It  seems 
to  prove  that  his  business  had  not  always  been  that  of  a  mere  harlequin 
or  merry-andrew  whose  only  care  was  that  the  revelry  should  run  high 
and  the  fun  grow  fast  and  furious,  while  the  fire  blazed  and  crackled 
on  the  hearth,  while  the  streets  swarmed  with  festive  crowds,  and 
through  the  clear  frosty  air,  far  away  to  the  north,  Soracte  showed  his 
coronal  of  snow.  When  we  compare  this  comic  monarch  of  the  gay, 
the  civilised  metropolis  with  his  grim  counterpart  of  the  rude  camp 
on  the  Danube,  and  when  we  remember  the  long  array  of  similar 
figures,  ludicrous  yet  tragic,  who  in  other  ages  and  in  other  lands, 
wearing  mock  crowns  and  wrapped  in  sceptred  palls,  have  played  their 
little  pranks  for  a  few  brief  hours  or  days,  then  passed  before  their 


586  HUMAN  SCAPEGOATS  IN  CLASSICAL  ANTIQUITY  ch. 

time  to  a  violent  death,  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  in  the  King  of  the 
Saturnalia  at  Rome,  as  he  is  depicted  by  classical  writers,  we  see  only 
a  feeble  emasculated  copy  of  that  original,  whose  strong  features  have 
been  fortunately  preserved  for  us  by  the  obscure  author  of  the  Martyr¬ 
dom  of  St.  Dasius.  In  other  words,  the  martyrologist’s  account  of  the 
Saturnalia  agrees  so  closely  with  the  accounts  of  similar  rites  elsewhere, 
which  could  not  possibly  have  been  known  to  him,  that  the  substantial 
accuracy  of  his  description  may  be  regarded  as  established;  and 
further,  since  the  custom  of  putting  a  mock  king  to  death  as  a  repre¬ 
sentative  of  a  god  cannot  have  grown  out  of  a  practice  of  appointing 
him  to  preside  over  a  holiday  revel,  whereas  the  reverse  may  very  well 
have  happened,  we  are  justified  in  assuming  that  in  an  earlier  and  more 
barbarous  age  it  was  the  universal  practice  in  ancient  Italy,  wherever 
the  worship  of  Saturn  prevailed,  to  choose  a  man  who  played  the  part 
and  enjoyed  all  the  traditionary  privileges  of  Saturn  for  a  season, 
and  then  died,  whether  by  his  own  or  another’s  hand,  whether  by  the 
knife  or  the  fire  or  on  the  gallows-tree,  in  the  character  of  the  good 
god  who  gave  his  life  for  the  world.  In  Rome  itself  and  other  great 
towns  the  growth  of  civilization  had  probably  mitigated  this  cruel 
custom  long  before  the  Augustan  age,  and  transformed  it  into  the 
innocent  shape  it  wears  in  the  writings  of  the  few  classical  writers  who 
bestow  a  passing  notice  on  the  holiday  King  of  the  Saturnalia.  But 
in  remoter  districts  the  older  and  sterner  practice  may  long  have 
survived  ;  and  even  if  after  the  unification  of  Italy  the  barbarous 
usage  was  suppressed  by  the  Roman  government,  the  memory  of  it 
would  be  handed  down  by  the  peasants  and  would  tend  from  time  to 
time,  as  still  happens  with  the  lowest  forms  of  superstition  among 
ourselves,  to  lead  to  a  recrudescence  of  the  practice,  especially  among  * 
the  rude  soldiery  on  the  outskirts  of  the  empire  over  whom  the  once-  1 
iron  hand  of  Rome  was  beginning  to  relax  its  grasp. 

The  resemblance  between  the  Saturnalia  of  ancient  and  the  Carnival 
of  modern  Italy  has  often  been  remarked ;  but  in  the  light  of  all  the 
facts  that  have  come  before  us,  we  may  well  ask  whether  the  resem¬ 
blance  does  not  amount  to  identity.  We  have  seen  that  in  Italy, 
Spain,  and  France,  that  is,  in  the  countries  where  the  influence  of  Rome 
has  been  deepest  and  most  lasting,  a  conspicuous  feature  of  the  Carnival 
is  a  burlesque  figure  personifying  the  festive  season,  which  after  a  short 
career  of  glory  and  dissipation  is  publicly  shot,  burnt,  or  otherwise 
destroyed,  to  the  feigned  grief  or  genuine  delight  of  the  populace.  If 
the  view  here  suggested  of  the  Carnival  is  correct,  this  grotesque 
personage  is  no  other  than  a  direct  successor  of  the  old  King  of  the 
Saturnalia,  the  master  of  the  revels,  the  real  man  who  personated 
Saturn  and,  when  the  revels  were  over,  suffered  a  real  death  in  his 
assumed  character.  The  King  of  the  Bean  on  Twelfth  Night  and  the 
mediaeval  Bishop  of  Fools,  Abbot  of  Unreason,  or  Lord  of  Misrule  are 
figures  of  the  same  sort  and  may  perhaps  have  had  a  similar  origin. 
Whether  that  was  so  or  not,  we  may  conclude  with  a  fair  degree  of 
probability  that  if  the  King  of  the  Wood  at  Aricia  lived  and  died  as 


LIX 


KILLING  THE  GOD  IN  MEXICO  587 

an  incarnation  of  a  sylvan  deity,  he  had  of  old  a  parallel  at  Rome  in 
the  men  who,  year  by  year,  were  slain  in  the  character  of  King  Saturn, 
the  god  of  the  sown  and  sprouting  seed. 


CHAPTER  LIX 

KILLING  THE  GOD  IN  MEXICO 

By  no  people  does  the  custom  of  sacrificing  the  human  representative 
of  a  god  appear  to  have  been  observed  so  commonly  and  with  so  much 
solemnity  as  by  the  Aztecs  of  ancient  Mexico.  With  the  ritual  of 
these  remarkable  sacrifices  we  are  well  acquainted,  for  it  has  been 
fully  described  by  the  Spaniards  who  conquered  Mexico  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  whose  curiosity  was  naturally  excited  by  the  discovery 
in  this  distant  region  of  a  barbarous  and  cruel  religion  which  presented 
many  curious  points  of  analogy  to  the  doctrine  and  ritual  of  their  own 
church.  “  They  took  a  captive,”  says  the  Jesuit  Acosta,  “  such  as 
they  thought  good ;  and  afore  they  did  sacrifice  him  unto  their  idols, 
they  gave  him  the  name  of  the  idol,  to  whom  he  should  be  sacrificed^ 
and  apparelled  him  with  the  same  ornaments  like  their  idol,  saying, 
that  he  did  represent  the  same  idol.  And  during  the  time  that  this 
representation  lasted,  which  was  for  a  year  in  some  feasts,  in  others 
six  months,  and  in  others  less,  they  reverenced  and  worshipped  him 
in  the  same  manner  as  the  proper  idol ;  and  in  the  meantime  he  did 
eat,  drink,  and  was  merry.  When  he  went  through  the  streets,  the 
people  came  forth  to  worship  him,  and  every  one  brought  him  an  alms, 
with  children  and  sick  folks,  that  he  might  cure  them,  and  bless  them' 
suffering  him  to  do  all  things  at  his  pleasure,  only  he  was  accompanied 
with  ten  or  twelve  men  lest  he  should  fly.  And  he  (to  the  end  he  might 
be  reverenced  as  he  passed)  sometimes  sounded  upon  a  small  flute, 
that  the  people  might  prepare  to  worship  him.  The  feast  being  come, 
and  he  grown  fat,  they  killed  him,  opened  him,  and  ate  him,  making 
a  solemn  sacrifice  of  him.” 

This  general  description  of  the  custom  may  now  be  illustrated  by 
particular  examples.  Thus  at  the  festival  called  Toxcatl,  the  greatest 
festival  of  the  Mexican  year,  a  young  man  was  annually  sacrificed  in 
the  character  of  Tezcatlipoca,  “  the  god  of  gods,”  after  having  been 
maintained  and  worshipped  as  that  great  deity  in  person  for  a  whole 
year.  According  to  the  old  Franciscan  monk  Sahagun,  our  best 
authority  on  the  Aztec  religion,  the  sacrifice  of  the  human  god  fell  at 
Easter  or  a  few  days  later,  so  that,  if  he  is  right,  it  would  correspond 
in  date  as  well  as  in  character  to  the  Christian  festival  of  the  death 
and  resurrection  of  the  Redeemer.  More  exactly  he  tells  us  that  the 
sacrifice  took  place  on  the  first  day  of  the  fifth  Aztec  month,  which 
according  to  him  began  on  the  twenty- third  or  twenty-seventh  day 
of  April. 


588  KILLING  THE  GOD  IN  MEXICO  ch. 

At  this  festival  the  great  god  died  in  the  person  of  one  human 
representative  and  came  to  life  again  in  the  person  of  another,  who 
was  destined  to  enjoy  the  fatal  honour  of  divinity  for  a  year  and  to 
perish,  like  all  his  predecessors,  at  the  end  of  it.  The  young  man 
singled  out  for  this  high  dignity  was  carefully  chosen  from  among  the 
captives  on  the  ground  of  his  personal  beauty.  He  had  to  be  of  un¬ 
blemished  body,  slim  as  a  reed  and  straight  as  a  pillar,  neither  too  tall 
nor  too  short.  If  through  high  living  he  grew  too  fat,  he  was  obliged 
to  reduce  himself  by  drinking  salt  water.  And  in  order  that  he  might 
behave  in  his  lofty  station  with  becoming  grace  and  dignity  he  was 
carefully  trained  to  comport  himself  like  a  gentleman  of  the  first 
quality,  to  speak  correctly  and  elegantly,  to  play  the  flute,  to  smoke 
cigars  and  to  snuff  at  flowers  with  a  dandified  air.  He  was  honourably 
lodged  in  the  temple,  where  the  nobles  waited  on  him  and  paid  him 
homage,  bringing  him  meat  and  serving  him  like  a  prince.  The  king 
himself  saw  to  it  that  he  was  apparelled  in  gorgeous  attire,  "  for  already 
he  esteemed  him  as  a  god.”  Eagle  down  was  gummed  to  his  head  and 
white  cock’s  feathers  were  stuck  in  his  hair,  which  drooped  to  his  girdle. 
A  wreath  of  flowers  like  roasted  maize  crowned  his  brows,  and  a  gar¬ 
land  of  the  same  flowers  passed  over  his  shoulders  and  under  his  arm- 
pits.  Golden  ornaments  hung  from  his  nose,  golden  armlets  adorned 
his  arms,  golden  bells  jingled  on  his  legs  at  every  step  he  took  ;  earrings 
of  turquoise  dangled  from  his  ears,  bracelets  of  turquoise  bedecked  his 
wrists  ;  necklaces  of  shells  encircled  his  neck  and  depended  on  his 
breast ;  he  wore  a  mantle  of  network,  and  round  his  middle  a  rich 
waist  cloth.  When  this  bejewelled  exquisite  lounged  through  the 
streets  playing  on  his  flute,  puffing  at  a  cigar,  and  smelling  at  a  nose¬ 
gay,  the  people  whom  he  met  threw  themselves  on  the  earth  before  him 
and  prayed  to  him  with  sighs  and  tears,  taking  up  the  dust  in  their 
hands  and  putting  it  in  their  mouths  in  token  of  the  deepest  humiliation 
and  subjection.  Women  came  forth  with  children  in  their  arms  and 
presented  them  to  him,  saluting  him  as  a  god.  For  "he  passed  for 
our  Lord  God  ;  the  people  acknowledged  him  as  the  Lord.”  All  who 
thus  worshipped  him  on  his  passage  he  saluted  gravely  and  courteously. 
Lest  he  should  flee,  he  was  everywhere  attended  by  a  guard  of  eight 
pages  in  the  royal  livery,  four  of  them  with  shaven  crowns  like  the 
palace-slaves,  and  four  of  them  with  the  flowing  locks  of  warriors  ; 
and  if  he  contrived  to  escape,  the  captain  of  the  guard  had  to  take  his 
place  as  the  representative  of  the  god  and  to  die  in  his  stead.  Twenty 
days  before  he  was  to  die,  his  costume  was  changed,  and  four  damsels 
delicately  nurtured  and  bearing  the  names  of  four  goddesses — the 
Goddess  of  Flowers,  the  Goddess  of  the  Young  Maize,  the  Goddess 
"  Our  Mother  among  the  Water,”  and  the  Goddess  of  Salt — were  given 
him  to  be  his  brides,  and  with  them  he  consorted.  During  the  last 
five  days  divine  honours  were  showered  on  the  destined  victim.  The 
king  remained  in  his  palace  while  the  whole  court  went  after  the 
.  human  god.  Solemn  banquets  and  dances  followed  each  other  in 
regular  succession  and  at  appointed  places.  On  the  last  day  the  young 


LIX 


KILLING  THE  GOD  IN  MEXICO  589 

man,  attended  by  his  wives  and  pages,  embarked  in  a  canoe  covered 
with  a  loyal  canopy  and  was  ferried  across  the  lake  to  a  spot  where  a 
little  hill  rose  from  the  edge  of  the  water.  It  was  called  the  Mountain 
of  Parting,  because  there  his  wives  bade  him  a  last  farewell.  Then, 
accompanied  only  by  his  pages,  he  repaired  to  a  small  and  lonely 
temple  by  the  wayside.  Like  the  Mexican  temples  in  general,  it  was 
built  in  the  form  of  a  pyramid ;  and  as  the  young  man  ascended  the 
stairs  he  broke  at  every  step  one  of  the  flutes  on  which  he  had  played 
in  the  days  of  his  glory.  On  reaching  the  summit  he  was  seized  and 
held  down  by  the  priests  on  his  back  upon  a  block  of  stone,  while  one 
of  them  cut  open  his  breast,  thrust  his  hand  into  the  wound,  and 
wrenching  out  his  heart  held  it  up  in  sacrifice  to  the  sun.  The  body 
of  the  dead  god  was  not,  like  the  bodies  of  common  victims,  sent 
rolling  down  the  steps  of  the  temple,  but  was  carried  down  to  the  foot, 
wheie  the  head  was  cut  off  and  spitted  on  a  pike.  Such  was  the  regular 

end  of  the  man  who  personated  the  greatest  god  of  the  Mexican 
pantheon. 

The  honour  of  living  for  a  short  time  in  the  character  of  a  god  and 
dying  a  violent  death  in  the  same  capacity  was  not  restricted  to  men 
in  Mexico ;  women  were  allowed,  or  rather  compelled,  to  enjoy  the 
glory  and  to  share  the  doom  as  representatives  of  goddesses.  Thus 
at  a  great  festival  in  September,  which  was  preceded  by  a  strict 
fast  of  seven  days,  they  sanctified  a  young  slave  girl  of  twelve  or 
thirteen  years,  the  prettiest  they  could  find,  to  represent  the  Maize 
Goddess  Chicomecohuatl.  They  invested  her  with  the  ornaments 
of  the  goddess,  putting  a  mitre  on  her  head  and  maize-cobs  round 
her  neck  and  in  her  hands,  and  fastening  a  green  feather  upright 
on  the  crown  of  her  head  to  imitate  an  ear  of  maize.  This  they  did, 
we  are  told,  in  order  to  signify  that  the  maize  was  almost  ripe  at  the 
time  of  the  festival,  but  because  it  was  still  tender  they  chose  a  girl 
of  tender  years  to  play  the  part  of  the  Maize  Goddess.  The  whole 
long  day  they  led  the  poor  child  in  all  her  finery,  with  the  green  plume 
nodding  on  her  head,  from  house  to  house  dancing  merrily  to  cheer 
people  after  the  dulness  and  privations  of  the  fast. 

In  the  evening  all  the  people  assembled  at  the  temple,  the  courts 
of  which  they  lit  up  by  a  multitude  of  lanterns  and  candles.  There 
they  passed  the  night  without  sleeping,  and  at  midnight,  while  the 
trumpets,  flutes,  and  horns  discoursed  solemn  music,  a  portable 
framework  or  palanquin  was  brought  forth,  bedecked  with  festoons  of 
maize-cobs  and  peppers  and  filled  with  seeds  of  all  sorts.  This  the 
bearers  set  down  at  the  door  of  the  chamber  in  which  the  wooden 
image  of  the  goddess  stood.  Now  the  chamber  was  adorned  and 
wreathed,  both  outside  and  inside,  with  wreaths  of  maize-cobs,  peppers, 
pumpkins,  roses,  and  seeds  of  every  kind,  a  wonder  to  behold  ;  the 
whole  floor  was  covered  deep  with  these  verdant  offerings  of  the  pious. 
When  the  music  ceased,  a  solemn  procession  came  forth  of  priests  and 
dignitaries,  with  flaring  lights  and  smoking  censers,  leading  in  their 
midst  the  girl  who  played  the  part  of  the  goddess.  Then  they  made 


CH. 


59° 


KILLING  THE  GOD  IN  MEXICO 


her  mount  the  framework,  where  she  stood  upright  on  the  maize  and 
peppers  and  pumpkins  with  which  it  was  strewed,  her  hands  resting 
on  two  banisters  to  keep  her  from  falling.  Then  the  priests  swung 
the  smoking  censers  round  her ;  the  music  struck  up  again,  and  while 
it  played,  a  great  dignitary  of -the  temple  suddenly  stepped  up  to  her 
with  a  razor  in  his  hand  and  adroitly  shore  off  the  green  feather  she 
wore  on  her  head,  together  with  the  hair  in  which  it  was  fastened,  , 
snipping  the  lock  off  by  the  root.  The  feathei  and  the  hair  he  then 
presented  to  the  wooden  image  of  the  goddess  with  great  solemnity 
and  elaborate  ceremonies,  weeping  and  giving  her  thanks  for  the  fruits 
of  the  earth  and  the  abundant  crops  which  she  had  bestowed  on  the 
people  that  year  ;  and  as  he  wept  and  prayed,  all  the  people,  standing  , 
in  the  courts  of  the  temple,  wept  and  prayed  with  him.  When  that 
ceremony  was  over,  the  girl  descended  from  the  framework  and  was 
escorted  to  the  place  where  she  was  to  spend  the  rest  of  the  night.  , 
But  all  the  people  kept  watch  in  the  courts  of  the  temple  by  the  light  , 

of  torches  till  break  of  day.  ,  j 

The  morning  being  come,  and  the  courts  of  the  temple  being  still 
crowded  by  the  multitude,  who  would  have  deemed  it  sacrilege  to 
quit  the  precincts,  the  priests  again  brought  forth  the  damsel  attired 
in  the  costume  of  the  goddess,  with  the  mitre  on  her  head  and  the  cobs 
of  maize  about  her  neck.  Again  she  mounted  the  portable  framework 
or  palanquin  and  stood  on  it,  supporting  herself  by  her  hands  on  the  , 
banisters.  Then  the  elders  of  the  temple  lifted  it  on  their  shoulders, 
and  while  some  swung  burning  censers  and  others  played  on  instru¬ 
ments  or  sang,  they  carried  it  in  procession  through  the  great  courtyard 
to  the  hall  of  the  god  Huitzilopochtli  and  then  back  to  the  chamber, 
where  stood  the  wooden  image  of  the  Maize  Goddess,  whom  the  girl 
personated.  There  they  caused  the  damsel  to  descend  from  the 
palanquin  and  to  stand  on  the  heaps  of  com  and  vegetables  that  had 
been  spread  in  profusion  on  the  floor  of  the  sacred  chamber.  While  - 
she  stood  there  all  the  elders  and  nobles  came  in  a  line,  one  behind  the 
other,  carrying  saucers  full  of  dry  and  clotted  blood  which  they  had 
drawn  from  their  ears  by  way  of  penance  during  the  seven  days’  fast. 
One  by  one  they  squatted  on  their  haunches  before  her,  which  was  the 
equivalent  of  falling  on  their  knees  with  us,  and  scraping  the  crust  of 
blood  from  the  saucer  cast  it  down  before  her  as  an  offering  in  return 
for  the  benefits  which  she,  as  the  embodiment  of  the  Maize  Goddess,  I 
had  conferred  upon  them.  When  the  men  had  thus  humbly  offered 
their  blood  to  the  human  representative  of  the  goddess,  the  women, 
forming  a  long  line,  did  so  likewise,  each  of  them  dropping  on  her  hams 
before  the  girl  and  scraping  her  blood  from  the  saucer.  The  ceremony 
lasted  a  long  time,  for  great  and  small,  young  and  old,  all  without 
exception  had  to  pass  before  the  incarnate  deity  and  make  their 
offering.  When  it  was  over,  the  people  returned  home  with  glad 
hearts  to  feast  on  flesh  and  viands  of  every  sort  as  merrily,  we  are  told, 
as  good  Christians  at  Easter  partake  of  meat  and  other  carnal  mercies 
after  the  long  abstinence  of  Lent.  And  when  they  had  eaten  and 


LIX 


KILLING  THE  GOD  IN  MEXICO 


59i 


drunk  their  fill  and  rested  after  the  night  watch,  they  returned  quite 
refreshed  to  the  temple  to  see  the  end  of  the  festival.  And  the  end  of 
the  festival  was  this.  The  multitude  being  assembled,  the  priests 
solemnly  incensed  the  girl  who  personated  the  goddess  ;  then  they 
threw  her  on  her  back  on  the  heap  of  corn  and  seeds,  cut  off  her  head, 
caught  the  gushing  blood  in  a  tub,  and  sprinkled  the  blood  on  the 
wooden  image  of  the  goddess,  the  walls  of  the  chamber,  and  the  offerings 
of  corn,  peppers,  pumpkins,  seeds,  and  vegetables  which  cumbered  the 
floor.  After  that  they  flayed  the  headless  trunk,  and  one  of  the  priests 
made  shift  to  squeeze  himself  into  the  bloody  skin.  Having  done  so 
they  clad  him  in  all  the  robes  which  the  girl  had  worn ;  they  put  the 
mitre  on  his  head,  the  necklace  of  golden  maize-cobs  about  his  neck, 
the  maize-cobs  of  feathers  and  gold  in  his  hands ;  and  thus  arrayed 
they  led  him  forth  in  public,  all  of  them  dancing  to  the  tuck  of  drum, 
while  he  acted  as  fugleman,  skipping  and  posturing  at  the  head  of  the 
procession  as  briskly  as  he  could  be  expected  to  do,  incommoded  as  he 
was  by  the  tight  and  clammy  skin  of  the  girl  and  by  her  clothes,  which 
must  have  been  much  too  small  for  a  grown  man. 

In  the  foregoing  custom  the  identification  of  the  young  girl  with 
the  Maize  Goddess  appears  to  be  complete.  The  golden  maize-cobs 
which  she  wore  round  her  neck,  the  artificial  maize-cobs  which  she 
carried  in  her  hands,  the  green  feather  which  was  stuck  in  her  hair  in 
imitation  (we  are  told)  of  a  green  ear  of  maize,  all  set  her  forth  as  a 
personification  of  the  corn-spirit ;  and  we  are  expressly  informed  that 
she  was  specially  chosen  as  a  young  girl  to  represent  the  young  maize, 
which  at  the  time  of  the  festival  had  not  yet  fully  ripened.  Further, 
her  identification  with  the  corn  and  the  corn-goddess  was  clearly 
announced  by  making  her  stand  on  the  heaps  of  maize  and  there  receive 
the  homage  and  blood-offerings  of  the  whole  people,  who  thereby 
returned  her  thanks  for  the  benefits  which  in  her  character  of  a  divinity 
she  was  supposed  to  have  conferred  upon  them.  Once  more,  the 
practice  of  beheading  her  on  a  heap  of  corn  and  seeds  and  sprinkling 
her  blood,  not  only  on  the  image  of  the  Maize  Goddess,  but  on  the  piles 
of  maize,  peppers,  pumpkins,  seeds,  and  vegetables,  can  seemingly  have 
had  no  other  object  but  to  quicken  and  strengthen  the  crops  of  corn 
and  the  fruits  of  the  earth  in  general  by  infusing  into  their  representa¬ 
tives  the  blood  of  the  Corn  Goddess  herself.  The  analogy  of  this 
Mexican  sacrifice,  the  meaning  of  which  appears  to  be  indisputable, 
may  be  allowed  to  strengthen  the  interpretation  which  I  have  given  of 
other  human  sacrifices  offered  for  the  crops.  If  the  Mexican  girl, 
whose  blood  was  sprinkled  on  the  maize,  indeed  personated  the  Maize 
Goddess,  it  becomes  more  than  ever  probable  that  the  girl  whose  blood 
the  Pawnees  similarly  sprinkled  on  the  seed  corn  personated  in  like 
manner  the  female  Spirit  of  the  Corn  ;  and  so  with  the  other  human 
beings  whom  other  races  have  slaughtered  for  the  sake  of  promoting 
the  growth  of  the  crops. 

Lastly,  the  concluding  act  of  the  sacred  drama,  in  which  the  body 
of  the  dead  Maize  Goddess  was  flayed  and  her  skin  worn,  together 


592 


BETWEEN  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH 


CH. 


with  all  her  sacred  insignia,  by  a  man  who  danced  before  the  people 
in  this  grim  attire,  seems  to  be  best  explained  on  the  hypothesis  that 
it  was  intended  to  ensure  that  the  divine  death  should  be  immediately 
followed  by  the  divine  resurrection.  If  that  was  so,  we  may  infer  with 
some  degree  of  probability  that  the  practice  of  killing  a  human  repre¬ 
sentative  of  a  deity  has  commonly,  perhaps  always,  been  regarded 
merely  as  a  means  of  perpetuating  the  divine  energies  in  the  fulness  of 
youthful  vigour,  untainted  by  the  weakness  and  frailty  of  age,  from 
which  they  must  have  suffered  if  the  deity  had  been  allowed  to  die  a 
natural  death. 

These  Mexican  rites  suffice  to  prove  that  human  sacrifices  of  the 
sort  I  suppose  to  have  prevailed  at  Aricia  were,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
regularly  offered  by  a  people  whose  level  of  culture  was  probably  not 
inferior,  if  indeed  it  was  not  distinctly  superior,  to  that  occupied  by 
the  Italian  races  at  the  early  period  to  which  the  origin  of  the  Arician 
priesthood  must  be  referred.  The  positive  and  indubitable  evidence 
of  the  prevalence  of  such  sacrifices  in  one  part  of  the  world  may 
reasonably  be  allowed  to  strengthen  the  probability  of  their  prevalence 
in  places  for  which  the  evidence  is  less  full  and  trustworthy.  Taken 
all  together,  the  facts  which  we  have  passed  in  review  seem  to  show 
that  the  custom  of  killing  men  whom  their  worshippers  regard  as 
divine  has  prevailed  in  many  parts  of  the  world. 


CHAPTER  LX 

BETWEEN  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH 

§  i.  Not  to  touch  the  Earth. — At  the  outset  of  this  book  two  questions 
were  proposed  for  answer  :  Why  had  the  priest  of  Aricia  to  slay  his 
predecessor  ?  And  why,  before  doing  so,  had  he  to  pluck  the  Golden 
Bough  ?  Of  these  two  questions  the  first  has  now  been  answered. 
The  priest  of  Aricia,  if  I  am  right,  was  one  of  those  sacred  kings  or 
human  divinities  on  whose  life  the  welfare  of  the  community  and  even 
the  course  of  nature  in  general  are  believed  to  be  intimately  dependent. 
It  does  not  appear  that  the  subjects  or  worshippers  of  such  a  spiritual 
potentate  form  to  themselves  any  very  clear  notion  of  the  exact  relation¬ 
ship  in  which  they  stand  to  him  ;  probably  their  ideas  on  the  point 
are  vague  and  fluctuating,  and  we  should  err  if  we  attempted  to  define 
the  relationship  with  logical  precision.  All  that  the  people  know,  or 
rather  imagine,  is  that  somehow  they  themselves,  their  cattle,  and 
their  crops  are  mysteriously  bound  up  with  their  divine  king,  so  that 
according  as  he  is  well  or  ill  the  community  is  healthy  or  sickly,  the 
flocks  and  herds  thrive  or  languish  with  disease,  and  the  fields  yield 
an  abundant  or  a  scanty  harvest.  The  worst  evil  which  they  can 
conceive  of  is  the  natural  death  of  their  ruler,  whether  he  succumb  to 
sickness  or  old  age,  for  in  the  opinion  of  his  followers  such  a  death 


LX 


NOT  TO  TOUCH  THE  EARTH  593 

would  entail  the  most  disastrous  consequences  on  themselves  and  their 
possessions  ;  fatal  epidemics  would  sweep  away  man  and  beast,  the 
earth  would  refuse  her  increase,  nay,  the  very  frame  of  nature  itself 
might  be  dissolved.  To  guard  against  these  catastrophes  it  is  necessary 
to  put  the  king  to  death  while  he  is  still  in  the  full  bloom  of  his  divine 
manhood,  in  order  that  his  sacred  life,  transmitted  in  unabated  force 
to.  his  successor,  may  renew  its  youth,  and  thus  by  successive  trans¬ 
missions  through  a  perpetual  line  of  vigorous  incarnations  may  remain 
eternally  fresh  and  young,  a  pledge  and  security  that  men  and  animals 
shall  in  like  manner  renew  their  youth  by  a  perpetual  succession  of 
generations,  and  that  seedtime  and  harvest,  and  summer  and  winter, 
and  rain  and  sunshine  shall  never  fail.  That,  if  my  conjecture  is  right, 
was  why  the  priest  of  Aricia,  the  King  of  the  Wood  at  Nemi,  had 
regularly  to  perish  by  the  sword  of  his  successor. 

But  we  have  still  to  ask,  What  was  the  Golden  Bough  ?  and  why 
had  each  candidate  for  the  Arician  priesthood  to  pluck  it  before  he 
could  slay  the  priest  ?  These  questions  I  will  now  try  to  answer. 

It  will  be  well  to  begin  by  noticing  two  of  those  rules  or  taboos  by 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  the  life  of  divine  kings  or  priests  is  regulated. 
The  first  of  the  rules  to  which  I  would  call  the  reader’s  attention  is 
that  the  divine  personage  may  not  touch  the  ground  with  his  foot. 
This  rule  was  observed  by  the  supreme  pontiff  of  the  Zapotecs  in 
Mexico  ;  he  profaned  his  sanctity  if  he  so  much  as  touched  the  ground 
with  his  foot.  Montezuma,  emperor  of  Mexico,  never  set  foot  on  the 
ground  ;  he  was  always  carried  on  the  shoulders  of  noblemen,  and  if 
he  lighted  anywhere  they  laid  rich  tapestry  for  him  to  walk  upon. 
For  the  Mikado  of  Japan  to  touch  the  ground  with  his  foot  was  a 
shameful  degradation  ;  indeed,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  it  was  enough 
to  deprive  him  of  his  office.  Outside  his  palace  he  was  carried  on 
men  s  shoulders  ;  within  it  he  walked  on  exquisitely  wrought  mats. 
The  king  and  queen  of  Tahiti  might  not  touch  the  ground  anywhere 
but  within  their  hereditary  domains  ;  for  the  ground  on  which  they 
trod  became  sacred.  In  travelling  from  place  to  place  they  were 
carried  on  the  shoulders  of  sacred  men.  They  were  always  accom¬ 
panied  by  several  pairs  of  these  sanctified  attendants  ;  and  when  it 
became  necessary  to  change  their  bearers,  the  king  and  queen  vaulted 
on  to  the  shoulders  of  their  new  bearers  without  letting  their  feet  touch 
the  ground.  It  was  an  evil  omen  if  the  king  of  Dosuma  touched  the 
ground,  and  he  had  to  perform  an  expiatory  ceremony.  Within  his 
palace  the  king  of  Persia  walked  on  carpets  on  which  no  one  else  might 
tread  ;  outside  of  it  he  was  never  seen  on  foot  but  only  in  a  chariot 
or  on  horseback.  In  old  days  the  king  of  Siam  never  set  foot  upon 
the  earth,  but  was  carried  on  a  throne  of  gold  from  place  to  place. 
Formerly  neither  the  kings  of  Uganda,  nor  their  mothers,  nor  their 
queens  might  walk  on  foot  outside  of  the  spacious  enclosures  in  which 
they  lived.  Whenever  they  went  forth  they  were  carried  on  the 
shoulders  of  men  of  the  Buffalo  clan,  several  of  whom  accompanied 
any  of  these  royal  personages  on  a  journey  and  took  it  in  turn  to  bear 

2Q 


CH. 


594  between  heaven  and  earth 

the  burden.  The  king  sat  astride  the  bearer’s  neck  with  a  leg  over 
each  shoulder  and  his  feet  tucked  under  the  bearer’s  arms  When 
one  of  these  royal  carriers  grew  tired  he  shot  the  king  on  to  the  shoulders 
of  a  second  man  without  allowing  the  royal  feet  to  touch  the  ground. 
In  this  way  they  went  at  a  great  pace  and  travelled  long  distances  in 
a  day,  when  the  king  was  on  a  journey.  The  bearers  had  a  special 
hut  in  the  king’s  enclosure  in  order  to  be  at  hand  the  moment  they 
were  wanted.  Among  the  Bakuba,  or  rather  Bushongo,  a  nation  m 
the  southern  region  of  the  Congo,  down  to  a  few  yeais  ago  persons  of 
the  royal  blood  were  forbidden  to  touch  the  ground  ;  they  must  sit 
on  a  hide  a  chair,  or  the  back  of  a  slave,  who  crouched  on  hands  and 
feet  •  their  feet  rested  on  the  feet  of  others.  When  they  travelled 
they  were  carried  on  the  backs  of  men  ;  but  the  king  journeyed  in  a 
litter  supported  on  shafts.  Among  the  Ibo  people  about  Awka,  in 
Southern  Nigeria,  the  priest  of  the  Earth  has  to  observe  many  taboos  ; 
for  example,  he  may  not  see  a  corpse,  and  if  he  meets  one  on  the  road 
he  must  hide  his  eyes  with  his  wristlet.  He  must  abstain  from  many 
foods,  such  as  eggs,  birds  of  all  sorts,  mutton,  dog,  bush-buck,  and 
so  forth.  He  may  neither  wear  nor  touch  a  mask,  and  no  masked 
man  may  enter  his  house.  If  a  dog  enters  his  house,  it  is  killed  and 
thrown  out.  As  priest  of  the  Earth  he  may  not  sit  on  the  bare  ground, 
nor  eat  things  that  have  fallen  on  the  ground,  nor  may  earth  be  thrown 
at  him.  According  to  ancient  Brahmanic  ritual  a  king  at  his  inaugura¬ 
tion  trod  on  a  tiger’s  skin  and  a  golden  plate  ;  he  was  shod  with  shoes 
of  boar’s  skin,  and  so  long  as  he  lived  thereafter  he  might  not  stand  on 
the  earth  with  his  bare  feet. 

But  besides  persons  who  are  permanently  sacred  or  tabooed  and 
are  therefore  permanently  forbidden  to  touch  the  ground  with  their 
feet,  there  are  others  who  enjoy  the  character  of  sanctity  or  taboo 
only  on  certain  occasions,  and  to  whom  accordingly  the  prohibition 
in  question  only  applies  at  the  definite  seasons  during  which  they 
exhale  the  odour  of  sanctity.  Thus  among  the  Kayans  or  Bahaus  of 
Central  Borneo,  while  the  priestesses  are  engaged  in  the  performance 
of  certain  rites  they  may  not  step  on  the  ground,  and  boards  are  laid 
for  them  to  tread  on.  Warriors,  again,  on  the  war-path  are  surrounded, 
so  to  say,  by  an  atmosphere  of  taboo  ;  hence  some  Indians  of  North 
America  might  not  sit  on  the  bare  ground  the  whole  time  they  were 
out  on  a  warlike  expedition.  In  Laos  the  hunting  of  elephants  gives 
rise  to  many  taboos  ;  one  of  them  is  that  the  chief  hunter  may  not 
touch  the  earth  with  his  foot.  Accordingly,  when  he  alights  from  his 
elephant,  the  others  spread  a  carpet  of  leaves  for  him  to  step  upon. 

Apparently  holiness,  magical  virtue,  taboo,  or  whatever  we  may 
call  that  mysterious  quality  which  is  supposed  to  pervade  sacred  or 
tabooed  persons,  is  conceived  by  the  primitive  philosopher  as  a  physical 
substance  or  fluid,  with  which  the  sacred  man  is  charged  just  as  a 
Leyden  jar  is  charged  with  electricity  ;  and  exactly  as  the  electricity 
in  the  jar  can  be  discharged  by  contact  with  a  good  conductor,  so  the 
holiness  or  magical  virtue  in  the  man  can  be  dischaiged  and  diaine 


LX  NOT  TO  SEE  THE  SUN  595 

away  by  contact  with  the  earth,  which  on  this  theory  serves  as  an 
excellent  conductor  for  the  magical  fluid.  Hence  in  order  to  preserve 
the  charge  fiom  running  to  waste,  the  sacred  or  tabooed  personage 
must  be  carefully  prevented  from  touching  the  ground  ;  in  electrical 
language  he  must  be  insulated,  if  he  is  not  to  be  emptied  of  the  precious 
substance  or  fluid  with  which  he,  as  a  vial,  is  filled  to  the  brim.  And 
in  many  cases  apparently  the  insulation  of  the  tabooed  person  is 
recommended  as  a  precaution  not  merely  for  his  own  sake  but  for  the 
sake  of  others  ;  for  since  the  virtue  of  holiness  or  taboo  is,  so  to  say,  a 
powerful  explosive  which  the  smallest  touch  may  detonate,  it  is 
necessary  in  the  interest  of  the  general  safety  to  keep  it  within  narrow 
bounds,  lest  bieaking  out  it  should  blast,  blight,  and  destroy  whatever 
it  comes  into  contact  with. 

§  2.  Not  to  see  the  Sun. — The  second  rule  to  be  here  noted  is  that 
the  sun  may  not  shine  upon  the  divine  person.  This  rule  was  observed 
both  by  the  Mikado  and  by  the  pontiff  of  the  Zapotecs.  The  latter 
“  was  looked  upon  as  a  god  whom  the  earth  was  not  worthy  to  hold, 
nor  the  sun  to  shine  upon.”  The  Japanese  would  not  allow  that  the 
Mikado  should  expose  his  sacred  person  to  the  open  air,  and  the  sun 
was  not  thought  worthy  to  shine  on  his  head.  The  Indians  of  Granada, 
in  South  America,  kept  those  who  were  to  be  rulers  or  commanders, 
whether  men  or  women,  locked  up  for  several  years  when  they  were 
children,  some  of  them  seven  years,  and  this  so  close  that  they  were 
not  to  see  the  sun,  for  if  they  should  happen  to  see  it  they  forfeited 
their  lordship,  eating  certain  sorts  of  food  appointed  ;  and  those  who 
were  their  keepers  at  certain  times  went  into  their  retreat  or  prison 
and  scourged  them  severely.”  Thus,  for  example,  the  heir  to  the 
throne  of  Bogota,  who  was  not  the  son  but  the  sister’s  son  of  the  king, 
had  to  undergo  a  rigorous  training  from  his  infancy  :  he  lived  in 
complete  retirement  in  a  temple,  where  he  might  not  see  the  sun  nor 
eat  salt  nor  converse  with  a  woman  :  he  was  surrounded  by  guards 
who  observed  his  conduct  and  noted  all  his  actions  :  if  he  broke  a 
single  one  of  the  rules  laid  down  for  him,  he  was  deemed  infamous  and 
forfeited  all  his  rights  to  the  throne.  So,  too,  the  heir  to  the  kingdom 
of  Sogamoso,  before  succeeding  to  the  crown,  had  to  fast  for  seven 
years  in  the  temple,  being  shut  up  in  the  dark  and  not  allowed  to 
see  the  sun  or  light.  The  prince  who  was  to  become  Inca  of  Peru 
had  to  fast  for  a  month  without  seeing  light. 

§  3.  The  Seclusion  oj  Girls  at  Puberty. — Now  it  is  remarkable  that 
the  foregoing  two  rules — not  to  touch  the  ground  and  not  to  see  the 
sun — are  observed  either  separately  or  conjointly  by  girls  at  puberty 
in  many  parts  of  the  world.  Thus  amongst  the  negroes  of  Loango 
girls  at  puberty  are  confined  in  separate  huts,  and  they  may  not  touch 
the  ground  with  any  part  of  their  bare  body.  Among  the  Zulus  and 
kindred  tribes  of  South  Africa,  when  the  first  signs  of  puberty  show 
themselves  "  while  a  girl  is  walking,  gathering  wood,  or  working  in  the 
field,  she  runs  to  the  river  and  hides  herself  among  the  reeds  for  the 
day,  so  as  not  to  be  seen  by  men.  She  covers  her  head  carefully  with 


596  BETWEEN  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH  ch. 

her  blanket  that  the  sun  may  not  shine  on  it  and  shrivel  her  up  into  a 
withered  skeleton,  as  would  result  from  exposure  to  the  sun’s  beams. 
After  dark  she  returns  to  her  home  and  is  secluded  ”  in  a  hut  for  some 
time.  With  the  Awa-nkonde,  a  tribe  at  the  northern  end  of  Lake 
Nyassa,  it  is  a  rule  that  after  her  first  menstruation  a  girl  must  be  kept 
apart,  with  a  few  companions  of  her  own  sex,  in  a  darkened  house. 
The  floor  is  covered  with  dry  banana  leaves,  but  no  fire  may  be  lit  in 
the  house,  which  is  called  “  the  house  of  the  Awasungu,  that  is,  of 
maidens  who  have  no  hearts.” 

In  New  Ireland  girls  are  confined  for  four  or  five  years  in  small 
cages,  being  kept  in  the  dark  and  not  allowed  to  set  foot  on  the  ground. 
The  custom  has  been  thus  described  by  an  eye-witness.  _  “  I  heard 
from  a  teacher  about  some  strange  custom  connected  with  some  of 
the  young  girls  here,  so  I  asked  the  chief  to  take  me  to  the  house  where 
they  were.  The  house  was  about  twenty-five  feet  in  length,  and 
stood  in  a  reed  and  bamboo  enclosure,  across  the  entrance  to  which  a 
bundle  of  dried  grass  was  suspended  to  show  that  it  was  strictly  ‘  tabu. 
Inside  the  house  were  three  conical  structures  about  seven  or  eight 
feet  in  height,  and  about  ten  or  twelve  feet  in  circumference  at  the 
bottom,  and  for  about  four  feet  from  the  ground,  at  which  point  they 
tapered  off  to  a  point  at  the  top.  These  cages  were  made  of  the  broad 
leaves  of  the  pandanus-tree,  sewn  quite  close  together  so  that  no  light 
and  little  or  no  air  could  enter.  On  one  side  of  each  is  an  opening 
which  is  closed  by  a  double  door  of  plaited  cocoa-nut  tree  and  pandanus- 
tree  leaves.  About  three  feet  from  the  ground  there  is  a  stage  of  bam¬ 
boos  which  forms  the  floor.  In  each  of  these  cages  we  were  told  there 
was  a  young  woman  confined,  each  of  whom  had  to  remain  for  at  least 
four  or  five  years,  without  ever  being  allowed  to  go  outside  the  house. 
I  could  scarcely  credit  the  story  when  I  heard  it  ;  the  whole  thing 
seemed  too  horrible  to  be  true.  I  spoke  to  the  chief,  and  told  him 
that  I  wished  to  see  the  inside  of  the  cages,  and  also  to  see  the  girls 
that  I  might  make  them  a  present  of  a  few  beads.  He  told  me  that  it 
was  ‘  tabu  /  forbidden  for  any  men  but  their  own  relations  to  look  at 
them  ;  but  I  suppose  the  promised  beads  acted  as  an  inducement, 
and  so  he  sent  away  for  some  old  lady  who  had  charge,  and  who  alone 
is  allowed  to  open  the  doors.  While  we  were  waiting  we  could  hear 
the  girls  talking  to  the  chief  in  a  querulous  way  as  if  objecting  to  some¬ 
thing  or  expressing  their  fears.  The  old  woman  came  at  length  and 
certainly  she  did  not  seem  a  very  pleasant  jailor  or  guardian  ;  nor  did 
she  seem  to  favour  the  request  of  the  chief  to  allow  us  to  see  the  girls,  as 
she  regarded  us  with  anything  but  pleasant  looks.  However,  she  had 
to  undo  the  door  when  the  chief  told  her  to  do  so,  and  then  the  girls 
peeped  out  at  us,  and,  when  told  to  do  so,  they  held  out  their  hands 
for  the  beads.  I,  however,  purposely  sat  at  some  distance  away 
and  merely  held  out  the  beads  to  them,  as  I  wished  to  draw  them  quite 
outside,  that  I  might  inspect  the  inside  of  the  cages.  This  desire  of 
mine  gave  rise  to  another  difficulty,  as  these  girls  were  not  allowed  to 
put  their  feet  to  the  ground  all  the  time  they  were  confined  in  these 


lx  THE  SECLUSION  OF  GIRLS  AT  PUBERTY  597 

places.  However,  they  wished  to  get  the  beads,  and  so  the  old  lady 
had  to  go  outside  and  collect  a  lot  of  pieces  of  wood  and  bamboo,  which 
she  placed  on  the  ground,  and  then  going  to  one  of  the  girls,  she  helped 
her  down  and  held  her  hand  as  she  stepped  from  one  piece  of  wood  to 
another  until  she  came  near  enough  to  get  the  beads  I  held  out  to  her. 
I  then  went  to  inspect  the  inside  of  the  cage  out  of  which  she  had  come, 
but  could  scarcely  put  my  head  inside  of  it,  the  atmosphere  was  so  hot 
and  stifling.  It  was  clean  and  contained  nothing  but  a  few  short 
lengths  of  bamboo  for  holding  water.  There  was  only  room  for  the 
girl  to  sit  or  lie  down  in  a  crouched  position  on  the  bamboo  platform, 
and  when  the  doors  are  shut  it  must  be  nearly  or  quite  dark  inside.  The 
girls  are  never  allowed  to  come  out  except  once  a  day  to  bathe  in  a 
dish  or  wooden  bowl  placed  close  to  each  cage.  They  say  that  they 
perspire  profusely.  They  are  placed  in  these  stifling  cages  when 
quite  young,  and  must  remain  there  until  they  are  young  women,  when 
they  are  taken  out  and  have  each  a  great  marriage  feast  provided  for 
them.  One  of  them  was  about  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  old,  and  the 
chief  told  us  that  she  had  been  there  for  five  years,  but  would  soon  be 
taken  out  now.  The  other  two  were  about  eight  and  ten  years  old,  and 
they  have  to  stay  there  for  several  years  longer.” 

In  Ivabadi,  a  district  of  British  New  Guinea,  “  daughters  of  chiefs, 
when  they  are  about  twelve  or  thirteen  years  of  age,  are  kept  indoors 
for  two  or  three  years,  never  being  allowed,  under  any  pretence,  to 
descend  from  the  house,  and  the  house  is  so  shaded  that  the  sun 
cannot  shine  on  them.”  Among  the  Yabim  and  Bukaua,  two  neigh¬ 
bouring  and  kindred  tribes  on  the  coast  of  Northern  New  Guinea,  a  girl 
at  puberty  is  secluded  for  some  five  or  six  weeks  in  an  inner  part  of  the 
house  ;  but  she  may  not  sit  on  the  floor,  lest  her  uncleanness  should 
cleave  to  it,  so  a  log  of  wood  is  placed  for  her  to  squat  on.  Moreover, 
she  may  not  touch  the  ground  with  her  feet ;  hence  if  she  is  obliged  to 
quit  the  house  for  a  short  time,  she  is  muffled  up  in  mats  and  walks 
on  two  halves  of  a  coco-nut  shell,  which  are  fastened  like  sandals  to  her 
feet  by  creeping  plants.  Among  the  Ot  Danoms  of  Borneo  girls  at 
the  age  of  eight  or  ten  years  are  shut  up  in  a  little  room  or  cell  of  the 
house,  and  cut  off  from  all  intercourse  with  the  world  for  a  long  time. 
The  cell,  like  the  rest  of  the  house,  is  raised  on  piles  above  the  ground, 
and  is  lit  by  a  single  small  window  opening  on  a  lonely  place,  so  that 
the  girl  is  in  almost  total  darkness.  She  may  not  leave  the  room  on 
any  pretext  whatever,  not  even  for  the  most  necessary  purposes.  None 
of  her  family  may  see  her  all  the  time  she  is  shut  up,  but  a  single  slave 
woman  is  appointed  to  wait  on  her.  During  her  lonely  confinement, 
which  often  lasts  seven  years,  the  girl  occupies  herself  in  weaving  mats 
or  with  other  handiwork.  Her  bodily  growth  is  stunted  by  the  long 
want  of  exercise,  and  when,  on  attaining  womanhood,  she  is  brought 
out,  her  complexion  is  pale  and  wax-like.  She  is  now  shown  the  sun, 
the  earth,  the  water,  the  trees,  and  the  flowers,  as  if  she  were  newly 
born.  Then  a  great  feast  is  made,  a  slave  is  killed,  and  the  girl  is 
smeared  with  his  blood.  In  Ceram  girls  at  puberty  were  formerly 


BETWEEN  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH 


CH. 


598 


shut  up  by  themselves  in  a  hut  which  was  kept  dark.  In  Yap,  one  of 
the  Caroline  Islands,  should  a  girl  be  overtaken  by  her  first  menstrua¬ 
tion  on  the  public  road,  she  may  not  sit  down  on  the  earth,  but  must 
beg  for  a  coco-nut  shell  to  put  under  her.  She  is  shut  up  for  several 
days  in  a  small  hut  at  a  distance  from  her  parents'  house,  and  after¬ 
wards  she  is  bound  to  sleep  for  a  hundred  days  in  one  of  the  special 
houses  which  are  provided  for  the  use  of  menstruous  women. 

In  the  island  of  Mabuiag,  Torres  Straits,  when  the  signs  of  puberty 
appear  on  a  girl,  a  circle  of  bushes  is  made  in  a  dark  corner  of  the 
house.  Here,  decked  with  shoulder-belts,  armlets,  leglets  just  below 
the  knees,  and  anklets,  wearing  a  chaplet  on  her  head,  and  shell  orna¬ 
ments  in  her  ears,  on  her  chest,  and  on  her  back,  she  squats  in  the  midst 
of  the  bushes,  which  are  piled  so  high  round  about  her  that  only  her 
head  is  visible.  In  this  state  of  seclusion  she  must  remain  for  three 
months.  All  this  time  the  sun  may  not  shine  upon  her,  but  at  night 
she  is  allowed  to  slip  out  of  the  hut,  and  the  bushes  that  hedge  her  in 
are  then  changed.  She  may  not  feed  herself  or  handle  food,  but  is  fed 
by  one  or  two  old  women,  her  maternal  aunts,  who  are  especially 
appointed  to  look  after  her.  One  of  these  women  cooks  food  for  her 
at  a  special  fire  in  the  forest.  The  girl  is  forbidden  to  eat  turtle  or 
turtle  eggs  during  the  season  when  the  turtles  are  breeding  ;  but  no 
vegetable  food  is  refused  her.  No  man,  not  even  her  own  father, 
may  come  into  the  house  while  her  seclusion  lasts  ;  for  if  her  father 
saw  her  at  this  time  he  would  certainly  have  bad  luck  in  his  fishing, 
and  would  probably  smash  his  canoe  the  very  next  time  he  went  out 
in  it.  At  the  end  of  the  three  months  she  is  carried  down  to  a  fresh¬ 
water  creek  by  her  attendants,  hanging  on  to  their  shoulders  in  such 
a  way  that  her  feet  do  not  touch  the  ground,  while  the  women  of  the 
tribe  form  a  ring  round  her,  and  thus  escort  her  to  the  beach.  Arrived 
at  the  shore,  she  is  stripped  of  her  ornaments,  and  the  bearers  stagger 
with  her  into  the  creek,  where  they  immerse  her,  and  all  the  other 
women  join  in  splashing  water  over  both  the  girl  and  her  bearers. 
When  they  come  out  of  the  water  one  of  the  two  attendants  makes  a 
heap  of  grass  for  her  charge  to  squat  upon.  The  other  runs  to  the  reef, 
catches  a  small  crab,  tears  off  its  claws,  and  hastens  back  with  them 
to  the  creek.  Here  in  the  meantime  a  fire  has  been  kindled,  and  the 
claws  are  roasted  at  it.  The  girl  is  then  fed  by  her  attendants  with 
the  roasted  claws.  After  that  she  is  freshly  decorated,  and  the  whole 
party  marches  back  to  the  village  in  a  single  rank,  the  girl  walking  in 
the  centre  between  her  two  old  aunts,  who  hold  her  by  the  wrists.  The 
husbands  of  her  aunts  now  receive  her  and  lead  her  into  the  house  of 
one  of  them,  where  all  partake  of  food,  and  the  girl  is  allowed  once  more 
to  feed  herself  in  the  usual  manner.  A  dance  follows,  in  which  the 
girl  takes  a  prominent  part,  dancing  between  the  husbands  of  the  two 
aunts  who  had  charge  of  her  in  her  retirement. 

Among  the  Yaraikanna  tribe  of  Cape  York  Peninsula,  in  Northern 
Queensland,  a  girl  at  puberty  is  said  to  live  by  herself  for  a  month 
or  six  weeks  ;  no  man  may  see  her,  though  any  woman  may.  She 


LX 


THE  SECLUSION  OF  GIRLS  AT  PUBERTY 


599 


stays  in  a  hut  or  shelter  specially  made  for  her,  on  the  floor  of  which 
she  lies  supine.  She  may  not  see  the  sun,  and  towards  sunset  she 
miust  keep  her  eyes  shut  until  the  sun  has  gone  down,  otherwise  it 
is  thought  that  her  nose  will  be  diseased.  During  her  seclusion  she 
may  eat  nothing  that  lives  in  salt  water,  or  a  snake  would  kill  her. 
An  old  woman  waits  upon  her  and  supplies  her  with  roots,  yams, 
and  water.  Some  Australian  tribes  are  wont  to  bury  their  girls  at 
such  seasons  more  or  less  deeply  in  the  ground,  perhaps  in  order  to 
hide  them  from  the  light  of  the  sun. 

Among  the  Indians  of  California  a  girl  at  her  first  menstruation 
“  was  thought  to  be  possessed  of  a  particular  degree  of  supernatural 
power,  and  this  was  not  always  regarded  as  entirely  defiling  or  male¬ 
volent.  Often,  however,  there  was  a  strong  feeling  of  the  power  of 
evil  inherent  in  her  condition.  Not  only  was  she  secluded  from  her 
family  and  the  community,  but  an  attempt  was  made  to  seclude  the 
world  from  her.  One  of  the  injunctions  most  strongly  laid  upon  her 
was  not  to  look  about  her.  She  kept  her  head  bowed  and  was  for¬ 
bidden  to  see  the  world  and  the  sun.  Some  tribes  covered  her  with 
a  blanket.  Many  of  the  customs  in  this  connexion  resembled  those 
of  the  North  Pacific  Coast  most  strongly,  such  as  the  prohibition  to 
the  girl  to  touch  or  scratch  her  head  with  her  hand,  a  special  imple¬ 
ment  being  furnished  her  for  the  purpose.  Sometimes  she  could  eat 
only  when  fed  and  in  other  cases  fasted  altogether. 

Among  the  Chinook  Indians  who  inhabited  the  coast  of  Washington 
State,  when  a  chief’s  daughter  attained  to  puberty,  she  was  hidden  for 
five  days  from  the  view  of  the  people  ,*  she  might  not  look  at  them  nor 
at  the  sky,  nor  might  she  pick  berries.  It  was  believed  that  if  she  were 
to  look  at  the  sky,  the  weather  would  be  bad  ;  that  if  she  picked  berries, 
it  would  rain  ;  and  that  when  she  hung  her  towel  of  cedar-bark  on  a 
spruce-tree,  the  tree  withered  up  at  once.  She  went  out  of  the  house  by 
a  separate  door  and  bathed  in  a  creek  far  from  the  village.  She  fasted 
for  some  days,  and  for  many  days  more  she  might  not  eat  fresh  food. 

Amongst  the  Aht  or  Nootka  Indians  of  Vancouver  Island,  when 
girls  reach  puberty  they  are  placed  in  a  sort  of  gallery  in  the  house 
“  and  are  there  surrounded  completely  with  mats,  so  that  neither  the 
sun  nor  any  fire  can  be  seen.  In  this  cage  they  remain  for  several 
days.  Water  is  given  them,  but  no  food.  The  longer  a  girl  remains 
in  this  retirement  the  greater  honour  is  it  to  the  parents  ,  but  she  is 
disgraced  for  life  if  it  is  known  that  she  has  seen  fire  or  the  sun  during 
this  initiatory  ordeal.”  Pictures  of  the  mythical  thunder-bird  are 
painted  on  the  screens  behind  which  she  hides.  During  hei  seclusion 
she  may  neither  move  nor  lie  down,  but  must  always  sit  in  a  squatting 
posture.  She  may  not  touch  her  hair  with  her  hands,  but  is  allowed 
to  scratch  her  head  with  a  comb  or  a  piece  of  bone  provided  foi  the 
purpose.  To  scratch  her  body  is  also  forbidden,  as  it  is  believed  that 
every  scratch  would  leave  a  scar.  For  eight  months  aftei  reaching 
maturity  she  may  not  eat  any  fresh  food,  particularly  salmon  ,  moie- 
over,  she  must  eat  by  herself,  and  use  a  cup  and  dish  of  hei  own. 


600  BETWEEN  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH  ch. 

In  the  Tsetsaut  tribe  of  British  Columbia  a  girl  at  puberty  wears 
a  large  hat  of  skin  which  comes  down  over  her  face  and  screens  it 
from  the  sun.  It  is  believed  that  if  she  were  to  expose  her  face  to 
the  sun  or  to  the  sky,  rain  would  fall.  The  hat  protects  her  face  also 
against  the  fire,  which  ought  not  to  strike  her  skin  ;  to  shield  her 
hands  she  wears  mittens.  In  her  mouth  she  carries  the  tooth  of  an 
animal  to  prevent  her  own  teeth  from  becoming  hollow.  For  a  whole 
year  she  may  not  see  blood  unless  her  face  is  blackened  ;  otherwise 
she  would  grow  blind.  For  two  years  she  wears  the  hat  and  lives 
in  a  hut  by  herself,  although  she  is  allowed  to  see  other  people.  At 
the  end  of  two  years  a  man  takes  the  hat  from  her  head  and  throws 
it  away.  In  the  Bilqula  or  Bella  Coola  tribe  of  British  Columbia, 
when  a  girl  attains  puberty  she  must  stay  in  the  shed  which  serves 
as  her  bedroom,  where  she  has  a  separate  fireplace.  She  is  not  allowed 
to  descend  to  the  main  part  of  the  house,  and  may  not  sit  by  the 
fire  of  the  family.  For  four  days  she  is  bound  to  remain  motionless 
in  a  sitting  posture.  She  fasts  during  the  day,  but  is  allowed  a  little 
food  and  drink  very  early  in  the  morning.  After  the  four  days’ 
seclusion  she  may  leave  her  room,  but  only  through  a  separate  opening 
cut  in  the  floor,  for  the  houses  are  raised  on  piles.  She  may  not 
yet  come  into  the  chief  room.  In  leaving  the  house  she  wears  a  large 
hat  which  protects  her  face  against  the  rays  of  the  sun.  It  is  believed 
that  if  the  sun  were  to  shine  on  her  face  her  eyes  would  suffer.  She 
may  pick  berries  on  the  hills,  but  may  not  come  near  the  river  or 
sea  for  a  whole  year.  Were  she  to  eat  fresh  salmon  she  would  lose 
her  senses,  or  her  mouth  would  be  changed  into  a  long  beak. 

Amongst  the  Tlingit  (Thlinkeet)  or  Kolosh  Indians  of  Alaska, 
when  a  girl  showed  signs  of  womanhood  she  used  to  be  confined  to 
a  little  hut  or  cage,  which  was  completely  blocked  up  with  the  exception 
of  a  small  air-hole.  In  this  dark  and  filthy  abode  she  had  to  remain 
a  year,  without  fire,  exercise,  or  associates.  Only  her  mother  and  a 
female  slave  might  supply  her  with  nourishment.  Her  food  was  put 
in  at  the  little  window  ;  she  had  to  drink  out  of  the  wing-bone  of  a 
white-headed  eagle.  The  time  of  her  seclusion  was  afterwards  reduced 
in  some  places  to  six  or  three  months  or  even  less.  She  had  to  wear 
a  sort  of  hat  with  long  flaps,  that  her  gaze  might  not  pollute  the  sky  ; 
for  she  was  thought  unfit  for  the  sun  to  shine  upon,  and  it  was  imagined 
that  her  look  would  destroy  the  luck  of  a  hunter,  fisher,  or  gambler, 
turn  things  to  stone,  and  do  other  mischief.  At  the  end  of  her  con¬ 
finement  her  old  clothes  were  burnt,  new  ones  were  made,  and  a  feast 
was  given,  at  which  a  slit  was  cut  in  her  under  lip  parallel  to  the 
mouth,  and  a  piece  of  wood  or  shell  was  inserted  to  keep  the  aperture 
open.  Among  the  Koniags,  an  Esquimau  people  of  Alaska,  a  girl  at 
puberty  was  placed  in  a  small  hut  in  which  she  had  to  remain  on  her 
hands  and  feet  for  six  months  ;  then  the  hut  was  enlarged  a  little  so 
as  to  allow  her  to  straighten  her  back,  but  in  this  posture  she  had  to 
remain  for  six  months  more.  All  this  time  she  was  regarded  as  an 
unclean  being  with  whom  no  one  might  hold  intercourse. 


lx  THE  SECLUSION  OF  GIRLS  AT  PUBERTY  601 

When  symptoms  of  puberty  appeared  on  a  girl  for  the  first  time, 
the  Guaranis  of  Southern  Brazil,  on  the  borders  of  Paraguay,  used 
to  sew  her  up  in  her  hammock,  leaving  only  a  small  opening  in  it 
to  allow  her  to  breathe.  In  this  condition,  wrapt  up  and  shrouded 
like  a  corpse,  she  was  kept  for  two  or  three  days  or  so  long  as  the 
symptoms  lasted,  and  during  this  time  she  had  to  observe  a  most 
rigorous  fast.  After  that  she  was  entrusted  to  a  matron,  who  cut 
the  girl  s  hair  and  enjoined  her  to  abstain  most  strictly  from  eating 
flesh  of  any  kind  until  her  hair  should  be  grown  long  enough  to  hide 
her  ears.  In  similar  circumstances  the  Chiriguanos  of  South-eastern 
Bolivia  hoisted  the  girl  in  her  hammock  to  the  roof,  where  she  stayed 
for  a  month  :  the  second  month  the  hammock  was  let  half-way  down 
from  the  roof  ;  and  in  the  third  month  old  women,  armed  with  sticks, 
entered  the  hut  and  ran  about  striking  everything  they  met,  saying 
they  were  hunting  the  snake  that  had  wounded  the  girl. 

Among  the  Matacos  or  Mataguayos,  an  Indian  tribe  of  the  Gran 
Chaco,  a  girl  at  puberty  has  to  remain  in  seclusion  for  some  time. 
She  lies  covered  up  with  branches  or  other  things  in  a  corner  of  the 
hut,  seeing  no  one  and  speaking  to  no  one,  and  during  this  time  she 
may  eat  neither  flesh  nor  fish.  Meantime  a  man  beats  a  drum  in 
front  of  the  house.  Among  the  Yuracares,  an  Indian  tribe  of  Eastern 
Bolivia,  when  a  girl  perceives  the  signs  of  puberty,  her  father  constructs 
a  little  hut  of  palm  leaves  near  the  house.  In  this  cabin  he  shuts  up 
his  daughter  so  that  she  cannot  see  the  light,  and  there  she  remains 
fasting  rigorously  for  four  days. 

Amongst  the  Macusis  of  British  Guiana,  when  a  girl  shows  the 
first  signs  of  puberty,  she  is  hung  in  a  hammock  at  the  highest  point 
of  the  hut.  For  the  first  few  days  she  may  not  leave  the  hammock 
by  day,  but  at  night  she  must  come  down,  light  a  fire,  and  spend  the 
night  beside  it,  else  she  would  break  out  in  sores  on  her  neck,  throat, 
and  other  parts  of  her  body.  So  long  as  the  symptoms  are  at  their 
height,  she  must  fast  rigorously.  When  they  have  abated,  she  may 
come  down  and  take  up  her  abode  in  a  little  compartment  that  is 
made  for  her  in  the  darkest  corner  of  the  hut.  In  the  morning  she 
may  cook  her  food,  but  it  must  be  at  a  separate  fire  and  in  a  vessel 
of  her  own.  After  about  ten  days  the  magician  comes  and  undoes 
the  spell  by  muttering  charms  and  breathing  on  her  and  on  the  more 
valuable  of  the  things  with  which  she  has  come  in  contact.  The  pots 
and  drinking-vessels  which  she  used  are  broken  and  the  fragments 
buried.  After  her  first  bath,  the  girl  must  submit  to  be  beaten  by 
her  mother  with  thin  rods  without  uttering  a  cry.  At  the  end  of  the 
second  period  she  is  again  beaten,  but  not  afterwards.  She  is  now 
“  clean/’  and  can  mix  again  with  people.  Other  Indians  of  Guiana, 
after  keeping  the  girl  in  her  hammock  at  the  top  of  the  hut  for  a  month, 
expose  her  to  certain  large  ants,  whose  bite  is  very  painful.  Some¬ 
times,  in  addition  to  being  stung  with  ants,  the  sufferer  has  to  fast 
day  and  night  so  long  as  she  remains  slung  up  on  high  in  her  hammock, 
so  that  when  she  comes  down  she  is  reduced  to  a  skeleton. 


602  -  BETWEEN  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH  ch. 

When  a  Hindoo  maiden  reaches  maturity  she  is  kept  in  a  dark 
room  for  four  days,  and  is  forbidden  to  see  the  sun.  She  is  regarded 
as  unclean  ;  no  one  may  touch  her.  Her  diet  is  restricted  to  boiled 
rice,  milk,  sugar,  curd,  and  tamarind  without  salt.  On  the  morning 
of  the  fifth  day  she  goes  to  a  neighbouring  tank,  accompanied  by 
five  women  whose  husbands  are  alive.  Smeared  with  turmeric  water, 
they  all  bathe  and  return  home,  throwing  away  the  mat  and  other 
things  that  were  in  the  room.  The  Rarhi  Brahmans  of  Bengal  compel 
a  girl  at  puberty  to  live  alone,  and  do  not  allow  her  to  see  the  face  of 
any  male.  For  three  days  she  remains  shut  up  in  a  dark  room,  and 
has  to  undergo  certain  penances.  Fish,  flesh,  and  sweetmeats  are  ,j 
forbidden  her  ;  she  must  live  upon  rice  and  ghee.  Among  the  Tiyans  , 
of  Malabar  a  girl  is  thought  to  be  polluted  for  four  days  from  the 
beginning  of  her  first  menstruation.  During  this  time  she  must 
keep  to  the  north  side  of  the  house,  where  she  sleeps  on  a  grass  mat  , 
of  a  particular  kind,  in  a  room  festooned  with  gai lands  of  young  ] 
coco-nut  leaves.  Another  girl  keeps  her  company  and  sleeps  with 
her,  but  she  may  not  touch  any  other  person,  tree  or  plant.  Further, 
she  may  not  see  the  sky,  and  woe  betide  her  if  she  catches  sight  of  a  j 
crow  or  a  cat  !  Her  diet  must  be  strictly  vegetarian,  without  salt, 
tamarinds,  or  chillies.  She  is  armed  against  evil  spirits  by  a  knife, 
which  is  placed  on  the  mat  or  carried  on  her  person. 

In  Cambodia  a  girl  at  puberty  is  put  to  bed  under  a  mosquito 
curtain,  where  she  should  stay  a  hundred  days.  Usually,  however, 
four,  five,  ten,  or  twenty  days  are  thought  enough  ;  and  even  this, 
in  a  hot  climate  and  under  the  close  meshes  of  the  curtain,  is  sufficiently 
trying.  According  to  another  account,  a  Cambodian  maiden  at 
puberty  is  said  to  “  enter  into  the  shade.  During  her  retirement, 
which,  according  to  the  rank  and  position  of  her  family,  may  last 
any  time  from  a  few  days  to  several  years,  she  has  to  observe  a  number 
of  rules,  such  as  not  to  be  seen  by  a  strange  man,  not  to  eat  flesh  or 
fish,  and  so  on.  She  goes  nowhere,  not  even  to  the  pagoda.  But 
this  state  of  seclusion  is  discontinued  during  eclipses  ;  at  such  times 
she  goes  forth  and  pays  her  devotions  to  the  monster  who  is  supposed 
to  cause  eclipses  by  catching  the  heavenly  bodies  between  his  teeth.  , 
This  permission  to  break  her  rule  of  retirement  and  appear  abroad  , 
during  an  eclipse  seems  to  show  how  literally  the  injunction  is  inter¬ 
preted  which  forbids  maidens  entering  on  womanhood  to  look  upon 

the  sun.  ‘  ..•,11 

A  superstition  so  widely  diffused  as  this  might  be  expected  to 

leave  traces  in  legends  and  folk-tales.  And  it  has  done  so.  The 
old  Greek  story  of  Danae,  who  was  confined  by  her  father  in  a  sub¬ 
terranean  chamber  or  a  brazen  tower,  but  impregnated  by  Zeus,  who 
reached  her  in  the  shape  of  a  shower  of  gold,  perhaps  belongs  to 
this  class  of  tales.  It  has  its  counterpart  in  the  legend  which  the 
Kirghiz  of  Siberia  tell  of  their  ancestry.  A  certain  Khan  had  a  fair 
daughter,  whom  he  kept  in  a  dark  iron  house,  that  no  man  might 
see  her.  ’  An  old  woman  tended  her  ;  and  when  the  girl  was  grown 


lx  REASONS  FOR  THE  SECLUSION  OF  GIRLS  603 

to  maidenhood  she  asked  the  old  woman,  “  Where  do  you  go  so  often  ?  ” 
“  My  child,”  said  the  old  dame,  “  there  is  a  bright  world.  In  that 
bright  world  your  father  and  mother  live,  and  all  sorts  of  people 
live  there.  That  is  where  I  go.”  The  maiden  said,  “  Good  mother, 
I  will  tell  nobody,  but  show  me  that  bright  world.”  So  the  old  woman 
took  the  girl  out  of  the  iron  house.  But  when  she  saw  the  bright 
world,  the  girl  tottered  and  fainted  ;  and  the  eye  of  God  fell  upon 
her,  and  she  conceived.  Her  angry  father  put  her  in  a  golden  chest 
and  sent  her  floating  away  (fairy  gold  can  float  in  fairyland)  over  the 
wide  sea.  The  shower  of  gold  in  the  Greek  story,  and  the  eye  of  God 
in  the  Kirghiz  legend,  probably  stand  for  sunlight  and  the  sun.  The 
idea  that  women  may  be  impregnated  by  the  sun  is  not  uncommon 
in  legends,  and  there  are  even  traces  of  it  in  marriage  customs. 

§  4.  Reasons  for  the  Seclusion  of  Girls  at  Puberty. — The  motive 
for  the  restraints  so  commonly  imposed  on  girls  at  puberty  is  the 
deeply  engrained  dread  which  primitive  man  universally  entertains 
of  menstruous  blood.  He  fears  it  at  all  times  but  especially  on  its 
first  appearance  ;  hence  the  restrictions  under  which  women  lie  at 
their  first  menstruation  are  usually  more  stringent  than  those  which 
they  have  to  observe  at  any  subsequent  recurrence  of  the  mysterious 
flow.  Some  evidence  of  the  fear  and  of  the  customs  based  on  it  has 
been  cited  in  an  earlier  part  of  this  work  ;  but  as  the  terror,  for  it  is 
nothing  less,  which  the  phenomenon  periodically  strikes  into  the 
mind  of  the  savage  has  deeply  influenced  his  life  and  institutions,  it 
may  be  well  to  illustrate  the  subject  with  some  further  examples. 

Thus  in  the  Encounter  Bay  tribe  of  South  Australia  there  is,  or 
used  to  be,  a  “  superstition  which  obliges  a  woman  to  separate 
herself  from  the  camp  at  the  time  of  her  monthly  illness,  when,  if  a 
young  man  or  boy  should  approach,  she  calls  out,  and  he  immediately 
makes  a  circuit  to  avoid  her.  If  she  is  neglectful  upon  this  point, 
she  exposes  herself  to  scolding,  and  sometimes  to  severe  beating  by 
her  husband  or  nearest  relation,  because  the  boys  are  told  from  their 
infancy  that  if  they  see  the  blood  they  will  early  become  grey-headed, 
and  their  strength  will  fail  prematurely.”  The  Dieri  of  Central 
Australia  believe  that  if  women  at  these  times  were  to  eat  fish  or 
bathe  in  a  river  the  fish  would  all  die  and  the  water  would  dry  up. 
The  Arunta  of  the  same  region  forbid  menstruous  women  to  gather 
the  irriakura  bulbs,  which  form  a  staple  article  of  diet  for  both  men 
and  women.  They  think  that  were  a  woman  to  break  this  rule,  the 
supply  of  bulbs  would  fail. 

In  some  Australian  tribes  the  seclusion  of  menstruous  women 
was  even  more  rigid,  and  was  enforced  by  severer  penalties  than  a 
scolding  or  a  beating.  Thus  “  there  is  a  regulation  relating  to  camps 
in  the  Wakelbura  tribe  which  forbids  the  women  coming  into  the 
encampment  by  the  same  path  as  the  men.  Any  violation  of  this 
rule  would  in  a  large  camp  be  punished  with  death.  The  reason 
for  this  is  the  dread  with  which  they  regard  the  menstrual  period  of 
women.  During  such  a  time,  a  woman  is  kept  entirely  away  from 


BETWEEN  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH 


CH. 


604 


the  camp,  half  a  mile  at  least.  A  woman  in  such  a  condition  has 
boughs  of  some  tree  of  her  totem  tied  round  her  loins,  and  is  constantly 
watched  and  guarded,  for  it  is  thought  that  should  any  male  be  so 
unfortunate  as  to  see  a  woman  in  such  a  condition,  he  would  die. 

If  such  a  woman  were  to  let  herself  be  seen  by  a  man,  she  would 
probably  be  put  to  death.  When  the  woman  has  recovered,  she  is 
painted  red  and  white,  her  head  covered  with  feathers,  and  returns 
to  the  camp.” 

In  Muralug,  one  of  the  Torres  Straits  Islands,  a  menstruous 
woman  may  not  eat  anything  that  lives  in  the  sea,  else  the  natives 
believe  that  the  fisheries  would  fail.  In  Galela,  to  the  west  of  New 
Guinea,  women  at  their  monthly  periods  may  not  enter  a  tobacco- 
field,  or  the  plants  would  be  attacked  by  disease.  The  Minangka- 
bauers  of  Sumatra  are  persuaded  that  if  a  woman  in  her  unclean  state 
were  to  go  near  a  rice-field  the  crop  would  be  spoiled. 

The  Bushmen  of  South  Africa  think  that,  by  a  glance  of  a  girl's 
eye  at  the  time  when  she  ought  to  be  kept  in  strict  retirement,  men 
become  fixed  in  whatever  position  they  happen  to  occupy,  with 
whatever  they  were  holding  in  their  hands,  and  are  changed  into 
trees  that  talk.  Cattle-rearing  tribes  of  South  Africa  hold  that  their  ;i 
cattle  would  die  if  the  milk  were  drunk  by  a  menstruous  woman  ; 
and  they  fear  the  same  disaster  if  a  drop  of  her  blood  were  to  fall 
on  the  ground  and  the  oxen  were  to  pass  over  it.  To  prevent  such 
a  calamity  women  in  general,  not  menstruous  women  only,  are  forbidden  1 
to  enter  the  cattle  enclosure  ;  and  more  than  that,  they  may  not  use 
the  ordinary  paths  in  entering  the  village  or  in  passing  from  one  hut 
to  another.  They  are  obliged  to  make  circuitous  tracks  at  the  back 
of  the  huts  in  order  to  avoid  the  ground  in  the  middle  of  the  village 
where  the  cattle  stand  or  lie  down.  These  women's  tracks  may  be 
seen  at  every  Caffre  village.  Among  the  Baganda,  in  like  manner, 
no  menstruous  woman  might  drink  milk  or  come  into  contact  with 
any  milk-vessel ;  and  she  might  not  touch  anything  that  belonged 
to  her  husband,  nor  sit  on  his  mat,  nor  cook  his  food.  If  she  touched 
anything  of  his  at  such  a  time  it  was  deemed  equivalent  to  wishing 
him  dead  or  to  actually  working  magic  for  his  destruction.  Were 
she  to  handle  any  article  of  his,  he  would  surely  fall  ill ;  were  she  to 
touch  his  weapons,  he  would  certainly  be  killed  in  the  next  battle. 
Further,  the  Baganda  would  not  suffer  a  menstruous  woman  to  visit 
a  well  ;  if  she  did  so,  they  feared  that  the  water  wrould  dry  up,  and 
that  she  herself  would  fall  sick  and  die,  unless  she  confessed  her  fault 
and  the  medicine-man  made  atonement  for  her.  Among  the  Akikuyu 
of  British  East  Africa,  if  a  new  hut  is  built  in  a  village  and  the  wife 
chances  to  menstruate  in  it  on  the  day  she  lights  the  first  fire  there,  1 
the  hut  must  be  broken  down  and  demolished  the  very  next  day. 
The  woman  may  on  no  account  sleep  a  second  night  in  it ;  there  is  a 
curse  both  on  her  and  on  it. 

According  to  the  Talmud,  if  a  woman  at  the  beginning  of  her 
period  passes  between  two  men,  she  thereby  kills  one  of  them.  Peasants 


lx  REASONS  FOR  THE  SECLUSION  OF  GIRLS  605 

of  the  Lebanon  think  that  menstruous  women  are  the  cause  of  many 
misfortunes  ;  their  shadow  causes  flowers  to  wither  and  trees  to 
perish,  it  even  arrests  the  movements  of  serpents  ;  if  one  of  them 
mounts  a  horse,  the  animal  might  die  or  at  least  be  disabled  for  a 
long  time. 

The  Guayquiries  of  the  Orinoco  believe  that  when  a  woman  has  her 
courses,  everything  upon  which  she  steps  will  die,  and  that  if  a  man 
treads  on  the  place  where  she  has  passed,  his  legs  will  immediately 
swell  up.  Among  the  Bri-bri  Indians  of  Costa  Rica  a  married  woman 
at  her  periods  uses  for  plates  only  banana  leaves,  which,  when  she 
has  done  with  them,  she  throws  away  in  a  sequestered  spot  ;  for 
should  a  cow  find  and  eat  them,  the  animal  would  waste  away 
and  perish.  Also  she  drinks  only  out  of  a  special  vessel,  because  any 
person  who  should  afterwards  drink  out  of  the  same  vessel  would 
infallibly  pine  away  and  die. 

Among  most  tribes  of  North  American  Indians  the  custom  was 
that  women  in  their  courses  retired  from  the  camp  or  the  village 
and  lived  during  the  time  of  their  uncleanness  in  special  huts  or 
shelters  which  were  appropriated  to  their  use.  There  they  dwelt 
apart,  eating  and  sleeping  by  themselves,  warming  themselves  at 
their  own  fires,  and  strictly  abstaining  from  all  communications  with 
men,  who  shunned  them  just  as  if  they  were  stricken  with  the  plague. 

Thus,  to  take  examples,  the  Creek  and  kindred  Indians  of  the 
United  States  compelled  women  at  menstruation  to  live  in  separate 
huts  at  some  distance  from  the  village.  There  the  women  had  to 
stay,  at  the  risk  of  being  surprised  and  cut  off  by  enemies.  It  was 
thought  “  a  most  horrid  and  dangerous  pollution  ”  to  go  near  the 
women  at  such  times-;  and  the  danger  extended  to  enemies  who,  if 
they  slew  the  women,  had  to  cleanse  themselves  from  the  pollution 
by  means  of  certain  sacred  herbs  and  roots.  The  Stseelis  Indians  of 
British  Columbia  imagined  that  if  a  menstruous  woman  were  to  step 
over  a  bundle  of  arrows,  the  arrows  would  thereby  be  rendered  useless 
and  might  even  cause  the  death  of  their  owner ;  and  similarly  that 
if  she  passed  in  front  of  a  hunter  who  carried  a  gun,  the  weapon  would 
never  shoot  straight  again.  Among  the  Chippeways  and  other  Indians 
of  the  Hudson  Bay  Territory,  menstruous  women  are  excluded  from  the 
camp,  and  take  up  their  abode  in  huts  of  branches.  They  wear  long 
hoods,  which  effectually  conceal  the  head  and  breast.  They  may  not 
touch  the  household  furniture  nor  any  objects  used  by  men  ;  for  their 
touch  “  is  supposed  to  defile  them,  so  that  their  subsequent  use  would  be 
followed  by  certain  mischief  or  misfortune/' ’  such  as  disease  or  death. 
They  must  drink  out  of  a  swan’s  bone.  They  may  not  walk  on  the 
common  paths  nor  cross  the  tracks  of  animals.  They  “  are  never  per¬ 
mitted  to  walk  on  the  ice  of  rivers  or  lakes,  or  near  the  part  where  the 
men  are  hunting  beaver,  or  where  a  fishing-net  is  set,  for  fear  of  averting 
their  success.  They  are  also  prohibited  at  those  times  from  partaking 
of  the  head  of  any  animal,  and  even  from  walking  in  or  crossing  the 
track  where  the  head  of  a  deer,  moose,  beaver,  and  many  other  animals 


6o6 


BETWEEN  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH 


CH. 


have  lately  been  carried,  either  on  a  sledge  or  on  the  back.  To  be  guilty 
of  a  violation  of  this  custom  is  considered  as  of  the  greatest  importance  ; 
because  they  firmly  believe  that  it  would  be  a  means  of  preventing 
the  hunter  from  having  an  equal  success  in  his  future  excursions.” 
So  the  Lapps  forbid  women  at  menstruation  to  walk  on  that  part  of 
the  shore  where  the  fishers  are  in  the  habit  of  setting  out  their  fish  ; 
and  the  Esquimaux  of  Bering  Strait  believe  that  if  hunters  were  to 
come  near  women  in  their  courses  they  would  catch  no  game.  For  a 
like  reason  the  Carrier  Indians  will  not  suffer  a  menstruous  woman  to 
cross  the  tracks  of  animals  ;  if  need  be,  she  is  carried  over  them.  They 
think  that  if  she  waded  in  a  stream  or  a  lake,  the  fish  would  die. 

Amongst  the  civilised  nations  of  Europe  the  superstitions  which 
cluster  round  this  mysterious  aspect  of  woman’s  nature  are  not  less 
extravagant  than  those  which  prevail  among  savages.  In  the  oldest 
existing  cyclopaedia — the  Natural  History  of  Pliny — the  list  of  dangers 
apprehended  from  menstruation  is  longer  than  any  furnished  by 
mere  barbarians.  According  to  Pliny,  the  touch  of  a  menstruous 
woman  turned  wine  to  vinegar,  blighted  crops,  killed  seedlings, 
blasted  gardens,  brought  down  the  fruit  from  trees,  dimmed  mirrors,  1 
blunted  razors,  rusted  iron  and  brass  (especially  at  the  waning  of  the  1 
moon),  killed  bees,  or  at  least  drove  them  from  their  hives,  caused  s 
mares  to  miscarry,  and  so  forth.  Similarly,  in  various  parts  of  Europe, 
it  is  still  believed  that  if  a  woman  in  her  courses  enters  a  brewery  the  i 
beer  will  turn  sour  ;  if  she  touches  beer,  wine,  vinegar,  or  milk,  it  will 
go  bad  ;  if  she  makes  jam,  it  will  not  keep  ;  if  she  mounts  a  mare,  it 
will  miscarry  ;  if  she  touches  buds,  they  will  wither ;  if  she  climbs  : 
a  cherry  tree,  it  will  die.  In  Brunswick  people  think  that  if  a  men¬ 
struous  woman  assists  at  the  killing  of  a  pig  the  pork  will  putrefy. 
In  the  Greek  island  of  Calymnos  a  woman  at  such  times  may  not 
go  to  the  well  to  draw  water,  nor  cross  a  running  stream,  nor  enter 
the  sea.  Her  presence  in  a  boat  is  said  to  raise  storms. 

Thus  the  object  of  secluding  women  at  menstruation  is  to  neutralise 
the  dangerous  influences  which  are  supposed  to  emanate  from  them  at 
such  times.  That  the  danger  is  believed  to  be  especially  great  at  the 
first  menstruation  appears  from  the  unusual  precautions  taken  to 
isolate  girls  at  this  crisis.  Two  of  these  precautions  have  been  illus¬ 
trated  above,  namely,  the  rules  that  the  girl  may  not  touch  the  ground 
nor  see  the  sun.  The  general  effect  of  these  rules  is  to  keep 
her  suspended,  so  to  say,  between  heaven  and  earth.  Whether 
enveloped  in  her  hammock  and  slung  up  to  the  roof,  as  in  South 
America,  or  raised  above  the  ground  in  a  dark  and  narrow  cage,  as  in 
New  Ireland,  she  may  be  considered  to  be  out  of  the  way  of  doing  mis¬ 
chief,  since,  being  shut  off  both  from  the  earth  and  from  the  sun, 
she  can  poison  neither  of  these  great  sources  of  life  by  her  deadly 
contagion.  In  short,  she  is  rendered  harmless  by  being,  in  electrical 
language,  insulated.  But  the  precautions  thus  taken  to  isolate  or 
insulate  the  girl  are  dictated  by  a  regard  for  her  own  safety  as  well  as 
for  the  safety  of  others.  For  it  is  thought  that  she  herself  would 


LXI 


THE  MYTH  OF  BALDER 


607 


suffer  if  she  were  to  neglect  the  prescribed  regimen.  Thus  Zulu  girls, 
as  we  have  seen,  believe  that  they  would  shrivel  to  skeletons  if  the  sun 
were  to  shine  on  them  at  puberty,  and  the  Macusis  imagine  that,  if 
a  young  woman  were  to  transgress  the  rules,  she  would  suffer  from  sores 
on  various  parts  of  her  body.  In  short,  the  girl  is  viewed  as  charged 
with  a  powerful  force  which,  if  not  kept  within  bounds,  may  prove 
destructive  both  to  herself  and  to  all  with  whom  she  comes  in  contact. 
To  repress  this  force  within  the  limits  necessary  for  the  safety  of  all 
concerned  is  the  object  of  the  taboos  in  question. 

The  same  explanation  applies  to  the  observance  of  the  same  rules 
by  divine  kings  and  priests.  The  uncleanness,  as  it  is  called,  of  girls 
at  puberty  and  the  sanctity  of  holy  men  do  not,  to  the  primitive 
mind,  differ  materially  from  each  other.  They  are  only  different 
manifestations  of  the  same  mysterious  energy  which,  like  energy  in 
general,  is  in  itself  neither  good  nor  bad,  but  becomes  beneficent  or 
maleficent  according  to  its  application.  Accordingly,  if,  like  girls  at 
puberty,  divine  personages  may  neither  touch  the  ground  nor  see  the 
sun,  the  reason  is,  on  the  one  hand,  a  fear  lest  their  divinity  might,  at 
contact  with  earth  or  heaven,  discharge  itself  with  fatal  violence  on 
either ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  an  apprehension  that  the  divine 
being,  thus  drained  of  his  ethereal  virtue,  might  thereby  be  incapaci¬ 
tated  for  the  future  performance  of  those  magical  functions,  upon  the 
proper  discharge  of  which  the  safety  of  the  people  and  even  of  the 
world  is  believed  to  hang.  Thus  the  rules  in  question  fall  under  the 
head  of  the  taboos  which  we  examined  in  an  earlier  part  of  this  book ; 
they  are  intended  to  preserve  the  life  of  the  divine  person  and  with  it 
the  life  of  his  subjects  and  worshippers.  Nowhere,  it  is  thought, 
can  his  precious  yet  dangerous  life  be  at  once  so  safe  and  so  harmless 
as  when  it  is  neither  in  heaven  nor  on  earth,  but,  as  far  as  possible, 
suspended  between  the  two. 


CHAPTER  LXI 

THE  MYTH  OF  BALDER 

A  deity  whose  life  might  in  a  sense  be  said  to  be  neither  in  heaven 
nor  on  earth  but  between  the  two  was  the  Norse  Balder,  the  good  and 
beautiful  god,  the  son  of  the  great  god  Odin,  and  himself  the  wisest, 
mildest,  best  beloved  of  all  the  immortals.  The  story  of  his  death, 
as  it  is  told  in  the  younger  or  prose  Edda,  runs  thus.  Once  on  a  time 
Balder  dreamed  heavy  dreams  which  seemed  to  forebode  his  death. 
Thereupon  the  gods  held  a  council  and  resolved  to  make  him  secure 
against  every  danger.  So  the  goddess  Frigg  took  an  oath  from  fire 
and  water,  iron  and  all  metals,  stones  and  earth,  from  trees,  sicknesses 
and  poisons,  and  from  all  four-footed  beasts,  birds,  and  creeping  things, 
that  they  would  not  hurt  Balder.  When  this  was  done  Balder  was 


6o8 


THE  MYTH  OF  BALDER 


CH. 


deemed  invulnerable  ;  so  the  gods  amused  themselves  by  setting  him 
in  their  midst,  while  some  shot  at  him,  others  hewed  at  him,  and  others 
threw  stones  at  him.  But  whatever  they  did,  nothing  could  hurt 
him  ;  and  at  this  they  were  all  glad.  Only  Loki,  the  mischief-maker, 
was  displeased,  and  he  went  in  the  guise  of  an  old  woman  to  Frigg, 
who  told  him  that  the  weapons  of  the  gods  could  not  wound  Balder, 
since  she  had  made  them  all  swear  not  to  hurt  him.  Then  Loki 
asked,  “  Have  all  things  sworn  to  spare  Balder  ?  ”  She  answered, 
“  East  of  W alhalla  grows  a  plant  called  mistletoe  ;  it  seemed  to  me 
too  young  to  swear.”  So  Loki  went  and  pulled  the  mistletoe  and  took 
it  to  the  assembly  of  the  gods.  There  he  found  the  blind  god  Hother 
standing  at  the  outside  of  the  circle.  Loki  asked  him,  “  Why  do  you 
not  shoot  at  Balder  ?  ”  Hother  answered,  “  Because  I  do  not  see 
where  he  stands  ;  besides  I  have  no  weapon.”  Then  said  Loki, 
“  Do  like  the  rest  and  show  Balder  honour,  as  they  all  do.  I  will 
show  you  where  he  stands,  and  do  you  shoot  at  him  with  this  twig.” 
Hother  took  the  mistletoe  and  threw  it  at  Balder,  as  Loki  directed 
him.  The  mistletoe  struck  Balder  and  pierced  him  through  and 
through,  and  he  fell  down  dead.  And  that  was  the  greatest  misfortune 
that  ever  befell  gods  and  men.  For  a  while  the  gods  stood  speechless, 
then  they  lifted  up  their  voices  and  wept  bitterly.  They  took  Balder’s 
body  and  brought  it  to  the  sea-shore.  There  stood  Balder’s  ship  ; 
it  was  called  Ringhorn,  and  was  the  hugest  of  all  ships.  The  gods 
wished  to  launch  the  ship  and  to  burn  Balder’s  body  on  it,  but  the  ship 
would  not  stir.  So  they  sent  for  a  giantess  called  Hyrrockin.  She 
came  riding  on  a  wolf  and  gave  the  ship  such  a  push  that  fire  flashed 
from  the  rollers  and  all  the  earth  shook.  Then  Balder’s  body  was  taken 
and  placed  on  the  funeral  pile  upon  his  ship.  When  his  wife  Nanna 
saw  that,  her  heart  burst  for  sorrow  and  she  died.  So  she  was  laid 
on  the  funeral  pile  with  her  husband,  and  fire  was  put  to  it.  Balder’s 
horse,  too,  with  all  its  trappings,  was  burned  on  the  pile. 

Whether  he  was  a  real  or  merely  a  mythical  personage,  Balder 
was  worshipped  in  Norway.  On  one  of  the  bays  of  the  beautiful 
Sogne  Fiord,  which  penetrates  far  into  the  depths  of  the  solemn 
Norwegian  mountains,  with  their  sombre  pine-forests  and  their  lofty 
cascades  dissolving  into  spray  before  they  reach  the  dark  water  of  the 
fiord  far  below,  Balder  had  a  great  sanctuary.  It  was  called  Balder’s 
Grove.  A  palisade  enclosed  the  hallowed  ground,  and  within  it  stood 
a  spacious  temple  with  the  images  of  many  gods,  but  none  of  them  was 
worshipped  with  such  devotion  as  Balder.  So  great  was  the  awe 
with  which  the  heathen  regarded  the  place  that  no  man  might  harm 
another  there,  nor  steal  his  cattle,  nor  defile  himself  with  women.  But 
women  cared  for  the  images  of  the  gods  in  the  temple  ;  they  warmed 
them  at  the  fire,  anointed  them  with  oil,  and  dried  them  with  cloths. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  an  historical  kernel  underlying  a 
mythical  husk  in  the  legend  of  Balder,  the  details  of  the  story  suggest 
that  it  belongs  to  that  class  of  myths  which  have  been  dramatised 
in  ritual,  or,  to  put  it  otherwise,  which  have  been  performed  as 


LXn  FIRE-FESTIVALS  IN  GENERAL  609 

SalthCelre"  for  tbe  sak«  of  producing  those  natural  effects 
wii  ch  they  describe  m  figurative  language.  A  myth  is  never  so 

graphic  and  precise  m  its  details  as  when  it  is,  so  to  speak,  the  book 

rite 16  Tha/tb  "w  ^  Sp,°ken  and  acted  by the  performers  of  the  sacred 

becomJ  nrohahl  °fSe  Y  °  BaWer  WaS  a  mVb  of  tMs  sort  will 
Wbw  P  obable .  *f  we  can  prove  that  ceremonies  resembling  the 

c  dents  m  the  tale  have  been  performed  by  Norsemen  and  other 
European  peoples.  Now  the  main  incidents^  theTale  are  two- 

of  tl’  the  pulbnf  of  the  mistletoe,  and  second,  the  death  and  burning 
of  the  god  and  both  of  them  may  perhaps  be  found  to  have  had  them 
counterparts  m  yearly  rites  observed,  whether  separately  or  conjointly 

andPdlsPcussedVtnThS  °f  Euf  pe‘  These  rites  wiU  be  described 
id  discussed  m  the  following  chapters.  We  shall  begin  with  the 

fa  SijSnlte  »r  "  "!e™  r“ms  *h«  "*'>«*« 


CHAPTER  LXI1 

THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  OF  EUROPE 

§  1.  The  Fire-festivals  in  general . — All  over  Europe  the  peasants  have 
been  accustomed  from  time  immemorial  to  kindle  bonfires  on  certain 
days  of  the  year,  and  to  dance  round  or  leap  over  them.  Customs  of 
this  kind  can  be  traced  back  on  historical  evidence  to  the  Middle  Ages 
and  their  analogy  to  similar  customs  observed  in  antiquity  goes  with 
strong  internal  evidence  to  prove  that  their  origin  must  be  sought  in 
a  period  long  prior  to  the  spread  of  Christianity.  Indeed  the  earliest 
proof  of  their  observance  in  Northern  Europe  is  furnished  by  the 
attempts  made  by  Christian  synods  in  the  eighth  century  to  put  them 
down  as  heathenish  rites.  Not  uncommonly  effigies  are  burned  in 
these  fires,  or  a  pretence  is  made  of  burning  a  living  person  in  them  * 
and  there  are  grounds  for  believing  that  anciently  human  beings  were 
actually  burned  on  these  occasions.  A  brief  view  of  the  customs  in 
question  will  bring  out  the  traces  of  human  sacrifice,  and  will  serve 
at  the  same  time  to  throw  light  on  their  meaning. 

The  seasons  of  the  year  when  these  bonfires  are  most  commonly 
lit  are  spring  and  midsummer  ;  but  in  some  places  they  are  kindled 
also  at  the  end  of  autumn  or  during  the  course  of  the  winter,  particularly 
on  Hallow  E  en  (the  thirty-first  of  October),  Christmas  Day,  and  the 

fi  °f  'pwelfth  Day-  sPace  forbids  me  to  describe  all  these  festivals 
at  length  ;  a  few  specimens  must  serve  to  illustrate  their  general 
character.  We  shall  begin  with  the  fire-festivals  of  spring,  which 

usually  fall  on  the  first  Sunday  of  Lent  (Quadragesima  or  Invocavit ) 
Easter  Eve,  and  May  Day. 

§  2-  The  Lenten  Fires.  The  custom  of  kindling  bonfires  on  the  first 
Sunday  in  Lent  has  prevailed  in  Belgium,  the  north  of  France,  and 
many  parts  of  Germany.  Thus  in  the  Belgian  Ardennes  for  a  week 


610  THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  OF  EUROPE  ch. 

or  a  fortnight  before  the  "  day  of  the  great  fire,”  as  it  is  called,  children  . 
go  about  from  farm  to  farm  collecting  fuel.  At  Grand  Halleux  any 
one  who  refuses  their  request  is  pursued  next  day  by  the  children, 
who  try  to  blacken  his  face  with  the  ashes  of  the  extinct  fire;  When 
the  day  has  come,  they  cut  down  bushes,  especially  juniper  and 
broom,  and  in  the  evening  great  bonfires  blaze  on  all  the  heights. 

It  is  a  common  saying  that  seven  bonfires  should  be  seen  if  the  village 
is  to  be  safe  from  conflagrations.  If  the  Meuse  happens  to  be  frozen 
hard  at  the  time,  bonfires  are  lit  also  on  the  ice.  At  Grand  Halleux 
they  set  up  a  pole  called  makral ,  or  “  the  witch,”  in  the  midst  of  the 
pile,  and  the  fire  is  kindled  by  the  man  who  was  last  married  in  the 
village.  In  the  neighbourhood  of  Morlanwelz  a  straw  man  is  burnt 
in  the  fire.  Young  people  and  children  dance  and  sing  round  the 
bonfires,  and  leap  over  the  embers  to  secure  good  crops  or  a  happy 
marriage  within  the  year,  or  as  a  means  of  guarding  themselves  against 
colic.  In  Brabant  on  the  same  Sunday,  down  to  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  women  and  men  disguised  in  female  attire 
used  to  go  with  burning  torches  to  the  fields,  where  they  danced 
and  sang  comic  songs  for  the  purpose,  as  they  alleged,  of  driving 
away  “  the  wicked  sower,”  who  is  mentioned  in  the  Gospel  for  the 
day.  At  Paturages,  in  the  province  of  Hainaut,  down  to  about  1840 
the  custom  was  observed  under  the  name  of  Escouvion  or  Scouvion. 
Every  year  on  the  first  Sunday  of  Lent,  which  was  called  the  Day  of  the 
Little  Scouvion,  young  folks  and  children  used  to  run  with  lighted 
torches  through  the  gardens  and  orchards.  As  they  ran  they  cried 
at  the  pitch  of  their  voices  : 

“  Bear  apples,  bear  pears,  and  cherries  all  black 
To  Scouvion !  ” 

At  these  words  the  torch-bearer  whirled  his  blazing  brand  and  hurled 
it  among  the  branches  of  the  apple-trees,  the  pear-trees,  and  the 
cherry-trees.  The  next  Sunday  was  called  the  Day  of  the  Great 
Scouvion,  and  the  same  race  with  lighted  torches  among  the  trees  of 
the  orchards  was  repeated  in  the  afternoon  till  darkness  fell. 

In  the  French  department  of  the  Ardennes  the  whole  village  used 
to  dance  and  sing  round  the  bonfires  which  were  lighted  on  the  first. 
Sunday  in  Lent.  Here,  too,  it  was  the  person  last  married,  sometimes 
a  man  and  sometimes  a  woman,  who  put  the  match  to  the  fire.  The 
custom  is  still  kept  up  very  commonly  in  the  district.  Cats  used  to  be 
burnt  in  the  fire  or  roasted  to  death  by  being  held  over  it ;  and  while 
they  were  burning  the  shepherds  drove  their  flocks  through  the  smoke 
and  flames  as  a  sure  means  of  guarding  them  against  sickness  and 
witchcraft.  In  some  communes  it  was  believed  that  the  livelier  the 
dance  round  the  fire,  the  better  would  be  the  crops  that  year. 

In  the  French  province  of  Franche-Comte,  to  the  west  of  the  Jura 
Mountains,  the  first  Sunday  of  Lent  is  known  as  the  Sunday  of  the 
Firebrands  {Brandons),  on  account  of  the  fires  which  it  is  customary 
to  kindle  on  that  day.  On  the  Saturday  or  the  Sunday  the  village 


LXII 


THE  LENTEN  FIRES 


6n 


lads  harness  themselves  to  a  cart  and  drag  it  about  the  streets,  stopping 
at  the  cloois  of  the  houses  where  there  are  girls  and  begging  for  a  faggot. 
When  they  have  got  enough,  they  cart  the  fuel  to  a  spot  at  some  little 
distance  from  the  village,  pile  it  up,  and  set  it  on  fire.  All  the  people 
of  the  parish  come  out  to  see  the  bonfire.  In  some  villages,  when  the 
bells  have  xung  the  Angelus,  the  signal  for  the  observance  is  given  by 
cries  of,  "  To  the  fire  !  to  the  fire  !  ”  Lads,  lasses,  and  children  dance 
round  the  blaze,  and  when  the  flames  have  died  down  they  vie  with 
each  other  in  leaping  over  the  red  embers.  He  or  she  who  does  so 
without  singeing  his  or  her  garments  will  be  married  within  the  year. 
Young  folk  also  carry  lighted  torches  about  the  streets  or  the  fields* 
and  when  they  pass  an  orchard  they  cry  out,  “  More  fruit  than  leaves  !  ” 
Down  to  recent  years  at  Laviron,  in  the  department  of  Doubs,  it 
was  the  young  married  couples  of  the  year  who  had  charge  of  the 
bonfires.  In  the  midst  of  the  bonfire  a  pole  was  planted  with  a  wooden 
figure  of  a  cock  fastened  to  the  top.  Then  there  were  races,  and  the 
winner  received  the  cock  as  a  prize. 

In  Auvergne  fires  are  everywhere  kindled  on  the  evening  of  the 
first  Sunday  in  Lent.  Every  village,  every  hamlet,  even  every  ward, 
every  isolated  farm  has  its  bonfire  or  figo,  as  it  is  called,  which  blazes 
up  as  the  shades  of  night  are  falling.  The  fires  may  be  seen  flaring 
I  on  the  heights  and  in  the  plains  *  the  people  dance  and  sing  round  about 
them  and  leap  through  the  flames.  Then  they  proceed  to  the  ceremony 
of  the  Grannas-mias.  A  granno-mio  is  a  torch  of  straw  fastened  to  the 
top  of  a  pole.  When  the  pyre  is  half  consumed,  the  bystanders  kindle 
the  torches  at  the  expiring  flames  and  carry  them  into  the  neighbouring 
orchards,  fields,  and  gardens,  wherever  there  are  fruit-trees.  As 
they  march  they  sing  at  the  top  of  their  voices,  “  Granno  my  friend, 
Granno  my  father,  Granno  my  mother.”  Then  they  pass  the  burning 
torches  under  the  branches  of  every  tree,  singing : 

j 

“ Brando ,  brandounci  tsaque  brantso,  in  plan  panel!  ” 

that  is,  “  Firebrand  burn  ;  every  branch  a  basketful  !  ”  In  some 
villages  the  people  also  run  across  the  sown  fields  and  shake  the  ashes 
of  the  torches  on  the  ground  ;  also  they  put  some  of  the  ashes  in  the 
fowls’  nests,  in  order  that  the  hens  may  lay  plenty  of  eggs  throughout 
the  year.  When  all  these  ceremonies  have  been  performed,  everybody 
goes  home  and  feasts  ;  the  special  dishes  of  the  evening  are  fritters 
and  pancakes.  Here  the  application  of  the  fire  to  the  fruit-trees, 
to  the  sown  fields,  and  to  the  nests  of  the  poultry  is  clearly  a  charm 
intended  to  ensure  fertility  ;  and  the  Granno  to  whom  the  invocations 
are  addressed,  and  who  gives  his  name  to  the  torches,  may  possibly  be, 
as  Dr.  Pommerol  suggests,  no  other  than  the  ancient  Celtic  god  Gr annus i 
whom  the  Romans  identified  with  Apollo,  and  whose  worship  is  attested 
by  inscriptions  found  not  only  in  France  but  in  Scotland  and  on  the 
Danube. 

The  custom  of  carrying  lighted  torches  of  straw  (brandons)  about 
the  orchards  and  fields  to  fertilise  them  on  the  first  Sunday  of  Lent 


CH 


612  THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  OF  EUROPE 

seems  to  have  been  common  in  France,  whether  it  was  accompanied 
with  the  practice  of  kindling  bonfires  or  not.  Thus  in  the  piovince 
of  Picardy  “  on  the  first  Sunday  of  Lent  people  carried  torches  through 
the  fields,  exorcising  the  field-mice,  the  darnel,  and  the  smut.  They 
imagined  that  they  did  much  good  to  the  gardens  and  caused  the 
onions  to  grow  large.  Children  ran  about  the  fields,  torch  in  hand, 
to  make  the  land  more  fertile/’  At  Verges,  a  village  between  the 
Jura  and  the  Combe  d’Ain,  the  torches  at  this  season  were  kindled 
on  the  top  of  a  mountain,  and  the  bearers  went  to  every  house  in  the 
village,  demanding  roasted  peas  and  obliging  all  couples  who  had  been 
married  within  the  year  to  dance.  In  Berry,  a  district  of  Central  France, 
it  appears  that  bonfires  are  not  lighted  on  this  day,  but  when  the  sun 
has  set  the  whole  population  of  the  villages,  armed  with  blazing  torches 
of  straw,  disperse  over  the  country  and  scour  the  fields,  the  vineyards, 
and  the  orchards.  Seen  from  afar,  the  multitude  of  moving  lights, 
twinkling  in  the  darkness,  appear  like  will-o’-the-wisps  chasing  each 
other  across  the  plains,  along  the  hillsides,  and  down  the  valleys.  While 
the  men  wave  their  flambeaus  about  the  branches  of  the  fruit-trees, 
the  women  and  children  tie  bands  of  wheaten-straw  round  the  tiee- 
trunks.  The  effect  of  the  ceremony  is  supposed  to  be  to  avert  the 
various  plagues  from  which  the  fruits  of  the  earth  are  apt  to  suffer  ; 
and  the  bands  of  straw  fastened  round  the  stems  of  the  trees  are  believed 
to  render  them  fruitful. 

In  Germany,  Austria,  and  Switzerland  at  the  same  season  similar 
customs  have  prevailed.  Thus  in  the  Eifel  Mountains,  Rhenish 
Prussia,  on  the  first  Sunday  in  Lent  young  people  used  to  collect 
straw  and  brushwood  from  house  to  house.  These  they  carried  to 
an  eminence  and  piled  up  round  a  tall,  slim  beech-tree,  to  which  a 
piece  of  wood  was  fastened  at  right  angles  to  form  a  cross.  The 
structure  was  known  as  the  "  hut  ”  or  “  castle.” _  Fire  was  set  to  it 
and  the  young  people  marched  round  the  blazing  castle  bare¬ 
headed,  each  carrying  a  lighted  torch  and  praying  aloud.  Sometimes 
a  straw-man  was  burned  in  the  “  hut.”  People  observed  the  direction 
in  which  the  smoke  blew  from  the  fire.  If  it  blew  towards  the  corn¬ 
fields,  it  was  a  sign  that  the  harvest  would  be  abundant.  On  the 
same  day,  in  some  parts  of  the  Eifel,  a  great  wheel  was  made  of  straw 
and  dragged  by  three  horses  to  the  top  of  a  hill.  Thither  the  village 
boys  marched  at  nightfall,  set  fire  to  the  wheel,  and  sent  it  rolling 
down  the  slope.  At  Oberstattfeld  the  wheel  had  to  be  provided  by 
the  young  man  who  was  last  married.  About  Echternach  in  Luxem¬ 
burg  the  same  ceremony  is  called  "  burning  the  witch.”  At  Voralberg 
in  the  Tyrol,  on  the  first  Sunday  in  Lent,  a  slender  young  fir-tree  is 
surrounded  with  a  pile  of  straw  and  firewood.  To  the  top  of  the 
tree  is  fastened  a  human  figure  called  the  “  witch,”  made  of  old  clothes 
and  stuffed  with  gunpowder.  At  night  the  whole  is  set  on  fire  and  boys 
and  girls  dance  round  it,  swinging  torches  and  singing  rhymes  in  whicl 
the  words  “  corn  in  the  winno wing-basket,  the  plough  in  the  earth 
may  be  distinguished.  In  Swabia  on  the  first  Sunday  in  Lent  a  figure 


LXII 


THE  LENTEN  FIRES  613 

called  the  “  witch  ”  or  the  “  old  wife  ”  or  “  winter’s  grandmother  ” 
is  made  up  of  clothes  and  fastened  to  a  pole.  This  is  stuck  in  the 
middle  of  a  pile  of  wood,  to  which  fire  is  applied.  While  the  “  witch  ” 
is  burning,  the  young  people  throw  blazing  discs  into  the  air.  The 
discs  are  thin  round  pieces  of  wood,  a  few  inches  in  diameter,  with 
notched  edges  to  imitate  the  rays  of  the  *sun  or  stars.  They  have  a 
hole  in  the  middle,  by  which  they  are  attached  to  the  end  of  a  wand. 
Before  the  disc  is  thrown  it  is  set  on  fire,  the  wand  is  swung  to  and 
fro,  and  the  impetus  thus  communicated  to  the  disc  is  augmented 
by  dashing  the  rod  sharply  against  a  sloping  board.  The  burning 
disc  is  thus  thrown  off,  and  mounting  high  into  the  air,  describes  a 
long  fiery  curve  before  it  reaches  the  ground.  The  charred  embers 
of  the  burned  “  witch  ”  and  discs  are  taken  home  and  planted  in  the 
flax-fields  the  same  night,  in  the  belief  that  they  will  keep  vermin 
from  the  fields.  In  the  Rhon  Mountains,  situated  on  the  borders 
of  Hesse  and  Bavaria,  the  people  used  to  march  to  the  top  of  a  hill 
or  eminence  on  the  first  Sunday  in  Lent.  Children  and  lads  carried 
torches,  brooms  daubed  with  tar,  and  poles  swathed  in  straw.  A 
wheel,  wrapt  in  combustibles,  was  kindled  and  rolled  down  the  hill  ; 
and  the  young  people  rushed  about  the  fields  with  their  burning 
torches  and  brooms,  till  at  last  they  flung  them  in  a  heap,  and  standing 
round  them,  struck  up  a  hymn  or  a  popular  song.  The  object  of 
running  about  the  fields  with  the  blazing  torches  was  to  “  drive  away 
the  wicked  sower.”  Or  it  was  done  in  honour  of  the  Virgin,  that 
she  might  preserve  the  fruits  of  the  earth  throughout  the  year  and 
bless  them.  In  neighbouring  villages  of  Hesse,  between  the  Rhon 
and  the  Vogel  Mountains,  it  is  thought  that  wherever  the  burning 
wheels  roll,  the  fields  will  be  safe  from  hail  and  storm. 

In  Switzerland,  also,  it  is  or  used  to  be  customary  to  kindle  bonfires 
on  high  places  on  the  evening  of  the  first  Sunday  in  Lent,  and  the  day 
is  therefore  popularly  known  as  Spark  Sunday.  The  custom  prevailed, 
for  example,  throughout  the  canton  of  Lucerne.  Boys  went  about 
from  house  to  house  begging  for  wood  and  straw,  then  piled  the  fuel 
on  a  conspicuous  mountain  or  hill  round  about  a  pole,  which  bore  a 
straw  effigy  called  “  the  witch.”  At  nightfall  the  pile  was  set  on  fire, 
and  the  young  folks  danced  wildly  round  it,  some  of  them  cracking 
whips  or  ringing  bells  ;  and  when  the  fire  burned  low  enough,  they 
leaped  over  it.  This  was  called  “  burning  the  witch.”  In  some 
parts  of  the  canton  also  they  used  to  wrap  old  wheels  in  straw  and 
thorns,  put  a  light  to  them,  and  send  them  rolling  and  blazing  down 
hill.  The  more  bonfires  could  be  seen  sparkling  and  flaring  in  the 
darkness,  the  more  fruitful  was  the  year  expected  to  be  ;  and  the 
higher  the  dancers  leaped  beside  or  over  the  fire,  the  higher,  it  was 
thought,  would  grow  the  flax.  In  some  districts  it  was  the  last  married 
man  or  woman  who  must  kindle  the  bonfire. 

It  seems  hardly  possible  to  separate  from  these  bonfires,  kindled 
on  the  first  Sunday  in  Lent,  the  fires  in  which,  about  the  same  season, 
the  effigy  called  Heath  is  burned  as  part  of  the  ceremony  of  “  carrying 


614  THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  OF  EUROPE  ch. 

out  Death.”  We  have  seen  that  at  Spachendorf,  in  Austrian  Silesia, 
on  the  morning  of  Rupert’s  Day  (Shrove  Tuesday  ?),  a  straw-man, 
dressed  in  a  fur  coat  and  a  fur  cap,  is  laid  in  a  hole  outside  the  village 
and  there  burned,  and  that  while  it  is  blazing  every  one  seeks  to 
snatch  a  fragment  of  it,  which  he  fastens  to  a  branch  of  the  highest 
tree  in  his  garden  or  buries  in  his  field,  believing  that  this  will  make 
the  crops  to  grow  better.  The  ceremony  is  known  as  the  “  burying 
of  Death.”  Even  when  the  straw-man  is  not  designated  as  Death, 
the  meaning  of  the  observance  is  probably  the  same  ;  for  the  name 
Death,  as  I  have  tried  to  show,  does  not  express  the  original  intention 
of  the  ceremony.  At  Cobern  in  the  Eifel  Mountains  the  lads  make 
up  a  straw-man  on  Shrove  Tuesday.  The  effigy  is  formally  tried  and 
accused  of  having  perpetrated  all  the  thefts  that  have  been  com¬ 
mitted  in  the  neighbourhood  throughout  the  year.  Being  condemned 
to  death,  the  straw-man  is  led  through  the  village,  shot,  and  burned 
upon  a  pyre.  They  dance  round  the  blazing  pile,  and  the  last  bride 
must  leap  over  it.  In  Oldenburg  on  the  evening  of  Shrove  Tuesday 
people  used  to  make  long  bundles  of  straw,  which  they  set  on  fire, 
and  then  ran  about  the  fields  waving  them,  shrieking,  and  singing 
wild  songs.  Finally  they  burned  a  straw-man  on  the  field.  In  the 
district  of  Dusseldorf  the  straw-man  burned  on  Shrove  Tuesday  was 
made  of  an  unthreshed  sheaf  of  corn.  On  the  first  Monday  after 
the  spring  equinox  the  urchins  of  Zurich  drag  a  straw-man  on  a  little 
cart  through  the  streets,  while  at  the  same  time  the  girls  carry  about 
a  May-tree.  When  vespers  ring,  the  straw-man  is  burned.  In  the 
district  of  Aachen  on  Ash  Wednesday  a  man  used  to  be  encased  in 
peas-straw  and  taken  to  an  appointed  place.  -Here  he  slipped  quietly 
out  of  his  straw  casing,  which  was  then  burned,  the  children  thinking 
that  it  was  the  man  who  was  being  burned.  In  the  Val  di  Ledro 
(Tyrol)  on  the  last  day  of  the  Carnival  a  figure  is  made  up  of  straw 
and  brushwood  and  then  burned.  The  figure  is  called  the  Old  Woman, 
and  the  ceremony  “  burning  the  Old  Woman.” 

§  3.  The  Easter  Fires. — Another  occasion  on  which  these  fire- 
festivals  are  held  is  Easter  Eve,  the  Saturday  before  Easter  Sunday. 
On  that  day  it  has  been  customary  in  Catholic  countries  to  extinguish 
all  the  lights  in  the  churches,  and  then  to  make  a  new  fire,  sometimes 
with  flint  and  steel,  sometimes  with  a  burning-glass.  At  this  fire 
is  lit  the  great  Paschal  or  Easter  candle,  which  is  then  used  to  rekindle 
all  the  extinguished  lights  in  the  church.  In  many  parts  of  Germany 
a  bonfire  is  also  kindled,  by  means  of  the  new  fire,  on  some  open  space 
near  the  church.  It  is  consecrated,  and  the  people  bring  sticks  of 
oak,  walnut,  and  beech,  which  they  char  in  the  fire,  and  then  take 
home  with  them.  Some  of  these  charred  sticks  are  thereupon  burned 
at  home  in  a  newly-kindled  fire,  with  a  prayer  that  God  will  preserve 
the  homestead  from  fire,  lightning,  and  hail.  Thus  every  house 
receives  “  new  fire.”  Some  of  the  sticks  are  kept  throughout  the 
year  and  laid  on  the  hearth-fire  during  heavy  thunder-storms  to 
prevent  the  house  from  being  struck  by  lightning,  or  they  are  inserted 


LXII 


THE  EASTER  FIRES 


615 


in  the  roof  with  the  like  intention.  Others  are  placed  in  the  fields, 
gardens,  and  meadows,  witn  a  prayer  that  God  will  keep  them  from 
blight  and  hail.  Such  fields  and  gardens  are  thought  to  thrive  more 
than  others  ;  the  corn  and  the  plants  that  grow  in  them  are  not  beaten 
down  by  hail,  nor  devoured  by  mice,  vermin,  and  beetles  ;  no  witch 
harms  them,  and  the  ears  of  corn  stand  close  and  full.  The  charred 
sticks  are  also  applied  to  the  plough.  The  ashes  of  the  Easter  bonfire, 
together  with  the  ashes  of  the  consecrated  palm-branches,  are  mixed 
with  the  seed  at  sowing.  A  wooden  figure  called  Judas  is  sometimes 
burned  in  the  consecrated  bonfire,  and  even  where  this  custom  has 
been  abolished  the  bonfire  itself  in  some  places  goes  by  the  name  of 
“  the  burning  of  Judas.” 

The  essentially  pagan  character  of  the  Easter  fire  festival  appears 
plainly  both  from  the  mode  in  which  it  is  celebrated  by  the  peasants 
and  from  the  superstitious  beliefs  which  they  associate  with  it.  All 
over  Northern  and  Central  Germany,  from  Altmark  and  Anhalt  on 
the  east,  through  Brunswick,  Hanover,  Oldenburg,  the  Harz  district, 
and  Hesse  to  Westphalia  the  Easter  bonfires  still  blaze  simultaneously 
on  the  hill-tops.  As  many  as  forty  may  sometimes  be  counted  within 
sight  at  once.  Long  before  Easter  the  young  people  have  been  busy 
collecting  firewood  ;  every  farmer  contributes,  and  tar-barrels,  petro¬ 
leum  cases,  and  so  forth  go  to  swell  the  pile.  Neighbouring  villages 
vie  with  «ach  other  as  to  which  shall  send  up  the  greatest  blaze.  The 
fires  are  always  kindled,  year  after  year,  on  the  same  hill,  which 
accordingly  often  takes  the  name  of  Easter  Mountain.  It  is  a  fine 
spectacle  to  watch  from  some  eminence  the  bonfires  flaring  up  one 
after  another  on  the  neighbouring  heights.  As  far  as  their  light 
reaches,  so  far,  in  the  belief  of  the  peasants,  the  fields  will  be  fruitful, 
and  the  houses  on  which  they  shine  will  be  safe  from  conflagration 
or  sickness.  At  Volkmarsen  and  other  places  in  Hesse  the  people 
used  to  observe  which  way  the  wind  blew  the  flames,  and  then  they 
sowed  flax  seed  in  that  direction,  confident  that  it  would  grow  well. 
Brands  taken  from  the  bonfires  preserve  houses  from  being  struck 
by  lightning  ;  and  the  ashes  increase  the  fertility  of  the  fields,  protect 
them  from  mice,  and  mixed  with  the  drinking-water  of  cattle  make 
the  animals  thrive  and  ensure  them  against  plague.  As  the  flames 
die  down,  young  and  old  leap  over  them,  and  cattle  are  sometimes 
driven  through  the  smouldering  embers.  In  some  places  tar-barrels 
or  wheels  wrapt  in  straw  used  to  be  set  on  fire,  and  then  sent  rolling 
down  the  hillside.  In  others  the  boys  light  torches  and  wisps  of 
straw  at  the  bonfires  and  rush  about  brandishing  them  in  their  hands. 

In  Munsterland  these  Easter  fires  are  always  kindled  upon  certain 
definite  hills,  which  are  hence  known  as  Easter  or  Paschal  Mountains. 
The  whole  community  assembles  about  the  fire.  The  young  men  and 
maidens,  singing  Easter  hymns,  march  round  and  round  the  fire,  till 
the  blaze  dies  down.  Then  the  girls  jump  over  the  fire  in  a  line,  one 
after  the  other,  each  supported  by  two  young  men  who  hold  her  hands 
and  run  beside  her.  In  the  twilight  boys  with  blazing  bundles  of  straw 


6i6 


THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  OF  EUROPE 


CH. 


run  over  the  fields  to  make  them  fruitful.  At  Delmenhorst,  in  Olden¬ 
burg,  it  used  to  be  the  custom  to  cut  down  two  trees,  plant  them  in  the 
ground  side  by  side,  and  pile  twelve  tar-barrels  against  each.  Brush¬ 
wood  was  then  heaped  about  the  trees,  and  on  the  evening  of  Easter 
Saturday  the  boys,  after  rushing  about  with  blazing  bean-poles  in  their 
hands,  set  fire  to  the  whole.  At  the  end  of  the  ceremony  the  urchins 
tried  to  blacken  each  other  and  the  clothes  of  grown-up  people.  In 
the  Altmark  it  is  believed  that  as  far  as  the  blaze  of  the  Easter  bonfire 
is  visible,  the  corn  will  grow  well  throughout  the  year,  and  no  con¬ 
flagration  will  break  out.  At  Braunrode,  in  the  Harz  Mountains,  it 
was  the  custom  to  burn  squirrels  in  the  Easter  bonfire.  In  the  Alt- 
mark,  bones  were  burned  in  it. 

Near  Forchheim,  in  Upper  Franken,  a  straw-man  called  the  Judas 
used  to  be  burned  in  the  churchyards  on  Easter  Saturday.  The  whole 
village  contributed  wood  to  the  pyre  on  which  he  perished,  and  the 
charred  sticks  were  afterwards  kept  and  planted  in  the  fields  on 
Walpurgis  Day  (the  first  of  May)  to  preserve  the  wheat  from  blight  and 
mildew.  About  a  hundred  years  ago  or  more  the  custom  at  Althenne- 
berg,  in  Upper  Bavaria,  used  to  be  as  follows.  On  the  afternoon  of 
Easter  Saturday  the  lads  collected  wood,  which  they  piled  in  a  corn- 
held,  while  in  the  middle  of  the  pile  they  set  up  a  tall  wooden  cross  all 
swathed  in  straw.  After  the  evening  service  they  lighted  their  lanterns 
at  the  conse(  rated  candle  in  the  church,  and  ran  with  them  at  full 
speed  to  the  pyre,  each  striving  to  get  there  first.  The  first  to  arrive 
set  fire  to  the  heap.  No  woman  or  girl  might  come  near  the  bonfire, 
but  they  were  allowed  to  watch  it  from  a  distance.  As  the  flames 
rose  the  men  and  lads  rejoiced  and  made  merry,  shouting,  “We  are 
burning  the  Judas  !  ”  The  man  who  had  been  the  first  to  reach  the 
pyre  and  to  kindle  it  was  rewarded  on  Easter  Sunday  by  the  women, 
who  gave  him  coloured  eggs  at  the  church  door.  The  object  of  the 
whole  ceremony  was  to  keep  off  the  hail.  At  other  villages  of  Upper 
Bavaria  the  ceremony,  which  took  place  between  nine  and  ten  at  night 
on  Easter  Saturday,  was  called  "  burning  the  Easter  Man.”  On  a 
height  about  a  mile  from  the  village  the  young  fellows  set  up  a  tall 
cross  enveloped  in  straw,  so  that  it  looked  like  a  man  with  his  arms 
stretched  out.  This  was  the  Easter  Man.  No  lad  under  eighteen 
years  of  age  might  take  part  in  the  ceremony.  One  of  the  young  men 
stationed  himself  beside  the  Easter  Man,  holding  in  his  hand  a  con¬ 
secrated  taper  which  he  had  brought  from  the  church  and  lighted. 
The  rest  stood  at  equal  intervals  in  a  great  circle  round  the  cross. 
At  a  given  signal  they  raced  thrice  round  the  circle,  and  then  at  a 
second  signal  ran  straight  at  the  cross  and  at  the  lad  with  the  lighted 
taper  beside  it ;  the  one  who  reached  the  goal  first  had  the  right 
of  setting  fire  to  the  Easter  Man.  Great  was  the  jubilation  while  he 
was  burning.  When  he  had  been  consumed  in  the  flames,  three 
lads  were  chosen  from  among  the  rest,  and  each  of  the  three  drew  a 
circle  on  the  ground  with  a  stick  thrice  round  the  ashes.  Then  they 
all  left  the  spot.  On  Easter  Monday  the  villagers  gathered  the  ashes 


LXII 


THE  BELTANE  FIRES 


617 

and  strewed  them  on  their  fields  ;  also  they  planted  in  the  fields  palm- 
branches  which  had  been  consecrated  on  Palm  Sunday,  and  sticks 
which  had  been  charred  and  hallowed  on  Good  Friday,  all  for  the 
purpose  of  protecting  their  fields  against  showers  of  hail.  In  some 
parts  of  Swabia  the  Easter  fires  might  not  be  kindled  with  iron  or  steel 
or  flint,  but  only  by  the  friction  of  wood. 

The  custom  of  the  Easter  fires  appears  to  have  prevailed  all  over 
Central  and  Western  Germany  from  north  to  south.  We  find  it  also 
in  Holland,  where  the  fires  were  kindled  on  the  highest  eminences, 
and  the  people  danced  round  them  and  leaped  through  the  flames  or 
over  the  glowing  embers.  Here  too,  as  often  in  Germany,  the  materials 
for  the  bonfire  were  collected  by  the  young  folk  from  door  to  door. 
In  many  parts  of  Sweden  firearms  are  discharged  in  all  directions  on 
Easter  Eve,  and  huge  bonfires  are  lighted  on  hills  and  eminences. 
Some  people  think  that  the  intention  is  to  keep  off  the  Troll  and  other 
evil  spirits  who  are  especially  active  at  this  season. 

§  4.  The  Beltane  Fires. — In  the  Central  Highlands  of  Scotland 
bonfires,  known  as  the  Beltane  fires,  were  formerly  kindled  with  great 
ceremony  on  the  first  of  May,  and  the  traces  of  human  sacrifices  at  them 
were  particularly  clear  and  unequivocal.  The  custom  of  lighting  the 
bonfires  lasted  in  various  places  far  into  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
the  descriptions  of  the  ceremony  by  writers  of  that  period  present  such 
a  curious  and  interesting  picture  of  ancient  heathendom  surviving  in 
our  own  country  that  I  will  reproduce  them  in  the  words  of  their 
authors.  The  fullest  of  the  descriptions  is  the  one  bequeathed  to  us 
by  John  Ramsay,  laird  of  Ochtertyre,  near  Crieff,  the  patron  of  Burns 
and  the  friend  of  Sir  Walter  Scott.  He  says  :  “  But  the  most  con¬ 
siderable  of  the  Druidical  festivals  is  that  of  Beltane,  or  May-day, 
which  was  lately  observed  in  some  parts  of  the  Highlands  with 
extraordinary  ceremonies.  .  .  .  Like  the  other  public  worship  of  the 
Druids,  the  Beltane  feast  seems  to  have  been  performed  on  hills  or 
eminences.  They  thought  it  degrading  to  him  whose  temple  is  the 
universe,  to  suppose  that  he  would  dwell  in  any  house  made  with 
hands.  Their  sacrifices  were  therefore  offered  in  the  open  air,  fre¬ 
quently  upon  the  tops  of  hills,  where  they  were  presented  with  the 
grandest,  views  of  nature,  and  were  nearest  the  seat  of  warmth  and 
order.  And,  according  to  tradition,  such  was  the  manner  of  celebrating 
this  festival  in  the  Highlands  within  the  last  hundred  years.  But 
since  the  decline  of  superstition,  it  has  been  celebrated  by  the  people 
of  each  hamlet  on  some  hill  or  rising  ground  around  which  their  cattle 
were  pasturing.  Thither  the  young  folks  repaired  in  the  morning, 
and  cut  a  trench,  on  the  summit  of  which  a  seat  of  turf  was  formed  for 
the  company.  And  in  the  middle  a  pile  of  wood  or  other  fuel  was 
placed,  which  of  old  they  kindled  with  tein-eigin — i.e.,  forced-fire  or 
need-fire.  Although,  for  many  years  past,  they  have  been  contented 
with  common  fire,  yet  we  shall  now  describe  the  process,  because  it 
will  hereafter  appear  that  recourse  is  still  had  to  the  tein-eigin  upon 
extraordinary  emergencies. 


6i8 


THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  OF  EUROPE 


CH. 


“  The  night  before,  all  the  fires  in  the  country  were  carefully 
extinguished,  and  next  morning  the  materials  for  exciting  this  sacred 
fire  were  prepared.  The  most  primitive  method  seems  to  be  that 
which  was  used  in  the  islands  of  Skye,  Mull,  and  Tiree  A  well-seasoned 
plank  of  oak  was  procured,  in  the  midst  of  which  a  hole  was  bored.  A 
wimble  of  the  same  timber  was  then  applied,  the  end  of  which  they 
fitted  to  the  hole.  But  in  some  parts  of  the  mainland  the  machinery 
was  different.  They  used  a  frame  of  green  wood,  of  a  square  form, 
in  the  centre  of  which  was  an  axle-tree.  In  some  places  three  times 
three  persons,  in  others  three  times  nine,  were  required  for  turning 
round  by  turns  the  axle-tree  or  wimble.  If  any  of  them  had  been 
guilty  of  murder,  adultery,  theft,  or  other  atrocious  crime,  it  was 
imagined  either  that  the  fire  would  not  kindle,  or  that  it  would  be  devoid 
of  its  usual  virtue.  So  soon  as  any  sparks  were  emitted  by  means  of 
the  violent  friction,  they  applied  a  species  of  agaric  which  grows  on 
old  birch-trees,  and  is  very  combustible.  This  fire  had  the  appearance 
of  being  immediately  derived  from  heaven,  and  manifold  were  the 
virtues  ascribed  to  it.  They  esteemed  it  a  preservative  against  witch¬ 
craft,  and  a  sovereign  remedy  against  malignant  diseases,  both  in  the 
human  species  and  in  cattle  ;  and  by  it  the  strongest  poisons  were 
supposed  to  have  their  nature  changed. 

“  After  kindling  the  bonfire  with  the  tein-eigin  the  company 
prepared  their  victuals.  And  as  soon  as  they  had  finished  their  meal, 
they  amused  themselves  a  while  in  singing  and  dancing  round  the  fire. 
Towards  the  close  of  the  entertainment,  the  person  who  officiated  as 
master  of  the  feast  produced  a  large  cake  baked  with  eggs  and  scalloped 
round  the  edge,  called  am  bonnach  beal-tine — i.e.,  the  Beltane  cake. 
It  was  divided  into  a  number  of  pieces,  and  distributed  in  great  form 
to  the  company.  There  was  one  particular  piece  which  whoever  got 
was  called  cailleach  beal-tine — i.e.,  the  Beltane  carline,  a  term  of  great 
reproach.  Upon  his  being  known,  part  of  the  company  laid  hold  of 
him  and  made  a  show  of  putting  him  into  the  fire  ;  but  the  majority 
interposing,  he  was  rescued.  And  in  some  places  they  laid  him  flat 
on  the  ground,  making  as  if  they  would  quarter  him.  Afterwards,  he 
was  pelted  with  egg-shells,  and  retained  the  odious  appellation  during 
the  whole  year.  And  while  the  feast  was  fresh  in  people’s  memory, 
they  affected  to  speak  of  the  cailleach  beal-tine  as  dead.” 

In  the  parish  of  Callander,  a  beautiful  district  of  western  Perthshire, 
the  Beltane  custom  was  still  in  vogue  towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  It  has  been  described  as  follows  by  the  parish  minister  of 
the  time  :  "  Upon  the  first  day  of  May,  which  is  called  Beltan,  or  Bal- 
tein  day,  all  the  boys  in  a  township  or  hamlet  meet  in  the  moors.  They 
cut  a  table  in  the  green  sod,  of  a  round  figure,  by  casting  a  trench  in 
the  ground,  of  such  circumference  as  to  hold  the  whole  company. 
They  kindle  a  fire,  and  dress  a  repast  of  eggs  and  milk  in  the  con¬ 
sistence  of  a  custard.  They  knead  a  cake  of  oatmeal,  which  is  toasted 
at  the  embers  against  a  stone.  After  the  custard  is  eaten  up,  they 
divide  the  cake  into  so  many  portions,  as  similar  as  possible  to  one 


lxii  THE  BELTANE  FIRES  619 

another  in  size  and  shape,  as  there  are  persons  in  the  company.  They 
daub  one  of  these  portions  all  over  with  charcoal,  until  it  be  perfectly 
black.  They  put  all  the  bits  of  the  cake  into  a  bonnet.  Every  one, 
blindfold,  draws  out  a  portion.  He  who  holds  the  bonnet  is  entitled 
to  the  last  bit.  Whoever  draws  the  black  bit  is  the  devoted  person  who 
is  to  be  sacrificed  to  Baal ,  whose  favour  they  mean  to  implore,  in 
rendering  the  year  productive  of  the  sustenance  of  man  and  beast. 
There  is  little  doubt  of  these  inhuman  sacrifices  having  been  once 
offered  in  this  country,  as  well  as  in  the  east,  although  they  now  pass 
from  the  act  of  sacrificing,  and  only  compel  the  devoted  person  to  leap 
three  times  through  the  flames ;  with  which  the  ceremonies  of  this 
festival  are  closed." 

Thomas  Pennant,  who  travelled  in  Perthshire  in  the  year  1769, 
tells  us  that  on  the  first  of  May,  the  herdsmen  of  every  village  hold 
their  Bel-tien,  a  rural  sacrifice.  They  cut  a  square  trench  on  the 
ground,  leaving  the  turf  in  the  middle  ;  on  that  they  make  a  fire  of 
wood,  on  which  they  dress  a  large  caudle  of  eggs,  butter,  oatmeal  and 
milk  ;  and  bring  besides  the  ingredients  of  the  caudle,  plenty  of 
beer  and  whisky  ;  for  each  of  the  company  must  contribute  something. 
The  rites  begin  with  spilling  some  of  the  caudle  on  the  ground,  by  way 
of  libation  :  on  that  every  one  takes  a  cake  of  oatmeal,  upon  which 
are  raised  nine  square  knobs,  each  dedicated  to  some  particular  being, 
the  supposed  preserver  of  their  flocks  and  herds,  or  to  some  particular 
animal,  the  real  destroyer  of  them  :  each  person  then  turns  his  face  to 
the  fire,  breaks  off  a  knob,  and  flinging  it  over  his  shoulders,  says, 
This  I  give  to  thee,  preserve  thou  my  horses  ;  this  to  thee,  preserve 
thou  my  sheep  ;  and  so  on.'  After  that,  they  use  the  same  ceremony 
to  the  noxious  animals  :  ‘  This  I  give  to  thee,  O  fox  !  spare  thou  my 
lambs  ;  this  to  thee,  O  hooded  crow  !  this  to  thee,  O  eagle  !  '  When 
the  ceremony  is  over,  they  dine  on  the  caudle  ;  and  after  the  feast  is 
finished,  what  is  left  is  hid  by  two  persons  deputed  for  that  purpose  ; 
but  on  the  next  Sunday  they  reassemble,  and  finish  the  reliques  of  the 
first  entertainment." 

Another  writer  of  the  eighteenth  century  has  described  the  Beltane 
festival  as  it  was  held  in  the  parish  of  Logierait  in  Perthshire.  He 
says  :  “  On  the  first  of  May,  O.S.,  a  festival  called  Belt  an  is  annually 
held  here.  It  is  chiefly  celebrated  by  the  cow-herds,  who  assemble  by 
scores  in  the  fields,  to  dress  a  dinner  for  themselves,  of  boiled  milk 
and  eggs.  These  dishes  they  eat  with  a  sort  of  cakes  baked  for  the 
occasion,  and  having  small  lumps  in  the  form  of  nipples,  raised  all  over 
the  surface."  In  this  last  account  no  mention  is  made  of  bonfires,  but 
they  were  probably  lighted,  for  a  contemporary  writer  informs  us  that 
in  the  parish  of  Kirkmichael,  which  adjoins  the  parish  of  Logierait 
on  the  east,  the  custom  of  lighting  a  fire  in  the  fields  and  baking  a 
consecrated  cake  on  the  first  of  May  was  not  quite  obsolete  in  his 
time.  We  may  conjecture  that  the  cake  with  knobs  was  formerly 
used  for  the  purpose  of  determining  who  should  be  the  “  Beltane 
carline  "  or  victim  doomed  to  the  flames.  A  trace  of  this  custom 


620  THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  OF  EUROPE  ch. 

survived,  perhaps,  in  the  custom  of  baking  oatmeal  cakes  of  a  special 
kind  and  rolling  them  down  hill  about  noon  on  the  first  of  May  ;  for 
it  was  thought  that  the  person  whose  cake  broke  as  it  rolled  would 
die  or  be  unfortunate  within  the  year.  These  cakes,  or  bannocks 
as  we  call  them  in  Scotland,  were  baked  in  the  usual  way,  but  they 
were  washed  over  with  a  thin  batter  composed  of  whipped  egg,  milk 
or  cream,  and  a  little  oatmeal.  This  custom  appears  to  have  prevailed 
at  or  near  Kingussie  in  Inverness-shire. 

In  the  north-east  of  Scotland  the  Beltane  fires  were  still  kindled 
in  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  ;  the  herdsmen  of  several 
farms  used  to  gather  dry  wood,  kindle  it,  and  dance  three  times 
“  southways  ”  about  the  burning  pile.  But  in  this  region,  according 
to  a  later  authority,  the  Beltane  fires  were  lit  not  on  the  first  but  on 
the  second  of  May,  Old  Style.  They  were  called  bone-fires.  The 
people  believed  that  on  that  evening  and  night  the  witches  were 
abroad  and  busy  casting  spells  on  cattle  and  stealing  cows’  milk.  To 
counteract  their  machinations,  pieces  of  rowan-tree  and  woodbine, 
but  especially  of  rowan-tree,  were  placed  over  the  doors  of  the  cow¬ 
houses,  and  fires  were  kindled  by  every  farmer  and  cottar.  Old 
*  thatch,  straw,  furze,  or  broom  was  piled  in  a  heap  and  set  on  fire  a  little 
after  sunset.  While  some  of  the  bystanders  kept  tossing  the  blazing 
mass,  others  hoisted  portions  of  it  on  pitchforks  or  poles  and  ran  hither 
and  thither,  holding  them  as  high  as  they  could.  Meantime  the  young 
people  danced  round  the  fire  or  ran  through  the  smoke  shouting,  “  Fire  ! 
blaze  and  burn  the  witches  ;  fire  !  fire  !  burn  the  witches.”  In  some 
districts  a  large  round  cake  of  oat  or  barley  meal  was  rolled  through 
the  ashes.  When  all  the  fuel  was  consumed,  the  people  scattered  the 
ashes  far  and  wide,  and  till  the  night  grew  quite  dark  they  continued 
to  run  through  them,  crying,  “  Fire  !  burn  the  witches.” 

In  the  Hebrides  “  the  Beltane  bannock  is  smaller  than  that  made 
at  St.  Michael's,  but  is  made  in  the  same  way  ;  it  is  no  longer  made 
in  Uist,  but  Father  Allan  remembers  seeing  his  grandmother  make  one 
about  twenty-five  years  ago.  There  was  also  a  cheese  made,  generally 
on  the  first  of  May,  which  was  kept  to  the  next  Beltane  as  a  sort 
of  charm  against  the  bewitching  of  milk-produce.  The  Beltane  customs 
seem  to  have  been  the  same  as  elsewhere.  Every  fire  was  put  out 
and  a  large  one  lit  on  the  top  of  the  hill,  and  the  cattle  driven  round  it 
sunwards  ( dessil ),  to  keep  off  murrain  all  the  year.  Each  man  would 
take  home  fire  wherewith  to  kindle  his  own.” 

In  Wales  also  the  custom  of  lighting  Beltane  fires  at  the  beginning 
of  May  used  to  be  observed,  but  the  day  on  which  they  were  kindled 
varied  from  the  eve  of  May  Day  to  the  third  of  May.  The  flame  was 
sometimes  elicited  by  the  friction  of  two  pieces  of  oak,  as  appears 
from  the  following  description.  “  The  fire  was  done  in  this  way. 
Nine  men  would  turn  their  pockets  inside  out,  and  see  that  every 
piece  of  money  and  all  metals  were  off  their  persons.  Then  the  men 
went  into  the  nearest  woods,  and  collected  sticks  of  nine  different 
kinds  of  trees.  These  were  carried  to  the  spot  where  the  fire  had 


LXII 


THE  BELTANE  FIRES 


621 


to  be  built.  There  a  circle  was  cut  in  the  sod,  and  the  sticks  were 
set  crosswise.  All  around  the  circle  the  people  stood  and  watched 
the  proceedings.  One  of  the  men  would  then  take  two  bits  of 
oak,  and  rub  them  together  until  a  flame  was  kindled.  This  was 
applied  to  the  sticks,  and  soon  a  large  fire  was  made.  Sometimes 
two  fires  were  set  up  side  by  side.  These  fires,  whether  one  or  two, 
were  called  coelcerth  or  bonfire.  Round  cakes  of  oatmeal  and  brown 
meal  were  split  in  four,  and  placed  in  a  small  flour-bag,  and  everybody 
present  had  to  pick  out  a  portion.  The  last  bit  in  the  bag  fell  to 
the  lot  of  the  bag-holder.  Each  person  who  chanced  to  pick  up  a 
piece  of  brown-meal  cake  was  compelled  to  leap  three  times  over  the 
flames,  or  to  run  thrice  between  the  two  fires,  by  which  means  the 
people  thought  they  were  sure  of  a  plentiful  harvest.  Shouts  and 
screams  of  those  who  had  to  face  the  ordeal  could  be  heard  ever  so 
far,  and  those  who  chanced  to  pick  the  oatmeal  portions  sang  and 
danced  and  clapped  their  hands  in  approval,  as  the  holders  of  the 
brown  bits  leaped  three  times  over  the  flames,  or  ran  three  times 
between  the  two  fires.” 

The  belief  of  the  people  that  by  leaping  thrice  over  the  bonfires 
or  running  thrice  between  them  they  ensured  a  plentiful  harvest  is 
worthy  of  note.  The  mode  in  which  this  result  was  supposed  to  be 
brought  about  is  indicated  by  another  writer  on  Welsh  folk-lore, 
according  to  whom  it  used  to  be  held  that  “  the  bonfires  lighted  in 
May  or  Midsummer  protected  the  lands  from  sorcery,  so  that  good 
crops  would  follow.  The  ashes  were  also  considered  valuable  as 
charms.”  Hence  it  appears  that  the  heat  of  the  fires  was  thought 
to  fertilise  the  fields,  not  directly  by  quickening  the  seeds  in  the 
ground,  but  indirectly  by  counteracting  the  baleful  influence  of 
witchcraft  or  perhaps  by  burning  up  the  persons  of  the  witches. 

The  Beltane  fires  seem  to  have  been  kindled  also  in  Ireland, 
for  Cormac,  “  or  somebody  in  his  name,  says  that  belltaine,  May-day, 
was  so  called  from  the  ‘  lucky  fire/  or  the  ‘  two  fires/  which  the  druids 
of  Erin  used  to  make  on  that  day  with  great  incantations  ;  and  cattle, 
he  adds,  used  to  be  brought  to  those  fires,  or  to  be  driven  between 
them,  as  a  safeguard  against  the  diseases  of  the  year.”  The  custom 
of  driving  cattle  through  or  between  fires  on  May  Day  or  the  eve  of 
May  Day  persisted  in  Ireland  down  to  a  time  within  living  memory. 

The  first  of  May  is  a  great  popular  festival  in  the  more  midland 
and  southern  parts  of  Sweden.  On  the  eve  of  the  festival  huge  bonfires, 
which  should  be  lighted  by  striking  two  flints  together,  blaze  on  all  the 
hills  and  knolls.  Every  large  hamlet  has  its  own  fire,  round  which 
the  young  people  dance  in  a  ring.  The  old  folk  notice  whether  the 
flames  incline  to  the  north  or  to  the  south.  In  the  former  case,  the 
spring  will  be  cold  and  backward  ;  in  the  latter,  it  will  be  mild  and 
genial.  In  Bohemia,  on  the  eve  of  May  Day,  young  people  kindle  fires 
on  hills  and  eminences,  at  crossways,  and  in  pastures,  and  dance  round 
them.  They  leap  over  the  glowing  embers  or  even  through  the 
flames.  The  ceremony  is  called  “  burning  the  witches.”  In  some 


622  THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  OF  EUROPE  ch. 

places  an  effigy  representing  a  witch  used  to  be  burnt  in  the  bonfire. 
We  have  to  remember  that  the  eve  of  May  Day  is  the  notorious 
Walpurgis  Night,  when  the  witches  are  everywhere  speeding  unseen 
through  the  air  on  their  hellish  errands.  On  this  witching  night 
children  in  Voigtland  also  light  bonfires  on  the  heights  and  leap  over 
them.  Moreover,  they  wave  burning  brooms  or  toss  them  into  the 
air.  So  far  as  the  light  of  the  bonfire  reaches,  so  far  will  a  blessing 
rest  on  the  fields.  The  kindling  of  the  fires  on  Walpurgis  Night  is 
called  “  driving  away  the  witches.”  The  custom  of  kindling  fires 
on  the  eve  of  May  Day  (Walpurgis  Night)  for  the  purpose  of  burning 
the  witches  is,  or  used  to  be,  widespread  in  the  Tyrol,  Moravia, 
Saxony  and  Silesia. 

§  5.  The  Midsummer  Fires. — But  the  season  at  which  these  fire- 
festivals  have  been  mostly  generally  held  all  over  Europe  is  the  summer 
solstice,  that  is  Midsummer  Eve  (the  twenty- third  of  June)  or  Mid¬ 
summer  Day  (the  twenty-fourth  of  June) .  A  faint  tinge  of  Christianity 
has  been  given  to  them  by  naming  Midsummer  Day  after  St.  John 
the  Baptist,  but  we  cannot  doubt  that  the  celebration  dates  from  a 
time  long  before  the  beginning  of  our  era.  The  summer  solstice,  or 
Midsummer  Day,  is  the  great  turning-point  in  the  sun’s  career,  when, 
after  climbing  higher  and  higher  day  by  day  in  the  sky,  the  luminary 
stops  and  thenceforth  retraces  his  steps  down  the  heavenly  road. 
Such  a  moment  could  not  but  be  regarded  with  anxiety  by  primitive 
man  so  soon  as  he  began  to  observe  and  ponder  the  courses  of  the 
great  lights  across  the  celestial  vault ;  and  having  still  to  learn  his 
own  powerlessness  in  face  of  the  vast  cyclic  changes  of  nature,  he 
may  have  fancied  that  he  could  help  the  sun  in  his  seeming  decline — 
could  prop  his  failing  steps  and  rekindle  the  sinking  flame  of  the  r.ed 
lamp  in  his  feeble  hand.  In  some  such  thoughts  as  these  the  mid¬ 
summer  festivals  of  our  European  peasantry  may  perhaps  have 
taken  their  rise.  Whatever  their  origin,  they  have  prevailed  all  over 
this  quarter  of  the  globe,  from  Ireland  on  the  west  to  Russia  on  the 
east,  and  from  Norway  and  Sweden  on  the  north  to  Spain  and  Greece 
on  the  south.  According  to  a  mediaeval  writer,  the  three  great 
features  of  the  midsummer  celebration  were  the  bonfires,  the  procession 
with  torches  round  the  fields,  and  the  custom  of  rolling  a  wheel.  He 
tells  us  that  boys  burned  bones  and  filth  of  various  kinds  to  make  a 
foul  smoke,  and  that  the  smoke  drove  away  certain  noxious  dragons 
which  at  this  time,  excited  by  the  summer  heat,  copulated  in  the  air 
and  poisoned  the  wells  and  rivers  by  dropping  their  seed  into  them ; 
and  he  explains  the  custom  of  trundling  a  wheel  to  mean  that  the  sun, 
having  now  reached  the  highest  point  in  the  ecliptic,  begins  thence¬ 
forward  to  descend. 

The  main  features  of  the  midsummer  fire-festival  resemble  those 
which  we  have  found  to  characterise  the  vernal  festivals  of  fire.  The 
similarity  of  the  two  sets  of  ceremonies  will  plainly  appear  from  the 
following  examples. 

A  writer  of  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  informs  us  that 


lxii  THE  MIDSUMMER  FIRES  623 

in  almost  every  village  and  town  of  Germany  public  bonfires  were 
kindled  on  the  Eve  of  St.  John,  and  young  and  old,  of  both  sexes, 
gathered  about  them  and  passed  the  time  in  dancing  and  singing. 
People  on  this  occasion  wore  chaplets  of  mugwort  and  vervain,  and 
they  looked  at  the  fire  through  bunches  of  larkspur  which  they  held 
in  their  hands,  believing  that  this  would  preserve  their  eyes  in  a 
healthy  state  throughout  the  year.  As  each  departed,  he  threw  the 
mugwort  and  vervain  into  the  fire,  saying,  “  May  all  my  ill-luck 
depart  and  be  burnt  up  with  these.”  At  Lower  Konz,  a  village 
situated  on  a  hillside  overlooking  the  Moselle,  the  midsummer  festival 
used  to  be  celebrated  as  follows.  A  quantity  of  straw  was  collected 
on  the  top  of  the  steep  Stromberg  Hill.  Every  inhabitant,  or  at 
least  every  householder,  had  to  contribute  his  share  of  straw  to  the 
pile.  At  nightfall  the  whole  male  population,  men  and  boys,  mustered 
on  the  top  of  the  hill ;  the  women  and  girls  were  not  allowed  to  join 
them,  but  had  to  take  up  their  position  at  a  certain  spring  half-way 
down  the  slope.  On  the  summit  stood  a  huge  wheel  completely 
encased  in  some  of  the  straw  which  had  been  jointly  contributed  by 
the  villagers ;  the  rest  of  the  straw  was  made  into  torches.  From 
each  side  of  the  wheel  the  axle-tree  projected  about  three  feet,  thus 
furnishing  handles  to  the  lads  who  were  to  guide  it  in  its  descent. 
The  mayor  of  the  neighbouring  town  of  Sierck,  who  always  received 
a  basket  of  cherries  for  his  services,  gave  the  signal ;  a  lighted  torch 
was  applied  to  the  wheel,  and  as  it  burst  into  flame,  two  young  fellows, 
strong-limbed  and  swift  of  foot,  seized  the  handles  and  began  running 
with  it  down  the  slope.  A  great  shout  went  up.  Every  man  and 
boy  waved  a  blazing  torch  in  the  air,  and  took  care  to  keep  it  alight 
so  long  as  the  wheel  was  trundling  down  the  hill.  The  great  object 
of  the  young  men  who  guided  the  wheel  was  to  plunge  it  blazing 
into  the  water  of  the  Moselle  ;  but  they  rarely  succeeded  in  their 
efforts,  for  the  vineyards  which  cover  the  greater  part  of  the  declivity 
impeded  their  progress,  and  the  wheel  was  often  burned  out  before  it 
reached  the  river.  As  it  rolled  past  the  women  and  girls  at  the 
spring,  they  raised  cries  of  joy  which  were  answered  by  the  men  on 
the  top  of  the  mountain  ;  and  the  shouts  were  echoed  by  the  inhabitants 
of  neighbouring  villages  who  watched  the  spectacle  from  their  hills 
on  the  opposite  bank  of  the  Moselle.  If  the  fiery  wheel  was  successfully 
conveyed  to  the  bank  of  the  river  and  extinguished  in  the  water, 
the  people  looked  for  an  abundant  vintage  that  year,  and  the  in¬ 
habitants  of  Konz  had  the  right  to  exact  a  waggon-load  of  white 
wine  from  the  surrounding  vineyards.  O11  the  other  hand,  they 
believed  that,  if  they  neglected  to  perform  the  ceremony,  the  cattle 
would  be  attacked  by  giddiness  and  convulsions  and  would  dance 
in  their  stalls. 

Down  at  least  to  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  mid¬ 
summer  fires  used  to  blaze  all  over  Upper  Bavaria.  They  were  kindled 
especially  on  the  mountains,  but  also  far  and  wide  in  the  lowlands,  and 
we  are  told  that  in  the  darkness  and  stillness  of  night  the  moving 


THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  OF  EUROPE 


CH. 


624 

groups,  lit  up  by  the  flickering  glow  of  the  flames,  presented  an  im¬ 
pressive  spectacle.  Cattle  were  driven  through  the  fire  to  cure  the  \ 
sick  animals  and  to  guard  such  as  were  sound  against  plague  and  harm 
of  every  kind  throughout  the  year.  Many  a  householder  on  that  day  1 
put  out  the  fire  on  the  domestic  hearth  and  rekindled  it  by  means  of  a  i 
brand  taken  from  the  midsummer  bonfire.  The  people  judged  of  the  : 
height  to  which  the  flax  would  grow  in  the  year  by  the  height  to  which 
the  flames  of  the  bonfire  rose  ;  and  whoever  leaped  over  the  burning 
pile  was  sure  not  to  suffer  from  backache  in  reaping  the  corn  at  harvest. 

In  many  parts  of  Bavaria  it  was  believed  that  the  flax  would  grow 
as  high  as  the  young  people  leaped  over  the  fire.  In  others  the  old 
folk  used  to  plant  three  charred  sticks  from  the  bonfire  in  the  fields,  1 
believing  that  this  would  make  the  flax  grow  tall.  Elsewhere  an 
extinguished  brand  was  put  in  the  roof  of  the  house  to  protect  it 
against  fire.  In  the  towns  about  Wurzburg  the  bonfires  used  to  be 
kindled  in  the  market-places,  and  the  young  people  who  jumped  over 
them  wore  garlands  of  flowers,  especially  of  mugwort  and  vervain, 
and  carried  sprigs  of  larkspur  in  their  hands.  They  thought  that 
such  as  looked  at  the  fire  holding  a  bit  of  larkspur  before  their  face 
would  be  troubled  by  no  malady  of  the  eyes  throughout  the  year. 
Further,  it  was  customary  at  Wurzburg,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  for 
the  bishop’s  followers  to  throw  burning  discs  of  wood  into  the  air  from 
a  mountain  which  overhangs  the  town.  The  discs  were  discharged 
by  means  of  flexible  rods,  and  in  their  flight  through  the  darkness 
presented  the  appearance  of  fiery  dragons. 

Similarly  in  Swabia,  lads  and  lasses,  hand  in  hand,  leap  over  the 
midsummer  bonfire,  praying  that  the  hemp  may  grow  three  ells  high, 
and  they  set  fire  to  wheels  of  straw  and  send  them  rolling  down  the 
hill.  Sometimes,  as  the  people  sprang  over  the  midsummer  bonfire 
they  cried  out,  “  Flax,  flax  !  may  the  flax  this  year  grow  seven  ells 
high  !  ”  At  Rottenburg  a  rude  effigy  in  human  form,  called  the  Angel- 
man,  used  to  be  enveloped  in  flowers  and  then  burnt  in  the  midsummer 
fire  by  boys,  who  afterwards  leaped  over  the  glowing  embers. 

So  in  Baden  the  children  collected  fuel  from  house  to  house  for  I 
the  midsummer  bonfire  on  St.  John’s  Day  ;  and  lads  and  lasses  leaped 
over  the  fire  in  couples.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  a  close  connexion  was 
traced  between  these  bonfires  and  the  harvest.  In  some  places  it  was 
thought  that  those  who  leaped  over  the  fires  would  not  suffer  from 
backache  at  reaping.  Sometimes,  as  the  young  folk  sprang  over  the 
flames,  they  cried,  “  Grow,  that  the  hemp  may  be  three  ells  high  !  ” 
This  notion  that  the  hemp  or  the  corn  would  grow  as  high  as  the  flames 
blazed  or  as  the  people  jumped  over  them  seems  to  have  been  wide¬ 
spread  in  Baden.  It  was  held  that  the  parents  of  the  young  people 
who  bounded  highest  over  the  fire  would  have  the  most  abundant 
harvest  ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  if  a  man  contributed  nothing  to  the 
bonfire,  it  was  imagined  that  there  would  be  no  blessing  on  his  crops, 
and  that  his  hemp  in  particular  would  never  grow.  At  Edersleben, 
near  Sangerhausen,  a  high  pole  was  planted  in  the  ground  and  a  tar- 


LXII 


THE  MIDSUMMER  FIRES 


625 

bairel  was  hung  from  it  by  a  chain  which  reached  to  the  ground  The 
barrel  was  then  set  on  fire  and  swung  round  the  pole  amid  shouts  of  joy. 
In  Denmark  and  Norway  also  midsummer  fires  were  kindled  on 
Uf  °?  roads>  open  spaces,  and  hills.  People  in  Norway 
!  "ihVhat  t  ie  !::S  banlshed  sickness  from  among  the  cattle.  Even 
,  St  the  fir?s.  a?f  (fid  to  be  hghted  all  over  Norway  on  Midsummer  Eve 
They  are  kindled  m  order  to  keep  off  the  witches,  who  are  said  to 
be  flying  from  all  parts  that  night  to  the  Blocksberg,  where  the  big 
witch  lives  In  Sweden  the  Eve  of  St.  John  (St.  Hans)  is  the  most 
joyous  night  of  the  whole  year.  Throughout  some  parts  of  the  country 
especially  m  the  provinces  of  Bohus^nd  Scania  and  in  districts  border- 
mg  on  Norway,  it  is  celebrated  by  the  frequent  discharge  of  firearms 
an  by  huge  bonfires,  formerly  called  Balder’s  Balefires  (Balder’ s  Bdlar ) 

I""1'6  kmdIed  at  dusk  on  hiUs  and  eminences  and  throw  a  glare 
of  light  over  the  surrounding  landscape.  The  people  dance  round  the 
fires  and  leap  over  or  through  them.  In  parts  of  Norrland  on  St. 

J°hn  s  Lf  thf  bonfires  are  lit  at  the  cross-roads.  The  fuel  consists 
of  nine  different  sorts  of  wood,  and  the  spectators  cast  into  the  flames 
a  kind  of  toad-stool  (Baran)  in  order  to  counteract  the  power  of  the 
rolls  and  other  evil  spirits,  who  are  believed  to  be  abroad  that  night  ; 

r  ^  mystlc  season  the  mountains  open  and  from  their  cavernous 
depths  the  uncanny  crew  pours  forth  to  dance  and  disport  themselves 
or  a  time.  The  peasants  believe  that  should  any  of  the  Trolls  be  in 
.he  vicinity  they  will  show  themselves  ;  and  if  an  animal,  for  example 

I  he  or  she  goat,  happens  to  be  seen  near  the  blazing,  crackling  pile 

he  peasants  are  firmly  persuaded  that  it  is  no  other  than  the  Evil  One 

n  person.  Further,  it  deserves  to  be  remarked  that  in  Sweden  St 

lohn  s  Eve  is  a  festival  of  water  as  well  as  of  fire  ;  for  certain  holy 

prmgs  are  then  supposed  to  be  endowed  with  wonderful  medicinal 

wtues,  and  many  sick  people  resort  to  them  for  the  healing  of  their 
nnrmities. 

,  -Austria  the  midsummer  customs  and  superstitions  resemble 
hose  of  Germany.  Thus  in  some  parts  of  the  Tyrol  bonfires  are  kindled 
nd  burning  discs  hurled  into  the  air.  In  the  lower  valley  of  the  Inn 
tatterdemahon  effigy  is  carted  about  the  village  on  Midsummer  Day 
nd  then  burned.  He  is  called  the  Latter ,  which  has  been  corrupted 

II  °  nther.  At  Ambras,  one  of  the  villages  where  Martin  Luther 
5  +thus  buyned  in  effigy,  they  say  that  if  you  go  through  the  village 
etween  eleven  and  twelve  on  St.  John’s  Night  and  wash  yourself 
1  three  wells  you  will  see  all  who  are  to  die  in  the  following  year, 
t  Gratz  on  St.  John’s  Eve  (the  twenty-third  of  June)  the  common 
sople  used  to  make  a  puppet  called  the  Tatermann,  which  they 
ragged  to  the  bleaching  ground,  and  pelted  with  burning  besoms  till 

00k  fire.  At.  Reutte,  in  the  Tyrol,  people  believed  that  the  flax 
ould  grow  as  high  as  they  leaped  over  the  midsummer  bonfire,  and 
iey  took  pieces  of  charred  wood  from  the  fire  and  stuck  them  in  their 
ix-fields  the  same  night,  leaving  them  there  till  the  flax  harvest  had 
:en  got  m.  In  Lower  Austria  bonfires  are  kindled  on  the  heights, 


626 


THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  OF  EUROPE 


CH 


and  the  boys  caper  round  them,  brandishing  lighted  torches  drenchec 
in  pitch.  Whoever  jumps  thrice  across  the  fire  will  not  suffer  frorr 
fever  within  the  year.  Cart-wheels  are  often  smeared  with  pitch 
ignited,  and  sent  rolling  and  blazing  down  the  hillsides. 

All  over  Bohemia  bonfires  still  bum  on  Midsummer  Eve.  p™ 
afternoon  boys  go  about  with  handcarts  from  house  to  house  collectinj 
fuel  and  threatening  with  evil  consequences  the  curmudgeons  who 
refuse  them  a  dole.  Sometimes  the  young  men  fell  a  tall  straight  fi. 
in  the  woods  and  set  it  up  on  a  height,  where  the  girls  deck  it  wit) 
nosegays,  wreaths  of  leaves,  and  red  ribbons.  Then  brushwood  1 
piled  about  it,  and  at  nightfall  the  whole  is  set  on  fire.  While  th 
flames  break  out,  the  young  men  climb  the  tree  and  fetch  down  th, 
wreaths  which  the  girls  had  placed  on  it.  After  that  lads  and  lasse 
stand  on  opposite  sides  of  the  fire  and  look  at  one  another  through  th 
wreaths  to  see  whether  they  will  be  true  to  each  other  and  marry  withif 
the  year.  Also  the  girls  throw  the  wreaths  across  the  names  to  th 
men  and  woe  to  the  awkward  swain  who  fails  to  catch  the  wreat 
thrown  him  by  his  sweetheart.  When  the  blaze  has  died  down,  eac 
couple  takes  hands  and  leaps  thrice  across  the  fire.  He  or  she  wfc 
does  so  will  be  free  from  ague  throughout  the  year,  and  the  flax  wi 
grow  as  high  as  the  young  folks  leap.  A  girl  who  sees  nine  bonfires  q 
Midsummer  Eve  will  marry  before  the  year  is  out.  The  singed  wneatl 
are  carried  home  and  carefully  preserved  throughout  the  year  DunrJ 
thunderstorms  a  bit  of  the  wreath  is  burned  on  the  hearth  with 
prayer  ;  some  of  it  is  given  to  kine  that  are  sick  or  calving,  and  son, 
of  it  serves  to  fumigate  house  and  cattle-stall,  that  man  and  beast  me 
keep  hale  and  well.  Sometimes  an  old  cart-wheel  is  smeared  wn 
resin,  ignited,  and  sent  rolling  down  the  hill.  Often  the  boys  colie 
all  the  worn-out  besoms  they  can  get  hold  of,  dip  them  in  pitch,  arj 
having  set  them  on  fire  wave  them  about  or  throw  them  high  into  tJ> 
air  Or  they  rush  down  the  hillside  in  troops,  brandishing  the  namtu 
brooms  and  shouting.  The  stumps  of  the  brooms  and  embers  fro 
the  fire  are  preserved  and  stuck  in  cabbage  gardens  to  protect  U 
cabbages  from  caterpillars  and  gnats.  Some  people  insert  charr 
sticks  and  ashes  from  the  midsummer  bonfire  in  their  sown  fields  ail 
meadows,  in  their  gardens  and  the  roofs  of  their  houses,  as  a  talism.i 
against  lightning  and  foul  weather  ;  or  they  fancy  that  the  ashes  placl 
in  the  roof  will  prevent  any  fire  from  breaking  out  m  the  house, 
some  districts  they  crown  or  gird  themselves  with  mugwort  while  t. 
midsummer  fire  is  burning,  for  this  is  supposed  to  be  a  protectn 
against  ghosts,  witches,  and  sickness  ;  in  particular,  a  wreath  of  mi- 
wort  is  a  sure  preventive  of  sore  eyes.  Sometimes  the  gills  loo 
the  bonfires  through  garlands  of  wild  flowers,  praying  the  fire  f 
strengthen  their  eyes  and  eyelids.  She  who  does  this  thrice  will  ha= 
no  sore  eyes  all  that  year.  In  some  parts  of  Bohemia  they  used  - 
drive  the  cows  through  the  midsummer  fire  to  guard  them  agaid 

witchcraft.  .  .  ,  p 

In  Slavonic  countries,  also,  the  midsummer  festival  is  celebrai- 


LX  II 


THE  MIDSUMMER  FIRES 


627 


with  similar  rites.  We  have  already  seen  that  in  Russia  on  the  Eve 
of  St.  John  young  men  and  maidens  jump  over  a  bonfire  in  couples 
carrying  a  straw  effigy  of  Kupalo  in  their  arms.  In  some  parts  of 
Russia  an  image  of  Kupalo  is  burnt  or  thrown  into  a  stream  on  St. 

(  John  s  Night.  Again  in  some  districts  of  Russia  the  young  folk  wear 
I  garlands  of  flowers  and  girdles  of  holy  herbs  when  they  spring  through 

^moke  or  dames  i  and  sometimes  they  drive  the  cattle  also  through 
the  hie  m  order  to  protect  the  animals  against  wizards  and  witches 
who  are  then  ravenous  after  milk.  In  Little  Russia  a  stake  is  driven 

I  ™t0Jht  ground  on  St-  John’s  Night,  wrapt  in  straw,  and  set  on  fire. 
As  the  names  rise  the  peasant  women  throw  birchen  boughs  into  them 
saying,  May  my  flax  be  as  tall  as  this  bough  !  ”  In  Ruthenia  the 

u°nn{!rZ  ar61  lghtG<?  by  a  flame  Procured  by  the  friction  of  wood. 

I  While  the  elders  of  the  party  are  engaged  in  thus  “churning”  the 

nre,  the  lest  maintain  a  respectful  silence  ;  but  when  the  flame  bursts 
drom  the  wood,  they  break  forth  into  joyous  songs.  As  soon  as  the 
{bonfires  are  kindled,  the  young  people  take  hands  and  leap  in  pairs 
through  the.  smoke,  if  not  through  the  flames  ;  and  after  that  the 
cattle  m  their  turn  are  driven  through  the  fire. 

n/r-  /n  many  Parts  °f  Prussia  and  Lithuania  great  fires  are  kindled  on 
Midsummer  Eve.  All  the  heights  are  ablaze  with  them,  as  far  as  the 
eye  can  see.  The  fires  are  supposed  to  be  a  protection  against  witch¬ 
craft,  thunder,  hail,  and  cattle  disease,  especially  if  next  morning  the 
cattle  are  diiven  over  the  places  where  the  fires  burned.  Above  all 
the  bonfires  ensure  the  farmer  against  the  arts  of  witches,  who  try 
to  steal  the  milk  from  his  cows  by  charms  and  spells.  That  is  why 
next  morning  you  may  see  the  young  fellows  who  lit  the  bonfire  goin- 
from  house  to  house  and  receiving  jugfuls  of  milk.  And  for  the  same 
reason  they  stick  burs  and  mugwort  on  the  gate  or  the  hedge  through 
which  the  cows  go  to  pasture,  because  that  is  supposed  to  be  a  preserva- 
nve  agffinst  witchcraft.  In  Masuren,  a  district  of  Eastern  Prussia 
nhabited  by  a  branch  of  the  Polish  family,  it  is  the  custom  on  the 
evening  of  Midsummer  Day  to  put  out  all  the  fires  in  the  village.  Then 
m  oaken  stake  is  driven  into  the  ground  and  a  wheel  is  fixed  on  it  as  on 
m  axle.  This  wheel  the  villagers,  working  by  relays,  cause  to  revolve 
b  £roat  rapidity  till  fire  is  produced  by  friction.  Every  one  takes 
iome  a  lighted  brand  from  the  new  fire  and  with  it  rekindles  the  fire 
>n  the  domestic  hearth.  In  Serbia  on  Midsummer  Eve  herdsmen  light 
orches  of  birch  bark  and  march  round  the  sheepfolds  and  cattle-stalls  ; 
hen  they  climb  the  hills  and  there  allow  the  torches  to  burn  out. 

Among  the  Magyars  in  Hungary  the  midsummer  fire-festival  is 
’larked  by  the  same  features  that  meet  us  in  so  many  parts  of  Europe. 

)n  Midsummer  Eve  in  many  places  it  is  customary  to  kindle  bonfires 
n  heights  and  to  leap  over  them,  and  from  the  manner  in  which  the 
oung  people,  leap  the  bystanders  predict  whether  they  will  marry 
ion.  On  this  day  also  many  Hungarian  swineherds  make  fire  by 
itating  a  wheel  round  a  wooden  axle  wrapt  in  hemp,  and  through  the 
re  thus  made  they  drive  their  pigs  to  preserve  them  from  sickness. 


628 


THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  OF  EUROPE 


cr 


The  Esthonians  of  Russia,  who,  like  the  Magyars,  belong  to  thj 
great  Turanian  family  of  mankind,  also  celebrate  the  summer  solstic 
fn  the  usual  way.  They  think  that  the  St.  John  s  fire  keeps  witchc 
from  the  cattle,  and  they  say  that  he  who  does  not  come  to  it  will  hav 
his  barley  full  of  thistles  and  his  oats  full  of  weeds.  In  the  Esthoma 
island  of  Oesel,  while  they  throw  fuel  into  the  midsummer  fire,  the, 
call  out,  “  Weeds  to  the  fire,  flax  to  the  field,  or  they  fling  thro 
billets  into  the  flames,  saying,  “  Flax  grow  long  !  ”  And  they  ta : 
charred  sticks  from  the  bonfire  home  with  them  and  keep  them  1 
make  the  cattle  thrive.  In  some  parts  of  the  island  the  bonfire 
formed  by  piling  brushwood  and  other  combustibles  round  a  tree,  < 
the  top  of  which  a  flag  flies.  Whoever  succeeds  in  knocking  down  tl 
flag  with  a  pole  before  it  begins  to  burn  will  have  good  luck.  Former, 
the  festivities  lasted  till  daybreak,  and  ended  in  scenes  of  debauchei 
which  looked  doubly  hideous  by  the  growing  light  of  a  summer  mormn 
When  we  pass  from  the  east  to  the  west  of  Europe  we  still  find  tl 
summer  solstice  celebrated  with  rites  of  the  same  general  characte 
Down  to  about  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  custom 
lighting  bonfires  at  midsummer  prevailed  so  commonly  m  h  ranee  th; 
there  was  hardly  a  town  or  a  village,  we  are  told,  where  they  were  n, 
kindled.  People  danced  round  and  leaped  over  them,  and  took  charr<l 
sticks  from  the  bonfire  home  with  them  to  protect  the  houses  againj 

lightning,  conflagrations,  and  spells.  ' 

In  Brittany,  apparently,  the  custom  of  the  midsummer  bonfii: 

is  kept  up  to  this  day.  When  the  flames  have  died  down,  the  who 
assembly  kneels  round  about  the  bonfire  and  an  old  man  prays  alou 
Then  they  all  rise  and  march  thrice  round  the  fire  ;  at  the  third  tuj 
they  stop  and  every  one  picks  up  a  pebble  and  throws  it  on  the  burm  I 
pile  After  that  they  disperse.  In  Brittany  and  Berry  it  is  belie vi 
that  a  girl  who  dances  round  nine  midsummer  bonfires  will  mar, 
within  the  year.  In  the  valley  of  the  Orne  the  custom  was  to  kind 
the  bonfire  Just  at  the  moment  when  the  sun  was  about  to  dip  bel<i 
the  horizon  ;  and  the  peasants  drove  their  cattle  through  the  fii 
to  protect  them  against  witchcraft,  especially  against  the  spells  j 
witches  and  wizards  who  attempted  to  steal  the  milk  and  butt 
At  Tumieges  in  Normandy,  down  to  the  first  half  of  the  mneteerl 
century,  the  midsummer  festival  was  marked  by  certain  smgu| 
features  which  bore  the  stamp  of  a  very  high  antiquity.  Ev<j 
year  on  the  twenty-third  of  June,  the  Eve  of  St.  John  the  Broth 
hood  of  the  Green  Wolf  chose  a  new  chief  or  master,  who  had  alw; 
to  be  taken  from  the  hamlet  of  Conihout.  On  being  elected,  1 
new  head  of  the  brotherhood  assumed  the  title  of  the  Green  W< 
and  donned  a  peculiar  costume  consisting  of  a  long  green  mantle  anf 
very  tall  green  hat  of  a  conical  shape  and  without  a  brim., 
arrayed  he  stalked  solemnly  at  the  head  of  the  brothers,  chanting  I 
hymn  of  St.  John,  the  crucifix  and  holy  banner  leading  the  w' 
to  a  place  called  Chouquet.  Here  the  procession  was  met  by  • 
priest,  precentors,  and  choir,  who  conducted  the  brotherhood  to  J 


LXII 


THE  MIDSUMMER  FIRES  629 

parish  church.  After  hearing  mass  the  company  adjourned  to  the 

I  house  of  the  Green  Wolf,  where  a  simple  repast  was  served  up  to  them. 
At  night  a  bonfiie  was  kindled  to  the  sound  of  hand-bells  by  a  young 
man  and  a  young  woman,  both  decked  with  flowers.  Then  the  Green 
Wolf  and  his  brothers,  with  their  hoods  down  on  their  shoulders 
and  holding  each  other  by  the  hand,  ran  round  the  fire  after  the  man 
who  had  been  chosen  to  be  the  Green  Wolf  of  the  following  year. 
Though  only  the  first  and  the  last  man  of  the  chain  had  a  hand  free, 
their  business  was  to  surround  and  seize  thrice  the  future  Green 
Wolf,  who  in  his  efforts  to  escape  belaboured  the  brothers  with  a 
long  wand  which  he  carried.  When  at  last  they  succeeded  in  catch¬ 
ing  him  they  carried  him  to  the  burning  pile  and  made  as  if  they 
would  throw  him  on  it.  This  ceremony  over,  they  returned  to  the 
house  of  the  Green  Wolf,  where  a  supper,  still  of  the  most  meagre  fare, 
was  set  before  them.  Up  till  midnight  a  sort  of  religious  solemnity 
prevailed.  But  at  the  stroke  of  twelve  all  this  was  changed.  Con¬ 
straint  gave  way  to  license  ;  pious  hymns  were  replaced  by  Bac¬ 
chanalian  ditties,  and  the  shrill  quavering  notes  of  the  village  fiddle 
hardly  rose  above  the  roar  of  voices  that  went  up  from  the  merry 
brotherhood  of  the  Green  Wolf.  Next  day,  the  twenty-fourth  of  June 
or  Midsummer  Day,  was  celebrated  by  the  same  personages  with  the 
same  noisy  gaiety.  One  of  the  ceremonies  consisted  in  parading,  to 
the  sound  of  musketry,  an  enormous  loaf  of  consecrated  bread,  which, 
rising  in  tiers,  was  surmounted  by  a  pyramid  of  verdure  adorned  with 
ribbons.  After  that  the  holy  hand-bells,  deposited  on  the  step  of  the 
altar,  were  entrusted  as  insignia  of  office  to  the  man  who  was  to  be  the 
Green  Wolf  next  year. 

At  Chateau-Thierry,  in  the  department  of  Aisne,  the  custom  of 
lighting  bonfires  and  dancing  round  them  at  the  midsummer  festival 
of  St.John  lasted  down  to  about  1850  ;  the  fires  were  kindled  especially 
when  June  had  been  rainy,  and  the  people  thought  that  the  lighting 
of  the  bonfires  would  cause  the  rain  to  cease.  In  the  Vosges  it  is  still 
customary  to  kindle  bonfires  Upon  the  hill-tops  on  Midsummer  Eve  ; 
the  people  believe  that  the  fires  help  to  preserve  the  fruits  of  the  earth 
and  ensure  good  crops. 

Bonfires  were  lit  in  almost  all  the  hamlets  of  Poitou  on  the  Eve 
of  St.  John.  People  marched  round  them  thrice,  carrying  a  branch 
of  walnut  in  their  hand.  Shepherdesses  and  children  passed  sprigs  of 
mullein  {verbascum)  and  nuts  across  the  flames  ;  the  nuts  were  supposed 
to  cure  toothache,  and  the  mullein  to  protect  the  cattle  from  sickness 
and  sorcery.  When  the  fire  died  down  people  took  some  of  the  ashes 
home  with  them,  either  to  keep  them  in  the  house  as  a  preservative 
against  thunder  or  to  scatter  them  on  the  fields  for  the  purpose  of 
destroying  corn-cockles  and  darnel.  In  Poitou  also  it  used  to  be 
mstomary  on  the  Eve  of  St.  John  to  trundle  a  blazing  wheel  wrapt 
ln  straw  over  the  fields  to  fertilise  them. 

In  the  mountainous  part  of  Comminges,  a  province  of  Southern 
Prance,  the  midsummer  fire  is  made  by  splitting  open  the  trunk  of  a 


030  THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  OF  EUROPE  ch. 

tall  tree,  stuffing  the  crevice  with  shavings,  and  igniting  the  whole. 

A  garland  of  flowers  is  fastened  to  the  top  of  the  tree,  and  at  the  moment 
when  the  fire  is  lighted  the  man  who  was  last  married  has  to  climb  up  a 
ladder  and  bring  the  flowers  down.  In  the  flat  parts  of  the  same 
district  the  materials  of  the  midsummer  bonfires  consist  of  fuel  piled  in 
the  usual  way  ;  but  they  must  be  put  together  by  men  who  have  been 
married  since  the  last  midsummer  festival,  and  each  of  these  benedicts 
is  obliged  to  lay  a  wreath  of  flowers  on  the  top  of  the  pile. 

In  Provence  the  midsummer  fires  are  still  popular.  Children  go 
from  door  to  door  begging  for  fuel,  and  they  are  seldom  sent  empty 
away.  Formerly  the  priest,  the  mayor,  and  the  aldermen,  used  to 
walk  in  procession  to  the  bonfire,  and  even  deigned  to  light  it ;  after  ■ 
which  the  assembly  marched  thrice  round  the  burning  pile.  At 
Aix  a  nominal  king,  chosen  from  among  the  youth  for  his  skill  in 
shooting  at  a  popinjay,  presided  over  the  midsummer  festival.  He 
selected  his  own  officers,  and  escorted  by  a  brilliant  train  marched  j 
to  the  bonfire,  kindled  it,  and  was  the  first  to  dance  round  it.  Next 
day  he  distributed  largesse  to  his  followers.  His  reign  lasted  a  year, 
during  which  he  enjoyed  certain  privileges.  He  was  allowed  to  attend  , 
the  mass  celebrated  by  the  commander  of  the  Knights  of  St.  John 
on  St.  John’s  Day  ;  the  right  of  hunting  was  accorded  to  him,  and 
soldiers  might  not  be  quartered  in  his  house.  At  Marseilles  also  on  this 
day  one  of  the  guilds  chose  a  king  of  the  badache  or  double  axe  ;  but; 
it  does  not  appear  that  he  kindled  the  bonfire,  which  is  said  to  have 
been  lighted  with  great  ceremony  by  the  prefet  and  other  authorities.  , 

In  Belgium  the  custom  of  kindling  the  midsummer  bonfires  has  I 
long  disappeared  from  the  great  cities,  but  it  is  still  kept  up  in  rural 
districts  and  small  towns.  In  that  country  the  Eve  of  St.  Peter’s 
Day  (the  twenty-ninth  of  June)  is  celebrated  by  bonfires  and  dances  i 
exactly  like  those  which  commemorate  St.  John’s  Eve.  Some  people 
say  that  the  fires  of  St.  Peter,  like  those  of  St.  John,  are  lighted  in  | 
order  to  drive  away  dragons.  In  French  Flanders  down  to  1789  a 
straw  figure  representing  a  man  was  always  burned  in  the  midsummer 
bonfire,  and  the  figure  of  a  woman  was  burned  on  St.  Peter’s  Day,  the 
twenty-ninth  of  June.  In  Belgium  people  jump  over  the  midsummer : 
bonfires  as  a  preventive  of  colic,  and  they  keep  the  ashes  at  home  tc  3 
hinder  fire  from  breaking  out. 

The  custom  of  lighting  bonfires  at  midsummer  has  been  observer : 
in  many  parts  of  our  own  country,  and  as  usual  people  danced  rounc 
and  leaped  over  them.  In  Wales  three  or  nine  different  kinds  of  wooc 
and  charred  faggots  carefully  preserved  from  the  last  midsummer 
were  deemed  necessary  to  build  the  bonfire,  which  was  generally  don< 
on  rising  ground.  In  the  Vale  of  Glamorgan  a  cart-wheel  swathed  iijj 
straw  used  to  be  ignited  and  sent  rolling  down  the  hill.  If  it  kep 
alight  all  the  way  down  and  blazed  for  a  long  time,  an  abundan 
harvest  was  expected.  On  Midsummer  Eve  people  in  the  Isle  of  Mali 
were  wont  to  light  fires  to  the  windward  of  every  field,  so  that  th 
smoke  might  pass  over  the  corn  ;  and  the}'  folded  their  cattle  an< 


LXII 


THE  MIDSUMMER  FIRES 


631 


carried  blazing  furze  or  gorse  round  them  several  times.  In  Ireland 
cattle,  especially  barren  cattle,  were  driven  through  the  midsummer 
fires,  and  the  ashes  were  thrown  on  the  fields  to  fertilise  them,  or  live 
coals  were  carried  into  them  to  prevent  blight.  In  Scotland  the  traces 
of  midsummer  fires  are  few  ;  but  at  that  season  in  the  highlands  of 
Perthshire  cowherds  used  to  go  round  their  folds  thrice,  in  the  direction 
of  the  sun,  with  lighted  torches.  This  they  did  to  purify  the  flocks 
and  herds  and  to  keep  them  from  falling  sick. 

The  practice  of  lighting  bonfires  on  Midsummer  Eve  and  dancing 
or  leaping  over  them  is,  or  was  till  recently,  common  all  over  Spain 
and  in  some  parts  of  Italy  and  Sicily.  In  Malta  great  fires  are  kindled 
in  the  streets  and  squares  of  the  towns  and  villages  on  the  Eve  of  St. 
John  (Midsummer  Eve)  ;  formerly  the  Grand  Master  of  the  Order  of 
St.  John  used  on  that  evening  to  set  fire  to  a  heap  of  pitch  barrels 
placed  in  front  of  the  sacred  Hospital.  In  Greece,  too,  the  custom  of 
kindling  fires  on  St.  John’s  Eve  and  jumping  over  them  is  said  to  be 
still  universal.  One  reason  assigned  for  it  is  a  wish  to  escape  from  the 
fleas.  According  to  another  account,  the  women  cry  out,  as  they 
leap  over  the  fire,  “  I  leave  my  sins  behind  me.”  In  Lesbos  the  fires 
on  St.  John’s  Eve  are  usually  lighted  by  threes,  and  the  people  spring 
thrice  over  them,  each  with  a  stone  on  his  head,  saying,  “  I  jump  the 
hare’s  fire,  my  head  a  stone  !  ”  In  Calymnos  the  midsummer  fire  is 
supposed  to  ensure  abundance  in  the  coming  year  as  well  as  deliverance 
from  fleas.  The  people  dance  round  the  fires  singing,  with  stones  on 
their  heads,  and  then  jump  over  the  blaze  or  the  glowing  embers. 
When  the  fire  is  burning  low,  they  throw  the  stones  into  it ;  and  when 
it  is  nearly  out,  they  make  crosses  on  their  legs  and  then  go  straightway 
and  bathe  in  the  sea. 

The  custom  of  kindling  bonfires  on  Midsummer  Day  or  on  Mid¬ 
summer  Eve  is  widely  spread  among  the  Mohammedan  peoples  of 
North  Africa,  particularly  in  Morocco  and  Algeria  ;  it  is  common 
both  to  the  Berbers  and  to  many  of  the  Arabs  or  Arabic-speaking  tribes. 
In  these  countries  Midsummer  Day  (the  twenty-fourth  of  June,  Old 
Style)  is  called  l  'dnsara.  The  fires  are  lit  in  the  courtyards,  at  cross¬ 
roads,  in  the  fields,  and  sometimes  on  the  threshing-floors.  Plants 
which  in  burning  give  out  a  thick  smoke  and  an  aromatic  smell  are  much 
sought  after  for  fuel  on  these  occasions  ;  among  the  plants  used  for  the 
purpose  are  giant-fennel,  thyme,  rue,  chervil-seed,  camomile,  geranium, 
and  penny-royal.  People  expose  themselves,  and  especially  their 
children,  to  the  smoke,  and  drive  it  towards  the  orchards  and  the 
crops.  Also  they  leap  across  the  fires  ;  in  some  places  everybody 
ought  to  repeat  the  leap  seven  times.  Moreover  they  take  burning 
brands  from  the  fires  and  carry  them  through  the  houses  in  order 
to  fumigate  them.  They  pass  things  through  the  fire,  and  bring  the 
sick  into  contact  with  it,  while  they  utter  prayers  for  their  recovery. 
The  ashes  of  the  bonfires  are  also  reputed  to  possess  beneficial  pro¬ 
perties  ;  hence  in  some  places  people  rub  their  hair  or  their  bodies 
with  them.  In  some  places  they  think  that  by  leaping  over  the  fires 


632  THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  OF  EUROPE  ch. 

they  rid  themselves  of  all  misfortune,  and  that  childless  couples  thereby 
obtain  offspring.  Berbers  of  the  Rif  province,  in  Northern  Morocco, 
make  great  use  of  fires  at  midsummer  for  the  good  of  themselves,  their 
cattle,  and  their  fruit-trees.  They  jump  over  the  bonfires  in  the  belief 
that  this  will  preserve  them  in  good  health,  and  they  light  fires  under 
fruit-trees  to  keep  the  fruit  from  falling  untimely.  And  they  imagine 
that  by  rubbing  a  paste  of  the  ashes  on  their  hair  they  prevent  the  hair 
from  falling  off  their  heads.  In  all  these  Moroccan  customs,  we  are  told, 
the  beneficial  effect  is  attributed  wholly  to  the  smoke,  which  is  supposed 
to  be  endued  with  a  magical  quality  that  removes  misfortune  from 
men,  animals,  fruit-trees,  and  crops. 

The  celebration  of  a  midsummer  festival  by  Mohammedan  peoples 
is  particularly  remarkable,  because  the  Mohammedan  calendar,  being 
purely  lunar  and  uncorrected  by  intercalation,  necessarily  takes  no 
note  of  festivals  which  occupy  fixed  points  in  the  solar  year  ;  all 
strictly  Mohammedan  feasts,  being  pinned  to  the  moon,  slide  gradually 
with  that  luminary  through  the  whole  period  of  the  earth’s  revolution 
about  the  sun.  This  fact  of  itself  seems  to  prove  that  among  the 
Mohammedan  peoples  of  Northern  Africa,  as  among  the  Christian 
peoples  of  Europe,  the  midsummer  festival  is  quite  independent  of  the 
religion  which  the  people  publicly  profess,  and  is  a  relic  of  a  far  older 
paganism. 

§  6.  The  Hallowe’en  Fires. — From  the  foregoing  survey  we  may 
infer  that  among  the  heathen  forefathers  of  the  European  peoples  the 
most  popular  and  widespread  fire-festival  of  the  year  was  the  great 
celebration  of  Midsummer  Eve  or  Midsummer  Day.  The  coincidence 
of  the  festival  with  the  summer  solstice  can  hardly  be  accidental. 
Rather  we  must  suppose  that  our  pagan  ancestors  purposely  timed  the 
ceremony  of  fire  on  earth  to  coincide  with  the  arrival  of  the  sun  at  the 
highest  point  of  his  course  in  the  sky.  If  that  was  so,  it  follows  that 
the  old  founders  of  the  midsummer  rites  had  observed  the  solstices  or 
turning-points  of  the  sun’s  apparent  path  in  the  sky,  and  that  they 
accordingly  regulated  their  festal  calendar  to  some  extent  by  astro¬ 
nomical  considerations. 

But  while  this  may  be  regarded  as  fairly  certain  for  what  we  may 
call  the  aborigines  throughout  a  large  part  of  the  continent,  it  appears 
not  to  have  been  true  of  the  Celtic  peoples  who  inhabited  the  Land’s 
End  of  Europe,  the  islands  and  promontories  that  stretch  out  into  the 
Atlantic  Ocean  on  the  north-west.  The  principal  fire-festivals  of  the 
Celts,  which  have  survived,  though  in  a  restricted  area  and  with 
diminished  pomp,  to  modern  times  and  even  to  our  own  day,  were 
seemingly  timed  without  any  reference  to  the  position  of  the  sun  in 
the  heaven-.  They  were  two  in  number,  and  fell  at  an  interval  of  six 
months,  one  being  celebrated  on  the  eve  of  May  Day  and  the  other 
on  Allhallow  Even  or  Hallowe’en,  as  it  is  now  commonly  called,  that 
is,  on  the  thirty-first  of  October,  the  day  preceding  All  Saints’  or 
Allhedlows’  Day.  These  dates  coincide  with  none  of  the  four  great 
hinges  on  which  the  solar  year  revolves,  to  wit,  the  solstices  and  the 


LXII 


THE  HALLOWE’EN  FIRES 


633 


r 


equinoxes.  Nor  do  they  agree  with  the  principal  seasons  of  the 
agricultural  year,  the  sowing  in  spring  and  the  reaping  in  autumn. 
For  when  May  Day  comes,  the  seed  has  long  been  committed  to  the 
earth  ;  and  when  November  opens,  the  harvest  has  long  been  reaped 
and  garnered,  the  fields  lie  bare,  the  fruit-trees  are  stripped,  and  even 
the  yellow  leaves  are  fast  fluttering  to  the  ground.  Yet  the  first  of 
May  and  the  first  of  November  mark  turning-points  of  the  year  in 
Europe  ;  the  one  ushers  in  the  genial  heat  and  the  rich  vegetation  of 
summer,  the  other  heralds,  if  it  does  not  share,  the  cold  and  barrenness 
of  winter.  Now  these  particular  points  of  the  year,  as  has  been  well 
pointed  out  by  a  learned  and  ingenious  writer,  while  they  are  of  com¬ 
paratively  little  moment  to  the  European  husbandman,  do  deeply 
concern  the  European  herdsman  ;  for  it  is  on  the  approach  of  summer 
that  he  drives  his  cattle  out  into  the  open  to  crop  the  fresh  grass,  and 
it  is  on  the  approach  of  winter  that  he  leads  them  back  to  the  safety 
and  shelter  of  the  stall.  Accordingly  it  seems  not  improbable  that 
the  Celtic  bisection  of  the  year  into  two  halves  at  the  beginning  of 
May  and  the  beginning  of  November  dates  from  a  time  when  the  Celts 
were  mainly  a  pastoral  people,  dependent  for  their  subsistence  on  their 
herds,  and  when  accordingly  the  great  epochs  of  the  year  for  them 
were  the  days  on  which  the  cattle  went  forth  from  the  homestead  in 
early  summer  and  returned  to  it  again  in  early  winter.  Even  in 
Central  Europe,  remote  from  the  region  now  occupied  by  the  Celts, 
a  similar  bisection  of  the  year  may  be  clearly  traced  in  the  great 
popularity,  on  the  one  hand,  of  May  Day  and  its  Eve  (Walpurgis 
Night),  and,  on  the  other  hand,  of  the  Feast  of  All  Souls  at  the  beginning 
of  November,  which  under  a  thin  Christian  cloak  conceals  an  ancient 
pagan  festival  of  the  dead.  Hence  we  may  conjecture  that  everywhere 
throughout  Europe  the  celestial  division  of  the  year  according  to  the 
solstices  was  preceded  by  what  we  may  call  a  terrestrial  division  of 
the  year  according  to  the  beginning  of  summer  and  the  beginning 
of  winter. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  the  two  great  Celtic  festivals  of  May  Day  and  the 
first  of  November,  or,  to  be  more  accurate,  the  Eves  of  these  two  days, 
closely  resemble  each  other  in  the  manner  of  their  celebration  and  in 
the  superstitions  associated  with  them,  and  alike,  by  the  antique 
character  impressed  upon  both,  betray  a  remote  and  purely  pagan 
origin.  The  festival  of  May  Day  or  Beltane,  as  the  Celts  called  it, 
which  ushered  in  summer,  has  already  been  described  ;  it  remains  to 
give  some  account  of  the  corresponding  festival  of  Hallowe’en,  which 
announced  the  arrival  of  winter. 

Of  the  two  feasts  Hallowe’en  was  perhaps  of  old  the  more  im¬ 
portant,  since  the  Celts  would  seem  to  have  dated  the  beginning  of  the 
year  from  it  rather  than  from  Beltane.  In  the  Isle  of  Man,  one  of  the 
fortresses  in  which  the  Celtic  language  and  lore  longest  held  out  against 
the  siege  of  the  Saxon  invaders,  the  first  of  November,  Old  Style,  has 
been  regarded  as  New  Year’s  Day  down  to  recent  times.  Thus  Manx 
mummers  used  to  go  round  on  Hallowe’en  (Old  Style),  singing,  in  the 


634  THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  OF  EUROPE  ch. 

Manx  language,  a  sort  of  Hogmanay  song  which  began  “  To-night  is 
New  Year’s  Night,  Hogunnaa  !  ”  In  ancient  Ireland,  a  new  fire  used 
to  be  kindled  every  year  on  Hallowe’en  or  the  Eve  of  Samhain,  and 
from  this  sacred  flame  all  the  fires  in  Ireland  were  rekindled.  Such  a 
custom  points  strongly  to  Samhain  or  All  Saints’  Day  (the  first  of 
November)  as  New  Year’s  Day ;  since  the  annual  kindling  of  a  new 
fire  takes  place  most  naturally  at  the  beginning  of  the  year,  in  order 
that  the  blessed  influence  of  the  fresh  fire  may  last  throughout  the 
whole  period  of  twelve  months.  Another  confirmation  of  the  view 
that  the  Celts  dated  their  year  from  the  first  of  November  is  furnished 
by  the  manifold  modes  of  divination  which  were  commonly  resorted 
to  by  Celtic  peoples  on  Hallowe’en  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  their 
destiny,  especially  their  fortune  in  the  coming  year ;  for  when  could 
these  devices  for  prying  into  the  future  be  more  reasonably  put  in 
practice  than  at  the  beginning  of  the  year  ?  As  a  season  of  omens 
and  auguries  Hallowe’en  seems  to  have  far  surpassed  Beltane  in  the 
imagination  of  the  Celts  ;  from  which  we  may  with  some  probability 
infer  that  they  reckoned  their  year  from  Hallowe’en  rather  than 
Beltane.  Another  circumstance  of  great  moment  which  points  to  the 
same  conclusion  is  the  association  of  the  dead  with  Hallowe’en.  Not 
only  among  the  Celts  but  throughout  Europe,  Hallowe’en,  the  night 
which  marks  the  transition  from  autumn  to  winter,  seems  to  have 
been  of  old  the  time  of  year  when  the  souls  of  the  departed  were 
supposed  to  revisit  their  old  homes  in  order  to  warm  themselves  by 
the  fire  and  to  comfort  themselves  with  the  good  cheer  provided  for 
them  in  the  kitchen  or  the  parlour  by  their  affectionate  kinsfolk.  It 
was,  perhaps,  a  natural  thought  that  the  approach  of  winter  should 
drive  the  poor  shivering  hungry  ghosts  from  the  bare  fields  and  the 
leafless  woodlands  to  the  shelter  of  the  cottage  with  its  familiar  fireside. 
Did  not  the  lowing  kine  then  troop  back  from  the  summer  pastures  in 
the  forests  and  on  the  hills  to  be  fed  and  cared  for  in  the  stalls,  while 
the  bleak  winds  whistled  among  the  swaying  boughs  and  the  snow¬ 
drifts  deepened  in  the  hollows  ?  and  could  the  good-man  and  the  good- 
wife  deny  to  the  spirits  of  their  dead  the  welcome  which  they  gave  to 
the  cows  ? 

But  it  is  not  only  the  souls  of  the  departed  who  are  supposed  to  be 
hovering  unseen  on  the  day  “  when  autumn  to  winter  resigns  the  pale 
year.”  Witches  then  speed  on  their  errands  of  mischief,  some  sweep¬ 
ing  through  the  air  on  besoms,  others  galloping  along  the  roads  on 
tabby-cats,  which  for  that  evening  are  turned  into  coal-black  steeds. 
The  fairies,  too,  are  all  let  loose,  and  hobgoblins  of  every  sort  roam 
freely  about. 

Yet  while  a  glamour  of  mystery  and  awe  has  always  clung  to 
Hallowe’en  in  the  minds  of  the  Celtic  peasantry,  the  popular  celebra¬ 
tion  of  the  festival  has  been,  at  least  in  modern  times,  by  no  means 
of  a  prevailingly  gloomy  cast  ;  on  the  contrary  it  has  been  attended 
by  picturesque  features  and  merry  pastimes,  which  rendered  it  the 
gayest  night  of  all  the  year.  Amongst  the  things  which  in  the  High- 


LXII 


THE  HALLOWE’EN  FIRES 


635 


lands  of  Scotland  contributed  to  invest  the  festival  with  a  romantic 
beauty  were  the  bonfires  which  used  to  blaze  at  frequent  intervals 
on  the  heights.  “  On  the  last  day  of  autumn  children  gathered  ferns, 
tar-barrels,  the  long  thin  stalks  called  gdinisg,  and  everything  suitable 
for  a  bonfire.  These  were  placed  in  a  heap  on  some  eminence  near 
the  house,  and  in  the  evening  set  fire  to.  The  fires  were  called 
Samhnagan.  There  was  one  for  each  house,  and  it  was  an  object 
of  ambition  who  should  have  the  biggest.  Whole  districts  were 
brilliant  with  bonfires,  and  their  glare  across  a  Highland  loch,  and 
from  many  eminences,  formed  an  exceedingly  picturesque  scene.” 
Like  the  Beltane  fires  on  the  first  of  May,  the  Hallowe’en  bonfires 
seem  to  have  been  kindled  most  commonly  in  the  Perthshire  Highlands. 
In  the  parish  of  Callander  they  still  blazed  down  to  near  the  end  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  When  the  fire  had  died  down,  the  ashes 
were  carefully  collected  in  the  form  of  a  circle,  and  a  stone  was  put 
in,  near  the  circumference,  for  every  person  of  the  several  families 
interested  in  the  bonfire.  Next  morning,  if  any  of  these  stones  was 
found  to  be  displaced  or  injured,  the  people  made  sure  that  the  person 
represented  by  it  was  fey  or  devoted,  and  that  he  could  not  live  twelve 
months  from  that  day.  At  Balquhidder  down  to  the  latter  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century  each  household  kindled  its  bonfire  at  Hallowe’en, 
but  the  custom  was  chiefly  observed  by  children.  The  fires  were 
lighted  on  any  high  knoll  near  the  house  ;  there  was  no  dancing  round 
them.  Hallowe’en  fires  were  also  lighted  in  some  districts  of  the  north¬ 
east  of  Scotland,  such  as  Buchan.  Villagers  and  farmers  alike  must 
have  their  fire.  In  the  villages  the  boys  went  from  house  to  house 
and  begged  a  peat  from  each  householder,  usually  with  the  words, 
“  Ge’s  a  peat  t’  burn  the  witches.”  When  they  had  collected  enough 
peats,  they  piled  them  in  a  heap,  together  with  straw,  furze,  and  other 
combustible  materials,  and  set  the  whole  on  fire.  Then  each  of  the 
youths,  one  after  another,  laid  himself  down  on  the  ground  as  near  to 
the  fire  as  he  could  without  being  scorched,  and  thus  lying  allowed  the 
smoke  to  roll  over  him.  The  others  ran  through  the  smoke  and 
jumped  over  their  prostrate  comrade.  When  the  heap  was  burned 
down,  they  scattered  the  ashes,  vying  with  each  other  who  should 
scatter  them  most. 

In  the  northern  part  of  Wales  it  used  to  be  customary  for  every 
family  to  make  a  great  bonfire  called  Coel  Coeth  on  Hallowe’en.  The 
fire  was  kindled  on  the  most  conspicuous  spot  near  the  house  ;  and 
when  it  had  nearly  gone  out  every  one  threw  into  the  ashes  a  white 
stone,  which  he  had  first  marked.  Then  having  said  their  prayers 
round  the  fire,  they  went  to  bed.  Next  morning,  as  soon  as  they 
were  up,  they  came  to  search  out  the  stones,  and  if  any  one  of  them 
was  found  to  be  missing,  they  had  a  notion  that  the  person  who  threw 
it  would  die  before  he  saw  another  Hallowe’en.  According  to  Sir 
John  Rhys,  the  habit  of  celebrating  Hallowe’en  by  lighting  bonfires 
on  the  hills  is  perhaps  not  yet  extinct  in  Wales,  and  men  still  living 
can  remember  how  the  people  who  assisted  at  the  bonfires  would 


THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  OF  EUROPE 


CH. 


636 


wait  till  the  last  spark  was  out  and  then  would  suddenly  take  to  their 
heels,  shouting  at  the  top  of  their  voices,  “  The  cropped  black  sow 
seize  the  hindmost  !  ”  The  saying,  as  Sir  John  Rhys  justly  remarks, 
implies  that  originally  one  of  the  company  became  a  victim  in  dead 
earnest.  Down  to  the  present  time  the  saying  is  current  in  Carnarvon¬ 
shire,  where  allusions  to  the  cutty  black  sow  are  still  occasionally 
made  to  frighten  children.  We  can  now  understand  why  in  Lower 
Brittany  every  person  throws  a  pebble  into  the  midsummer  bonfire. 
Doubtless  there,  as  in  Wales  and  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  omens 
of  life  and  death  have  at  one  time  or  other  been  drawn  from  the  position 
and  state  of  the  pebbles  on  the  morning  of  All  Saints’  Day.  The 
custom,  thus  found  among  three  separate  branches  of  the  Celtic  stock, 
probably  dates  from  a  period  before  their  dispersion,  or  at  least  from 
a  time  when  alien  races  had  not  3^et  driven  home  the  wedges  of  separa¬ 
tion  between  them. 

In  the  Isle  of  Man  also,  another  Celtic  country,  Hallowe’en  was 
celebrated  down  to  modern  times  by  the  kindling  of  fires,  accompanied 
with  all  the  usual  ceremonies  designed  to  prevent  the  baneful  influence 
of  fairies  and  witches. 

§  7.  The  Midwinter  Fires. — If  the  heathen  of  ancient  Europe 
celebrated,  as  we  have  good  reason  to  believe,  the  season  of  Midsummer 
with  a  great  festival  of  fire,  of  which  the  traces  have  survived  in  many 
places  down  to  our  own  time,  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  they  should 
have  observed  with  similar  rites  the  corresponding  season  of  Mid¬ 
winter  ;  for  Midsummer  and  Midwinter,  or,  in  more  technical  language, 
the  summer  solstice  and  the  winter  solstice,  are  the  two  great  turning- 
points  in  the  sun’s  apparent  course  through  the  sky,  and  from  the 
standpoint  of  primitive  man  nothing  might  seem  more  appropriate 
than  to  kindle  fires  on  earth  at  the  two  moments  when  the  fire  and 
heat  of  the  great  luminary  in  heaven  begin  to  wane  or  to  wax. 

In  modern  Christendom  the  ancient  fire-festival  of  the  winter 
solstice  appears  to  survive,  or  to  have  survived  down  to  recent  years, 
in  the  old  custom  of  the  Yule  log,  clog,  or  block,  as  it  was  variously 
called  in  England.  The  custom  was  widespread  in  Europe,  but  seems 
to  have  flourished  especially  in  England,  France,  and  among  the 
South  Slavs  ;  at  least  the  fullest  accounts  of  the  custom  come  from 
these  quarters.  That  the  Yule  log  was  only  the  winter  counterpart 
of  the  midsummer  bonfire,  kindled  within  doors  instead  of  in  the 
open  air  on  account  of  the  cold  and  inclement  weather  of  the  season, 
was  pointed  out  long  ago  by  our  English  antiquary  John  Brand  ; 
and  the  view  is  supported  by  the  many  quaint  superstitions  attaching 
to  the  Yule  log,  superstitions  which  have  no  apparent  connexion 
with  Christianity  but  carry  their  heathen  origin  plainly  stamped 
upon  them.  But  while  the  two  solstitial  celebrations  were  both 
festivals  of  fire,  the  necessity  or  desirability  of  holding  the  winter 
celebration  within  doors  lent  it  the  character  of  a  private  or  domestic 
festivity,  which  contrasts  strongly  with  the  publicity  of  the  summer 
celebration,  at  which  the  people  gathered  on  some  open  space  or 


THE  MIDWINTER  FIRES 


I.XII 


637 


conspicuous  height,  kindled  a  huge  bonfire  in  common,  and  danced 
and  made  merry  round  it  together. 

Down  to  about  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  old  rite 
of  the  Yule  log  was  kept  up  in  some  parts  of  Central  Germany.  Thus 
in  the  valleys  of  the  Sieg  and  Lahn  the  Yule  log,  a  heavy  block  of 
oak,  was  fitted  into  the  floor  of  the  hearth,  where,  though  it  glowed 
under  the  fire,  it  was  hardly  reduced  to  ashes  within  a  year.  When 
the  new  log  was  laid  next  year,  the  remains  of  the  old  one  were  ground 
to  powder  and  strewed  over  the  fields  during  the  Twelve  Nights, 
which  was  supposed  to  promote  the  growth  of  the  crops.  In  some 
villages  of  Westphalia  the  practice  was  to  withdraw  the  Yule  log 
(< Christbrand )  from  the  fire  so  soon  as  it  was  slightly  charred  ;  it  was 
then  kept  carefully  to  be  replaced  on  the  fire  whenever  a  thunder¬ 
storm  broke,  because  the  people  believed  that  lightning  would  not 
strike  a  house  in  which  the  Yule  log  was  smouldering.  In  other 
villages  of  Westphalia  the  old  custom  was  to  tie  up  the  Yule  log  in 
the  last  sheaf  cut  at  harvest. 

In  several  provinces  of  France,  and  particularly  in  Provence,  the 
custom  of  the  Yule  log  or  trefoir,  as  it  was  called  in  many  places, 
was  long  observed.  A  French  writer  of  the  seventeenth  century 
denounces  as  superstitious  “  the  belief  that  a  log  called  the  trefoir  or 
Christmas  brand,  which  you  put  on  the  fire  for  the  first  time  on  Christ¬ 
mas  Eve  and  continue  to  put  on  the  fire  for  a  little  while  every  day 
till  Twelfth  Night,  can,  if  kept  under  the  bed,  protect  the  house  for 
a  whole1  year  from  fire  and  thunder ;  that  it  can  prevent  the  inmates 
from  having  chilblains  on  their  heels  in  winter ;  that  it  can  cure  the 
cattle  of  many  maladies  ;  that  if  a  piece  of  it  be  steeped  in  the  water 
which  cows  drink  it  helps  them  to  calve  ;  and  lastly  that  if  the  ashes 
of  the  log  be  strewn  on  the  fields  it  can  save  the  wheat  from  mildew.” 

In  some  parts  of  Flanders  and  France  the  remains  of  the  Yule 
log  were  regularly  kept  in  the  house  under  a  bed  as  a  protection  against 
thunder  and  lightning  ;  in  Berry,  when  thunder  was  heard,  a  member 
of  the  family  used  to  take  a  piece  of  the  log  and  throw  it  on  the  fire, 
which  was  believed  to  avert  the  lightning.  Again,  in  Perigord,  the 
charcoal  and  ashes  are  carefully  collected  and  kept  for  healing  swollen 
glands  ;  the  part  of  the  trunk  which  has  not  been  burnt  in  the  fire 
is  used  by  ploughmen  to  make  the  wedge  for  their  plough,  because 
they  allege  that  it  causes  the  seeds  to  thrive  better ;  and  the  women 
keep  pieces  of  it  till  Twelfth  Night  for  the  sake  of  their  chickens. 
Some  people  imagine  that  they  will  have  as  many  chickens  as  there 
are  sparks  that  fly  out  of  the  brands  of  the  log  when  they  shake  them  ; 
and  others  place  the  extinct  brands  under  the  bed  to  drive  away 
vermin.  In  various  parts  of  France  the  charred  log  is  thought  to 
guard  the  house  against  sorcery  as  well  as  against  lightning. 

In  England  the  customs  and  beliefs  concerning  the  Yule  log  used 
to  be  similar.  On  the  night  of  Christmas  Eve,  says  the  antiquary  John 
Brand,  “  our  ancestors  were  wont  to  light  up  candles  of  an  uncommon 
size,  called  Christmas  Candles,  and  lay  a  log  of  wood  upon  the  fire. 


638 


THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  OF  EUROPE 


CH. 


called  a  Yule-clog  or  Cliristmas-block,  to  illuminate  the  house,  and,  as 
it  were,  to  turn  night  into  day.”  The  old  custom  was  to  light  the  Yule 
log  with  a  fragment  of  its  predecessor,  which  had  been  kept  throughout 
the  year  for  the  purpose  ;  where  it  was  so  kept,  the  fiend  could  do  no 
mischief.  The  remains  of  the  log  were  also  supposed  to  guard  the 
house  against  fire  and  lightning. 

To  this  day  the  ritual  of  bringing  in  the  Yule  log  is  observed  with 
much  solemnity  among  the  Southern  Slavs,  especially  the  Serbians. 
The  log  is  usually  a  block  of  oak,  but  sometimes  of  olive  or  beech. 
They  seem  to  think  that  they  will  have  as  many  calves,  lambs,  pigs, 
and  kids  as  they  strike  sparks  out  of  the  burning  log.  Some  people 
carry  a  piece  of  the  log  out  to  the  fields  to  protect  them  against  hail. 
In  Albania  down  to  recent  years  it  was  a  common  custom  to  burn  a 
Yule  log  at  Christmas,  and  the  ashes  of  the  fire  were  scattered  on  the 
fields  to  make  them  fertile.  The  Huzuls,  a  Slavonic  people  of  the 
Carpathians,  kindle  fire  by  the  friction  of  wood  on  Christmas  Eve 
(Old  Style,  the  fifth  of  January)  and  keep  it  burning  till  Twelfth  Night. 

It  is  remarkable  how  common  the  belief  appears  to  have  been 
that  the  remains  of  the  Yule  log,  if  kept  throughout  the  year,  had 
power  to  protect  the  house  against  fire  and  especially  against  lightning. 
As  the  Yule  log  was  frequently  of  oak,  it  seems  possible  that  this 
belief  may  be  a  relic  of  the  old  Aryan  creed  which  associated  the 
oak-tree  with  the  god  of  thunder.  Whether  the  curative  and  fertilising 
virtues  ascribed  to  the  ashes  of  the  Yule  log,  which  are  supposed  to 
heal  cattle  as  well  as  men,  to  enable  cows  to  calve,  and  to  promote 
the  fruitfulness  of  the  earth,  may  not  be  derived  from  the  same  ancient 
source,  is  a  question  which  deserves  to  be  considered. 

§  8.  The  Need-fire. — The  fire-festivals  hitherto  described  are  all 
celebrated  periodically  at  certain  stated  times  of  the  year.  But 
besides  these  regularly  recurring  celebrations  the  peasants  in  many 
parts  of  Europe  have  been  wont  from  time  immemorial  to  resort  to 
a  ritual  of  fire  at  irregular  intervals  in  seasons  of  distress  and  calamity, 
above  all  when  their  cattle  were  attacked  by  epidemic  disease.  No 
account  of  the  popular  European  fire-festivals  would  be  complete 
without  some  notice  of  these  remarkable  rites,  which  have  all  the 
greater  claim  on  our  attention  because  they  may  perhaps  be  regarded 
as  the  source  and  origin  of  all  the  other  fire-festivals  ;  certainly  they 
must  date  from  a  very  remote  antiquity.  The  general  name  by  which 
they  are  known  among  the  Teutonic  peoples  is  need-fire.  Sometimes 
the  need-fire  was  known  as  “  wild  fire,”  to  distinguish  it  no  doubt 
from  the  tame  fire  produced  by  more  ordinary  methods.  Among 
Slavonic  peoples  it  is  called  “  living  fire.” 

The  history  of  the  custom  can  be  traced  from  the  early  Middle 
Ages,  when  it  was  denounced  by  the  Church  as  a  heathen  superstition, 
down  to  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  it  was  still 
occasionally  practised  in  various  parts  of  Germany,  England,  Scotland, 
and  Ireland.  Among  Slavonic  peoples  it  appears  to  have  lingered 
even  longer.  The  usual  occasion  for  performing  the  rite  was  an 


LXII 


THE  NEED-FIRE 


outbreak  of  plague  or  cattle-disease,  for  which  the  need-fire  was 
believed  to  be  an  infallible  remedy.  The  animals  which  were  subjected 
to  it  included  cows,  pigs,  horses,  and  sometimes  geese.  As  a  necessary 
preliminary  to  the  kindling  of  the  need-fire  all  other  fires  and  lights 
in  the  neighbourhood  were  extinguished,  so  that  not  so  much  as  a 
spark  remained  alight  ;  for  so  long  as  even  a  night-light  burned  in 
a  house,  it  was  imagined  that  the  need-fire  could  not  kindle.  Some¬ 
times  it  was  deemed  enough  to  put  out  all  the  fires  in  the  village  ; 
but  sometimes  the  extinction  extended  to  neighbouring  villages  or 
to  a  whole  parish.  In  some  parts  of  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  the 
rule  was  that  all  householders  who  dwelt  within  the  two  nearest 
running  streams  should  put  out  their  lights  and  fires  on  the  day 
appointed.  Usually  the  need-fire  was  made  in  the  open  air,  but  in 
some  parts  of  Serbia  it  was  kindled  in  a  dark  room  ;  sometimes  the 
place  was  a  cross-way  or  a  hollow  in  a  road.  In  the  Highlands  of 
Scotland  the  proper  places  for  performing  the  rite  seem  to  have  been 
knolls  or  small  islands  in  rivers. 

The  regular  method  of  producing  the  need-fire  was  by  the  friction 
of  two  pieces  of  wood  ;  it  might  not  be  struck  by  flint  and  steel. 
Very  exceptionally  among  some  South  Slavs  we  read  of  a  practice 
of  kindling  a  need-fire  by  striking  a  piece  of  iron  on  an  anvil.  Where 
the  wood  to  be  employed  is  specified,  it  is  generally  said  to  be  oak  ; 
but  on  the  Lower  Rhine  the  fire  was  kindled  by  the  friction  of  oak- 
wood  or  fir-wood.  In  Slavonic  countries  we  hear  of  poplar,  pear, 
and  cornel  wood  being  used  for  the  purpose.  Often  the  material  is 
simply  described  as  two  pieces  of  dry  wood.  Sometimes  nine  different 
kinds  of  wood  were  deemed  necessary,  but  rather  perhaps  to  be  burned 
in  the  bonfire  than  to  be  rubbed  together  for  the  production  of  the 
need-fire.  The  particular  mode  of  kindling  the  need-fire  varied  in 
different  districts  ;  a  very  common  one  was  this.  Two  poles  were 
driven  into  the  ground  about  a  foot  and  a  half  from  each  other. 
Each  pole  had  in  the  side  facing  the  other  a  socket  into  which  a  smooth 
cross-piece  or  roller  was  fitted.  The  sockets  were  stuffed  with  linen, 
and  the  two  ends  of  the  roller  were  rammed  tightly  into  the  sockets. 
To  make  it  more  inflammable  the  roller  was  often  coated  with  tar. 
A  rope  was  then  wound  round  the  roller,  and  the  free  ends  at  both 
sides  were  gripped  by  two  or  more  persons,  who  by  pulling  the  rope 
to  and  fro  caused  the  roller  to  revolve  rapidly,  till  through  the  friction 
the  linen  in  the  sockets  took  fire.  The  sparks  were  immediately 
caught  in  tow  or  oakum  and  waved  about  in  a  circle  until  they  burst 
into  a  bright  glow,  when  straw  was  applied  to  it,  and  the  blazing  straw 
used  to  kindle  the  fuel  that  had  been  stacked  to  make  the  bonfire. 
Often  a  wheel,  sometimes  a  cart-wheel  or  even  a  spinning-wheel, 
formed  part  of  the  mechanism  ;  in  Aberdeenshire  it  was  called  “  the 
muckle  wheel  "  ;  in  the  island  of  Mull  the  wheel  was  turned  from  east 
to  west  over  nine  spindles  of  oak-wood.  Sometimes  we  are  merely 
told  that  two  wooden  planks  were  rubbed  together.  Sometimes  it 
was  prescribed  that  the  cart-wheel  used  for  fire-making  and  the  axle 


640 


THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  OF  EUROPE 


CH. 


on  which  it  turned  should  both  be  new.  Similarly  it  was  said  that 
the  rope  which  turned  the  roller  should  be  new  ;  if  possible  it  should 
be  woven  of  strands  taken  from  a  gallows  rope  with  which  people 
had  been  hanged,  but  this  was  a  counsel  of  perfection  rather  than  a 
strict  necessity. 

Various  rules  were  also  laid  down  as  to  the  kind  of  persons  who 
might  or  should  make  the  need-fire.  Sometimes  it  was  said  that  the 
two  persons  who  pulled  the  rope  which  twirled  the  roller  should 
always  be  brothers  or  at  least  bear  the  same  baptismal  name  ;  some¬ 
times  it  was  deemed  sufficient  if  they  were  both  chaste  young  men. 
In  some  villages  of  Brunswick  people  thought  that  if  everybody  who 
lent  a  hand  in  kindling  the  need-fire  did  not  bear  the  same  Christian 
name,  they  would  labour  in  vain.  In  Silesia  the  tree  employed  to  pro¬ 
duce  the  need-fire  used  to  be  felled  by  a  pair  of  twin  brothers.  In  the 
western  islands  of  Scotland  the  fire  was  kindled  by  eighty-one  married 
men,  who  rubbed  two  great  planks  against  each  other,  working  in  relays 
of  nine ;  in  North  Uist  the  nine  times  nine  who  made  the  fire  were  all 
first-begotten  sons,  but  we  are  not  told  whether  they  were  married  or 
single.  Among  the  Serbians  the  need-fire  is  sometimes  kindled  by  a 
boy  and  girl  between  eleven  and  fourteen  years  of  age,  who  work  stark 
naked  in  a  dark  room  ;  sometimes  it  is  made  by  an  old  man  and  an  old 
woman  also  in  the  dark.  In  Bulgaria,  too,  the  makers  of  need-fire 
sti  ip  themselves  of  their  clothes  \  in  Caithness  they  divested  themselves 
of  all  kinds  of  metal.  If  after  long  rubbing  of  the  wood  no  fire  was 
elicited  they  concluded  that  some  fire  must  still  be  burning  in  the 
village  ;  so  a  strict  search  was  made  from  house  to  house,  any  fire 
that  might  be  found  was  put  out,  and  the  negligent  householder 
punished  or  upbraided  ;  indeed  a  heavy  fine  might  be  inflicted  on  him. 

When  the  need-fire  was  at  last  kindled,  the  bonfire  was  lit  from  it, 
and  as  soon  as  the  blaze  had  somewhat  died  down,  the  sick  animals 
weie  driven  over  the  glowing  embers,  sometimes  in  a  regular  order 
of  precedence,  first  the  pigs,  next  the  cows,  and  last  of  all  the  horses. 
Sometimes  they  were  driven  twice  or  thrice  through  the  smoke  and 
flames,  so  that  occasionally  some  of  them  were  scorched  to  death. 
As  soon  as  all  the  beasts  were  through,  the  young  folk  would 
lush  wildly  at  the  ashes  and  cinders,  sprinkling  and  blackening 
each  other  with  them  ;  those  who  were  most  blackened  would  march 
in  triumph  behind  the  cattle  into  the  village  and  would  not  wash 
themselves  foi  a  long  time.  From  the  bonfire  people  carried  live 
embers  home  and  used  them  to  rekindle  the  fires  in  their  houses. 
These  brands,  after  being  extinguished  in  water,  they  sometimes 
put  in  the  mangers  at  which  the  cattle  fed,  and  kept  them  there  for 
a  while.  Ashes  from  the  need-fire  were  also  strewed  on  the  fields 
to  protect  the  crops  against  vermin  ;  sometimes  they  were  taken 
home  to  be  employed  as  remedies  in  sickness,  being  sprinkled  on  the 
ailing  part  01  mixed  in  water  and  drunk  by  the  patient.  In  the 
v  estern  islands  of  Scotland  and  on  the  adjoining  mainland,  as  soon 
as  the  fire  on  the  domestic  hearth  had  been  rekindled  from  the  need- 


lxiii  ON  THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  IN  GENERAL  641 

fire,  a  pot  full  of  water  was  set  on  it,  and  the  water  thus  heated  was 
afterwards  sprinkled  upon  the  people  infected  with  the  plague  or 
upon  the  cattle  that  were  tainted  by  the  murrain.  Special  virtue 
was  attributed  to  the  smoke  of  the  bonfire  ;  in  Sweden  fruit-trees 
and  nets  were  fumigated  with  it,  in  order  that  the  trees  might  bear 
fruit  and  the  nets  catch  fish.  In  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  the 
need-fire  was  accounted  a  sovereign  remedy  for  witchcraft.  In  the 
island  of  Mull,  when  the  fire  was  kindled  as  a  cure  for  the  murrain, 
we  hear  of  the  rite  being  accompanied  by  the  sacrifice  of  a  sick  heifer] 
which  was  cut  in  pieces  and  burnt.  Slavonian  and  Bulgarian  peasants 
:onceive  cattle-plague  as  a  foul  fiend  or  vampyre  which  can  be  kept  at 
bay  by  interposing  a  barrier  of  fire  between  it  and  the  herds.  A  similar 
conception  may  perhaps  have  originally  everywhere  underlain  the  use 
)f  the  need-fire  as  a  remedy  for  the  murrain.  It  appears  that  in  some 
Darts  of  Germany  the  people  did  not  wait  for.  an  outbreak  of  cattle- 
Dlague,  but,  taking  time  by  the  forelock,  kindled  a  need-fire  annually 
:o  prevent  the  calamity.  Similarly  in  Poland  the  peasants  are  said  to 
dndle  fires  in  the  village  streets  every  year  on  St.  Rochus’s  day  and 
:o  drive  the  cattle  thrice  through  them  in  order  to  protect  the  beasts 
igainst  the  murrain.  We  have  seen  that  in  the  Hebrides  the  cattle 
vere  in  like  manner  driven  annually  round  the  Beltane  fires  for  the 
same  purpose.  In  some  cantons  of  Switzerland  children  still  kindle  a 
leed-fire  by  the  friction  of  wood  for  the  sake  of  dispelling  a  mist. 


CHAPTER  LXIII 

THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS 

I.  On  the  Fire- festivals  in  general. — The  foregoing  survey  of  the 
>opular  fire-festivals  of  Europe  suggests  some  general  observations, 
n  the  first  place  we  can  hardly  help  being  struck  by  the  resemblance 
/hich  the  ceremonies  bear  to  each  other,  at  whatever  time  of  the  year 
nd  in  whatever  part  of  Europe  they  are  celebrated.  The  custom  of 
indling  great  bonfires,  leaping  over  them,  and  driving  cattle  through 
r  round  them  would  seem  to  have  been  practically  universal  through- 
ut  Europe,  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  processions  or  races  with 
lazing  torches  round  fields,  orchards,  pastures,  or  cattle-stalls.  Less 
ddespread  are  the  customs  of  hurling  lighted  discs  into  the  air  and 
rundling  a  burning  wheel  down  hill.  The  ceremonial  of  the  Yule  log 
;  distinguished  from  that  of  the  other  fire-festivals  by  the  privacy  and 
omesticity  which  characterise  it ;  but  this  distinction  may  well  be 
ue  simply  to  the  rough  weather  of  midwinter,  which  is  apt  not  only 
d  render  a  public  assembly  in  the  open  air  disagreeable,  but  also  at 
ny  moment  to  defeat  the  object  of  the  assembly  by  extinguishing  the 
11-important  fire  under  a  downpour  of  rain  or  a  fall  of  snow.  Apart 
com  these  local  or  seasonal  differences,  the  general  resemblance  between 

2  T 


642  THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  ch. 

the  fire-festivals  at  all  times  of  the  year  and  in  all  places  is  tolerably 
close.  And  as  the  ceremonies  themselves  resemble  each  other,  so  do 
the  benefits  which  the  people  expect  to  reap  from  them.  Whether 
applied  in  the  form  of  bonfires  blazing  at  fixed  points,  or  of  torches 
carried  about  from  place  to  place,  or  of  embers  and  ashes  taken  from 
the  smouldering  heap  of  fuel,  the  fire  is  believed  to  promote  the  growth 
of  the  crops  and  the  welfare  of  man  and  beast,  either  positively  by 
stimulating  them,  or  negatively  by  averting  the  dangers  and  calamities 
which  threaten  them  from  such  causes  as  thunder  and  lightning,  con¬ 
flagration,  blight,  mildew,  vermin,  sterility,  disease,  and  not  least  of 
all  witchcraft. 

But  we  naturally  ask,  How  did  it  come  about  that  benefits  so  great 
and  manifold  were  supposed  to  be  attained  by  means  so  simple  ?  In 
what  way  did  people  imagine  that  they  could  procure  so  many  goods 
or  avoid  so  many  ills  by  the  application  of  fire  and  smoke,  of  embers 
and  ashes  ?  Two  different  explanations  of  the  fire-festivals  have  been 
given  by  modem  enquirers.  On  the  one  hand  it  has  been  held  that 
they  are  sun-charms  or  magical  ceremonies  intended,  on  the  principle 
of  imitative  magic,  to  ensure  a  needful  supply  of  sunshine  for  men, 
animals,  and  plants  by  kindling  fires  which  mimic  on  earth  the  great 
source  of  light  and  heat  in  the  sky.  This  was  the  view  of  Wilhelm 
Mannhardt.  It  may  be  called  the  solar  theory.  On  the  other  hand 
it  has  been  maintained  that  the  ceremonial  fires  have  no  necessary 
reference  to  the  sun  but  are  simply  purificatory  in  intention,  being 
designed  to  burn  up  and  destroy  all  harmful  influences,  whether  these 
are  conceived  in  a  personal  form  as  witches,  demons,  and  monsters, 
or  in  an  impersonal  form  as  a  sort  of  pervading  taint  or  corruption  of 
the  air.  This  is  the  view  of  Dr.  Edward  Westermarck  and  apparently 
of  Professor  Eugen  Mogk.  It  may  be  called  the  purificatory  theory. 
Obviously  the  two  theories  postulate  two  very  different  conceptions 
of  the  fire  which  plays  the  principal  part  in  the  rites.  On  the  one  view, 
the  fire,  like  sunshine  in  our  latitude,  is  a  genial  creative  power  which 
fosters  the  growth  of  plants  and  the  development  of  all  that  makes  foi 
health  and  happiness  ;  on  the  other  view,  the  fire  is  a  fierce  destructive 
power  which  blasts  and  consumes  all  the  noxious  elements,  whether 
spiritual  or  material,  that  menace  the  life  of  men,  of  animals,  and  of 
plants.  According  to  the  one  theory  the  fire  is  a  stimulant,  according 
to  the  other  it  is  a  disinfectant ;  on  the  one  view  its  virtue  is  positive, 
on  the  other  it  is  negative. 

Yet  the  two  explanations,  different  as  they  are  in  the  character 
which  they  attribute  to  the  fire,  are  perhaps  not  wholly  irreconcilable. 
If  we  assume  that  the  fires  kindled  at  these  festivals  were  primarily 
intended  to  imitate  the  sun’s  light  and  heat,  may  we  not  regard  the 
purificatory  and  disinfecting  qualities,  which  popular  opinion  certainly 
appears  to  have  ascribed  to  them,  as  attributes  derived  directly  from 
the  purificatory  and  disinfecting  qualities  of  sunshine  ?  In  this  way 
we  might  conclude  that,  while  the  imitation  of  sunshine  in  these 
ceremonies  was  primary  and  original,  the  purification  attributed  tc 


lxiii  SOLAR  THEORY  OF  FIRE-FESTIVALS  643 

them  was  secondary  and  derivative.  Such  a  conclusion,  occupying 
an  intermediate  position  between  the  two  opposing  theories  and 
recognising  an  element  of  truth  in  both  of  them,  was  adopted  by  me 
in  earlier  editions  of  this  work  ;  but  in  the  meantime  Dr.  Wester- 
marck  has  argued  powerfully  in  favour  of  the  purificatory  theory  alone, 

1  and  I  am  bound  to  say  that  his  arguments  carry  great  weight,  and 
that  on  a  fuller  review  of  the  facts  the  balance  of  evidence  seems  to 
i  me  to  incline  decidedly  in  his  favour.  However,  the  case  is  not  so 
■  clear  as  to  justify  us  in  dismissing  the  solar  theory  without  discussion, 
and  accordingly  I  propose  to  adduce  the  considerations  which  tell  for 
it  before  proceeding  to  notice  those  which  tell  against  it.  A  theory 
which  had  the  support  of  so  learned  and  sagacious  an  investigator  as 
1  W.  Mannhardt  is  entitled  to  a  respectful  hearing. 

J2.  The  Solar  Theory  of  the  Fire-festivals. — In  an  earlier  part  of 
;  this  work  we  saw  that  savages  resort  to  charms  for  making  sunshine, 
and  it  would  be  no  wonder  if  primitive  man  in  Europe  did  the  same. 
Indeed,  when  we  consider  the  cold  and  cloudy  climate  of  Europe 
during  a  great  part  of  the  year,  we  shall  find  it  natural  that  sun-charms 
should  have  played  a  much  more  prominent  part  among  the  super¬ 
stitious  practices  of  European  peoples  than  among  those  of  savages 
who  live  nearer  the  equator  and  who  consequently  are  apt  to  get  in 
I  the  course  of  nature  more  sunshine  than  they  want.  This  view  of 
the  festivals  may  be  supported  by  various  arguments  drawn  partly 
from  their  dates,  partly  from  the  nature  of  the  rites,  and  partly  from 
the  influence  which  they  are  believed  to  exert  upon  the  weather  and 
on  vegetation. 

First,  in  regard  to  the  dates  of  the  festivals  it  can  be  no  mere 
accident  that  two  of  the  most  important  and  widely  spread  of  the 
;  festivals  are  timed  to  coincide  more  or  less  exactly  with  the  summer 
and  winter  solstices,  that  is,  with  the  two  turning-points  in  the  sun’s 
apparent  course  in  the  sky  when  he  reaches  respectively  his  highest 
and  his  lowest  elevation  at  noon.  Indeed  with  respect  to  the  mid- 
:  winter  celebration  of  Christmas  we  are  not  left  to  conjecture  ;  we 
know  from  the  express  testimony  of  the  ancients  that  it  was  instituted 
by  the  church  to  supersede  an  old  heathen  festival  of  the  birth  of  the 
sun,  which  was  apparently  conceived  to  be  born  again  on  the  shortest 
day  of  the  year,  after  which  his  light  and  heat  were  seen  to  grow  till 
they  attained  their  full  maturity  at  midsummer.  Therefore  it  is  no 
very  far-fetched  conjecture  to  suppose  that  the  Yule  log,  which  figures 
so  prominently  in  the  popular  celebration  of  Christmas,  was  originally 
designed  to  help  the  labouring  sun  of  midwinter  to  rekindle  his  seemingly 
expiring  light. 

Not  only  the  date  of  some  of  the  festivals  but  the  manner  of  their 
celebration  suggests  a  conscious  imitation  of  the  sun.  The  custom  of 
rolling  a  burning  wheel  down  a  hill,  which  is  often  observed  at  these 
ceremonies,  might  well  pass  for  an  imitation  of  the  sun’s  course  in  the 
sky,  and  the  imitation  would  be  especially  appropriate  on  Midsummer 
Day  when  the  sun’s  annual  declension  begins.  Indeed  the  custom 


644  THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  ch. 

has  been  thus  interpreted  by  some  of  those  who  have  recorded  it. 
Not  less  graphic,  it  may  be  said,  is  the  mimicry  of  his  apparent  re¬ 
volution  by  swinging  a  burning  tar-barrel  round  a  pole.  Again,  the 
common  practice  of  throwing  fiery  discs,  sometimes  expressly  said  to 
be  shaped  like  suns,  into  the  air  at  the  festivals  may  well  be  a  piece 
of  imitative  magic.  In  these,  as  in  so  many  cases,  th-  magic  force  may 
be  supposed  to  take  effect  through  mimicry  or  sympathy  :  by  imitating 
the  desired  result  you  actually  produce  it  :  by  counterfeiting  the  sun’s 
progress  through  the  heavens  you  really  help  the  luminary  to  pursue 
his  celestial  journey  with  punctuality  and  despatch.  The  name 
"  fire  of  heaven,”  by  which  the  midsummer  fire  is  sometimes  popularly 
known,  clearly  implies  a  consciousness  of  a  connexion  between  the 
earthly  and  the  heavenly  flame. 

Again,  the  manner  in  which  the  fire  appears  to  have  been  originally 
kindled  on  these  occasions  has  been  alleged  in  support  of  the  view  that 
it  was  intended  to  be  a  mock-sun.  As  some  scholars  have  perceived, 
it  is  highly  probable  that  at  the  periodic  festivals  in  former  times  fire 
was  universally  obtained  by  the  friction  of  two  pieces  of  wood.  It  is 
still  so  procured  in  some  places  both  at  the  Easter  and  the  Midsummer 
festivals,  and  it  is  expressly  said  to  have  been  formerly  so  procured 
at  the  Beltane  celebration  both  in  Scotland  and  Wales.  But  what 
makes  it  nearly  certain  that  this  was  once  the  invariable  mode  of 
kindling  the  fire  at  these  periodic  festivals  is  the  analogy  of  the  need- 
fire,  which  has  almost  always  been  produced  by  the  friction  of  wood, 
and  sometimes  by  the  revolution  of  a  wheel.  It  is  a  plausible  con¬ 
jecture  that  the  wheel  employed  for  this  purpose  represents  the  sun, 
and  if  the  fires  at  the  regularly  recurring  celebrations  were  formerly 
produced  in  the  same  way,  it  might  be  regarded  as  a  confirmation  of 
the  view  that  they  were  originally  sun-charms.  In  point  of  fact  there 
is,  as  Kuhn  has  indicated,  some  evidence  to  show  that  the  midsummer 
fire  was  originally  thus  produced.  We  have  seen  that  many  Hungarian 
swine-herds  make  fire  on  Midsummer  Eve  by  rotating  a  wheel  round 
a  wooden  axle  wrapt  in  hemp,  and  that  they  drive  their  pigs  through 
the  fire  thus  made.  At  Obermedlingen,  in  Swabia,  the  “  fire  of  heaven,” 
as  it  was  called,  was  made  on  St.  Vitus’s  Day  (the  fifteenth  of  June) 
by  igniting  a  cart-wheel,  which,  smeared  with  pitch  and  plaited  with 
straw,  was  fastened  on  a  pole  twelve  feet  high,  the  top  of  the  pole 
being  inserted  in  the  nave  of  the  wheel.  This  fire  was  made  on  the 
summit  of  a  mountain,  and  as  the  flame  ascended,  the  people  uttered 
a  set  form  of  words,  with  eyes  and  arms  directed  heavenward.  Here 
the  fixing  of  a  wheel  on  a  pole  and  igniting  it  suggests  that  originally 
the  fire  was  produced,  as  in  the  case  of  the  need-fire,  by  the  revolution 
of  a  wheel.  The  day  on  which  the  ceremony  takes  place  (the  fifteenth 
of  June)  is  near  midsummer ;  and  we  have  seen  that  in  Masuren  fire 
is,  or  used  to  be,  actually  made  on  Midsummer  Day  by  turning  a  wheel 
rapidly  about  an  oaken  pole,  though  it  is  not  said  that  the  new  fire  so 
obtained  is  used  to  light  a  bonfire.  However,  we  must  bear  in  mind 
that  in  all  such  cases  the  use  of  a  wheel  may  be  merely  a  mechanical 


lxiii  SOLAR  THEORY  OF  FIRE-FESTIVALS  645 

device  to  facilitate  the  operation  of  fire-making  by  increasing  the 
friction  ;  it  need  not  have  any  symbolical  significance. 

Further,  the  influence  which  these  fires,  whether  periodic  or 
occasional,  are  supposed  to  exert  on  the  weather  and  vegetation  may 
be  cited  in  support  of  the  view  that  they  are  sun-charms,  since  the 
effects  ascribed  tv.  them  resemble  those  of  sunshine.  Thus,  the  French 
belief  that  in  a  rainy  June  the  lighting  of  the  midsummer  bonfires  will 
cause  the  rain  to  cease  appears  to  assume  that  they  can  disperse  the 
dark  clouds  and  make  the  sun  to  break  out  in  radiant  glory,  drying  the 
wet  earth  and  dripping  trees.  Similarly  the  use  of  the  need-fire  by 
Swiss  children  on  foggy  days  for  the  purpose  of  clearing  away  the  mist 
may  very  naturally  be  interpreted  as  a  sun-charm.  In  the  Vosges 
Mountains  the  people  believe  that  the  midsummer  fires  help  to  preserve 
the  fruits  of  the  earth  and  ensure  good  crops.  In  Sweden  the  warmth 
or  cold  of  the  coming  season  is  inferred  from  the  direction  in  which 
the  flames  of  the  May  Day  bonfire  are  blown  ;  if  they  blow  to  the  south, 
it  will  be  warm,  if  to  the  north,  cold.  No  doubt  at  present  the 
direction  of  the  flames  is  regarded  merely  as  an  augury  of  the  weather, 
not  as  a  mode  of  influencing  it.  But  we  may  be  pretty  sure  that  this 
is  one  of  the  cases  in  which  magic  has  dwindled  into  divination.  So 
in  the  Eifel  Mountains,  when  the  smoke  blows  towards  the  corn-fields, 
this  is  an  omen  that  the  harvest  will  be  abundant.  But  the  older 
view  may  have  been  not  merely  that  the  smoke  and  flames  prognosti¬ 
cated,  but  that  they  actually  produced  an  abundant  harvest,  the  heat 
of  the  flames  acting  like  sunshine  on  the  corn.  Perhaps  it  was  with  this 
view  that  people  in  the  Isle  of  Man  lit  fires  to  windward  of  their  fields 
in  order  that  the  smoke  might  blow  over  them.  So  in  South  Africa, 
about  the  month  of  April,  the  Matabeles  light  huge  fires  to  the  wind¬ 
ward  of  their  gardens,  “  their  idea  being  that  the  smoke,  by  passing 
over  the  crops,  will  assist  the  ripening  of  them.”  Among  the  Zulus 
also  "  medicine  is  burned  on  a  fire  placed  to  windward  of  the  garden, 
the  fumigation  which  the  plants  in  consequence  receive  being  held 
to  improve  the  crop.”  Again,  the  idea  of  our  European  peasants  that 
the  corn  will  grow  well  as  far  as  the  blaze  of  the  bonfire  is  visible,  may 
be  interpreted  as  a  remnant  of  the  belief  in  the  quickening  and  fertilising 
power  of  the  bonfires.  The  same  belief,  it  may  be  argued,  reappears 
in  the  notion  that  embers  taken  from  the  bonfires  and  inserted  in  the 
fields  will  promote  the  growth  of  the  crops,  and  it  may  be  thought 
to  underlie  the  customs  of  sowing  flax-seed  in  the  direction  in  which 
the  flames  blow,  of  mixing  the  ashes  of  the  bonfire  with  the  seed-corn 
at  sowing,  of  scattering  the  ashes  by  themselves  over  the  field  to 
fertilise  it,  and  of  incorporating  a  piece  of  the  Yule  log  in  the  plough 
to  make  the  seeds  thrive.  The  opinion  that  the  flax  or  hemp  will 
grow  as  high  as  the  flames  rise  or  the  people  leap  over  them  belongs 
clearly  to  the  same  class  of  ideas.  Again,  at  Konz,  on  the  banks  of 
the  Moselle,  if  the  blazing  wheel  which  was  trundled  down  the  hillside 
reached  the  river  without  being  extinguished,  this  was  hailed  as  a 
proof  that  the  vintage  would  be  abundant.  So  firmly  was  this  belief 


646  THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  ch. 

held  that  the  successful  performance  of  the  ceremony  entitled  the 
villagers  to  levy  a  tax  upon  the  owners  of  the  neighbouring  vineyards. 
Here  the  unextinguished  wheel  might  be  taken  to  represent  an  un¬ 
clouded  sun,  which  in  turn  would  portend  an  abundant  vintage.  So 
the  waggon-load  of  white  wine  which  the  villagers  received  from  the 
vineyards  round  about  might  pass  for  a  payment  for  the  sunshine 
which  they  had  procured  for  the  grapes.  Similarly  in  the  Vale  of 
Glamorgan  a  blazing  wheel  used  to  be  trundled  down  hill  on  Mid¬ 
summer  Day,  and  if  the  fire  were  extinguished  before  the  wheel  reached 
the  foot  of  the  hill,  the  people  expected  a  bad  harvest ;  whereas  if  the 
wheel  kept  alight  all  the  way  down  and  continued  to  blaze  for  a  long 
time,  the  farmers  looked  forward  to  heavy  crops  that  summer.  Here, 
again,  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  the  rustic  mind  traced  a  direct 
connexion  between  the  fire  of  the  wheel  and  the  fire  of  the  sun,  on 
which  the  crops  are  dependent. 

But  in  popular  belief  the  quickening  and  fertilising  influence  of  the 
bonfires  is  not  limited  to  the  vegetable  world  ;  it  extends  also  to 
animals.  This  plainly  appears  from  the  Irish  custom  of  driving  barren 
cattle  through  the  midsummer  fires,  from  the  French  belief  that  the 
Yule  log  steeped  in  water  helps  cows  to  calve,  from  the  French  and 
Serbian  notion  that  there  will  be  as  many  chickens,  calves,  lambs, 
and  kids  as  there  are  sparks  struck  out  of  the  Yule  log,  from  the 
French  custom  of  putting  the  ashes  of  the  bonfires  in  the  fowls’  nests 
to  make  the  hens  lay  eggs,  and  from  the  German  practice  of  mixing 
the  ashes  of  the  bonfires  with  the  drink  of  cattle  in  order  to  make  the 
animals  thrive.  Further,  there  are  clear  indications  that  even  human 
fecundity  is  supposed  to  be  promoted  by  the  genial  heat  of  the  fires. 
In  Morocco  the  people  think  that  childless  couples  can  obtain  offspring 
by  leaping  over  the  midsummer  bonfire.  It  is  an  Irish  belief  that  a 
girl  who  jumps  thrice  over  the  midsummer  bonfire  will  soon  marry 
and  become  the  mother  of  many  children  ;  in  Flanders  women  leap 
over  the  midsummer  fires  to  ensure  an  easy  delivery  ;  in  various  parts 
of  France  they  think  that  if  a  girl  dances  round  nine  fires  she  will  be  sure 
to  marry  within  the  year,  and  in  Bohemia  they  fancy  that  she  will  do  so 
if  she  merely  sees  nine  of  the  bonfires.  On  the  other  hand,  in  Lechrain 
people  say  that  if  a  young  man  and  woman,  leaping  over  the  mid¬ 
summer  fire  together,  escaped  unsmirched,  the  young  woman  will  not 
become  a  mother  within  twelve  months  :  the  flames  have  not  touched 
and  fertilised  her.  In  parts  of  Switzerland  and  France  the  lighting 
of  the  Yule  log  is  accompanied  by  a  prayer  that  the  women  may  bear 
children,  the  she-goats  bring  forth  kids,  and  the  ewes  drop  lambs.  The 
rule  observed  in  some  places  that  the  bonfires  should  be  kindled 
by  the  person  who  was  last  married  seems  to  belong  to  the  same 
class  of  ideas,  whether  it  be  that  such  a  person  is  supposed  to  receive 
from,  or  to  impart  to,  the  fire  a  generative  and  fertilising  influence. 
The  common  practice  of  lovers  leaping  over  the  fires  hand  in  hand 
may  very  well  have  originated  in  a  notion  that  thereby  their  marriage 
would  be  blessed  with  offspring  ;  and  the  like  motive  would  explain 


lxiii  PURIFICATORY  THEORY  OF  FIRE-FESTIVALS  647 

the  custom  which  obliges  couples  married  within  the  year  to  dance 
to  the  light  of  torches.  And  the  scenes  of  profligacy  which  appear 
to  have  marked  the  midsummer  celebration  among  the  Esthonians, 
as  they  once  marked  the  celebration  of  May  Day  among  ourselves, 
may  have  sprung,  not  from  the  mere  licence  of  holiday-makers,  but 
from  a  crude  notion  that  such  orgies  were  justified,  if  not  required,  by 
some  mysterious  bond  which  linked  the  life  of  man  to  the  courses  of 
the  heavens  at  this  turning-point  of  the  year. 

At  the  festivals  which  we  are  considering  the  custom  of  kindling 
bonfires  is  commonly  associated  with  a  custom  of  carrying  lighted 
torches  about  the  fields,  the  orchards,  the  pastures,  the  flocks  and  the 
herds  ;  and  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  the  two  customs  are  only  two 
different  ways  of  attaining  the  same  object,  namely,  the  benefits  which 
are  believed  to  flow  from  the  fire,  whether  it  be  stationary  or  portable. 
Accordingly  if  we  accept  the  solar  theory  of  the  bonfires,  we  seem 
bound  to  apply  it  also  to  the  torches  ;  we  must  suppose  that  the  practice 
of  marching  or  running  with  blazing  torches  about  the  country  is  simply 
a  means  of  diffusing  far  and  wide  the  genial  influence  of  the  sunshine, 
of  which  these  flickering  flames  are  a  feeble  imitation.  In  favour  of 
this  view  it  may  be  said  that  sometimes  the  torches  are  carried  about 
the  fields  for  the  express  purpose  of  fertilising  them,  and  with  the  same 
intention  live  coals  from  the  bonfires  are  sometimes  placed  in  the  fields 
to  prevent  blight.  On  the  eve  of  Twelfth  Day  in  Normandy  men, 
women,  and  children  run  wildly  through  the  fields  and  orchards  with 
lighted  torches,  which  they  wave  about  the  branches  and  dash  against 
the  trunks  of  the  fruit-trees  for  the  sake  of  burning  the  moss  and  driving 
away  the  moles  and  field-mice.  “  They  believe  that  the  ceremony 
fulfils  the  double  object  of  exorcising  the  vermin  whose  multiplication 
would  be  a  real  calamity,  and  of  imparting  fecundity  to  the  trees,  the 
fields,  and  even  the  cattle  ”  ;  and  they  imagine  that  the  more  the 
ceremony  is  prolonged,  the  greater  will  be  the  crop  of  fruit  next  autumn. 
In  Bohemia  they  say  that  the  corn  will  grow  as  high  as  they  fling  the 
blazing  besoms  into  the  air.  Nor  are  such  notions  confined  to  Europe. 
In  Corea,  a  few  days  before  the  New  Year  festival,  the  eunuchs  of 
the  palace  swing  burning  torches,  chanting  invocations  the  while,  and 
this  is  supposed  to  ensure  bountiful  crops  for  the  next  season.  The 
custom  of  trundling  a  burning  wheel  over  the  fields,  which  used  to  be 
observed  in  Poitou  for  the  express  purpose  of  fertilising  them,  may 
be  thought  to  embody  the  same  idea  in  a  still  more  graphic  form  ; 
since  in  this  way  the  mock-sun  itself,  not  merely  its  light  and  heat 
represented  by  torches,  is  made  actually  to  pass  over  the  ground 
which  is  to  receive  its  quickening  and  kindly  influence.  Once  more, 
the  custom  of  carrying  lighted  brands  round  cattle  is  plainly  equivalent 
to  driving  the  animals  through  the  bonfire  ;  and  if  the  bonfire  is  a  sun- 
charm,  the  torches  must  be  so  also. 

§  3.  The  Purificatory  Theory  of  the  Fire-festivals. — Thus  far  we 
have  considered  what  may  be  said  for  the  theory  that  at  the  European 
fire-festivals  the  fire  is  kindled  as  a  charm  to  ensure  an  abundant  supply 


648  THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  THE  FIRE-FESTIVALS  ch. 

of  sunshine  for  man  and  beast,  for  corn  and  fruits.  It  remains  to 
consider  what  may  be  said  against  this  theory  and  in  favour  of  the  view 
that  in  these  rites  fire  is  employed  not  as  a  creative  but  as  a  cleansing 
agent,  which  purifies  men,  animals,  and  plants  by  burning  up  and 
consuming  the  noxious  elements,  whether  material  or  spiritual,  which 
menace  all  living  things  with  disease  and  death. 

First,  then,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  people  who  practise  the 
fire-customs  appear  never  to  allege  the  solar  theory  in  explanation 
of  them,  while  on  the  contrary  they  do  frequently  and  emphatically 
put  forward  the  purificatory  theory.  This  is  a  strong  argument  in 
favour  of  the  purificatory  and  against  the  solar  theory  ;  for  the  popular 
explanation  of  a  popular  custom  is  never  to  be  rejected  except  for 
grave  cause.  And  in  the  present  case  there  seems  to  be  no  adequate 
reason  for  rejecting  it.  The  conception  of  fire  as  a  destructive  agent, 
which  can  be  turned  to  account  for  the  consumption  of  evil  things,  is 
so  simple  and  obvious  that  it  could  hardly  escape  the  minds  even  of  the 
rude  peasantry  with  whom  these  festivals  originated.  On  the  other 
hand  the  conception  of  fire  as  an  emanation  of  the  sun,  or  at  all  events 
as  linked  to  it  by  a  bond  of  physical  sympathy,  is  far  less  simple  and 
obvious  ;  and  though  the  use  of  fire  as  a  charm  to  produce  sunshine 
appears  to  be  undeniable,  nevertheless  in  attempting  to  explain  popular 
customs  we  should  never  have  recourse  to  a  more  recondite  idea 
when  a  simpler  one  lies  to  hand  and  is  supported  by  the  explicit  testi¬ 
mony  of  the  people  themselves.  Now  in  the  case  of  the  fire-festivals 
the  destructive  aspect  of  fire  is  one  upon  which  the  people  dwell  again 
and  again  ;  and  it  is  highly  significant  that  the  great  evil  against 
which  the  fire  is  directed  appears  to  be  witchcraft.  Again  and  again 
we  are  told  that  the  fires  are  intended  to  burn  or  repel  the  witches  ;  and 
the  intention  is  sometimes  graphically  expressed  by  burning  an  effigy 
of  a  witch  in  the  fire.  Hence,  when  we  remember  the  great  hold  which 
the  dread  of  witchcraft  has  had  on  the  popular  European  mind  in  all 
ages,  we  may  suspect  that  the  primary  intention  of  all  these  fire- 
festivals  was  simply  to  destroy  or  at  all  events  get  rid  of  the  witches, 
who  were  regarded  as  the  causes  of  nearly  all  the  misfortunes  and 
calamities  that  befall  men,  their  cattle,  and  their  crops. 

This  suspicion  is  confirmed  when  we  examine  the  evils  for  which 
the  bonfires  and  torches  were  supposed  to  provide  a  remedy.  Fore¬ 
most,  perhaps,  among  these  evils  we  may  reckon  the  diseases  of  cattle  ; 
and  of  all  the  ills  that  witches  are  believed  to  work  there  is  probably 
none  which  is  so  constantly  insisted  on  as  the  harm  they  do  to  the 
herds,  particularly  by  stealing  the  milk  from  the  cows.  Now  it  is 
significant  that  the  need-fire,  which  may  perhaps  be  regarded  as  the 
parent  of  the  periodic  fire-festivals,  is  kindled  above  all  as  a  remedy 
for  a  murrain  or  other  disease  of  cattle  ;  and  the  circumstance  suggests, 
what  on  general  grounds  seems  probable,  that  the  custom  of  kindling 
the  need-fire  goes  back  to  a  time  when  the  ancestors  of  the  European 
peoples  subsisted  chiefly  on  the  products  of  their  herds,  and  when 
agriculture  as  yet  played  a  subordinate  part  in  their  lives.  Witches 


i 


lxiii  PURIFICATORY  THEORY  OF  FIRE-FESTIVALS  649 

and  wolves  are  the  two  great  foes  still  dreaded  by  the  herdsman  in 
many  parts  of  Europe  ;  and  we  need  not  wonder  that  he  should  resort 
to  fire  as  a  powerful  means  of  banning  them  both.  Among  Slavonic 
peoples  it  appears  that  the  foes  whom  the  need-fire  is  designed  to 
combat  are  not  so  much  living  witches  as  vampyres  and  other  evil 
spirits,  and  the  ceremony  aims  rather  at  repelling  these  baleful  beings 
than  at  actually  consuming  them  in  the  flames.  But  for  our  present 
purpose  these  distinctions  are  immaterial.  The  important  thing  to 
observe  is  that  among  the  Slavs  the  need-fire,  which  is  probably  the 
original  of  all  the  ceremonial  fires  now  under  consideration,  is  not  a 
sun-charm,  but  clearly  and  unmistakably  nothing  but  a  means  of 
protecting  man  and  beast  against  the  attacks  of  maleficent  creatures, 
whom  the  peasant  thinks  to  burn  or  scare  by  the  heat  of  the  fire,  just 
as  he  might  burn  or  scare  wild  animals. 

#  Again,  the  bonfires  are  often  supposed  to  protect  the  fields  against 
hail  and  the  homestead  against  thunder  and  lightning.  But  both 
hail  and  thunderstorms  are  frequently  thought  to  be  caused  by  witches  ; 
hence  the  fire  which  bans  the  witches  necessarily  serves  at  the  same 
time  as  a  talisman  against  hail,  thunder,  and  lightning.  Further, 
brands  taken  from  the  bonfires  are  commonly  kept  in  the  houses  to 
guard  them  against  conflagration  ;  and  though  this  may  perhaps  be 
done  on  the  principle  of  homoeopathic  magic,  one  fire  being  thought 
to  act  as  a  preventive  of  another,  it  is  also  possible  that  the  intention 
may  be  to  keep  witch-incendiaries  at  bay.  Again,  people  leap  over 
the  bonfires  as  a  preventive  of  colic,  and  look  at  the  flames  steadily 
in  order  to  preserve  their  eyes  in  good  health  ;  and  both  colic  and 
sore  eyes,  are  in  Germany,  and  probably  elsewhere,  set  down  to  the 
machinations  of  witches.  Once  more,  to  leap  over  the  midsummer 
fires  or  to  circumambulate  them  is  thought  to  prevent  a  person  from 
feeling  pains  in  his  back  at  reaping ;  and  in  Germany  such  pains  are 
called  "  witch-shots  ”  and  ascribed  to  witchcraft. 

But  if  the  bonfires  and  torches  of  the  fire-festivals  are  to  be  regarded 
primarily  as  weapons  directed  against  witches  and  wizards,  it  becomes 
probable  that  the  same  explanation  applies  not  only  to  the  flaming 
discs  which  are  hurled  into  the  air,  but  also  to  the  burning  wheels 
which  are  rolled  down  hill  on  these  occasions  ;  discs  and  wheels,  we 
may  suppose,  are  alike  intended  to  burn  the  witches  who  hover  invisible 
in  the  air  or  haunt  unseen  the  fields,  the  orchards,  and  the  vineyards 
on  the  hillside.  Certainly  witches  are  constantly  thought  to  ride 
through  the  air  on  broomsticks  or  other  equally  convenient  vehicles  ; 
and  if  they  do  so,  how  can  you  get  at  them  so  effectually  as  by  hurling 
lighted  missiles,  whether  discs,  torches,  or  besoms,  after  them  as  they 
flit  past  overhead  in  the  gloom  ?  The  South  Slavonian  peasant 
believes  that  witches  ride  in  the  dark  hail-clouds  ;  so  he  shoots  at 
the  clouds  to  bring  down  the  hags,  while  he  curses  them,  saying, 
“  Curse,  curse  Herodias,  thy  mother  is  a  heathen,  damned  of  God  and 
fettered  through  the  Redeemer’s  blood.”  Also  he  brings  out  a  pot 
of  glowing  charcoal  on  which  he  has  thrown  holy  oil,  laurel  leaves, 


650  THE  BURNING  OF  HUMAN  BEINGS  IN  THE  FIRES  ch. 

and  wormwood  to  make  a  smoke.  The  fumes  are  supposed  to  ascend 
to  the  clouds  and  stupefy  the  witches,  so  that  they  tumble  down  to 
earth.  And  in  order  that  they  may  not  fall  soft,  but  may  hurt  them¬ 
selves  very  much,  the  yokel  hastily  brings  out  a  chair  and  tilts  it 
bottom  up  so  that  the  witch  in  falling  may  break  her  legs  on  the  legs 
of  the  chair.  Worse  than  that,  he  cruelly  lays  scythes,  bill-hooks, 
and  other  formidable  weapons  edge  upwards  so  as  to  cut  and  mangle 
the  poor  wretches  when  they  drop  plump  upon  them  from  the  clouds. 

On  this  view  the  fertility  supposed  to  follow  the  application  of 
fire  in  the  form  of  bonfires,  torches,  discs,  rolling  wheels,  and  so  forth, 
is  not  conceived  as  resulting  directly  from  an  increase  of  solar  heat 
which  the  fire  has  magically  generated  ;  it  is  merely  an  indirect  result  ; 
obtained  by  freeing  the  reproductive  powers  of  plants  and  animals 
from  the  fatal  obstruction  of  witchcraft.  And  what  is  true  of  the 
reproduction  of  plants  and  animals  may  hold  good  also  of  the  fertility 
of  the  human  sexes.  The  bonfires  are  supposed  to  promote  marriage 
and  to  procure  offspring  for  childless  couples.  This  happy  effect 
need  not  flow  directly  from  any  quickening  or  fertilising  energy  in 
the  fire  ;  it  may  follow  indirectly  from  the  power  of  the  fire  to  remove 
those  obstacles  which  the  spells  of  witches  and  wizards  notoriously 
present  to  the  union  of  man  and  wife. 

On  the  whole,  then,  the  theory  of  the  purificatory  virtue  of  the 
ceremonial  fires  appears  more  probable  and  more  in  accordance  with 
the  evidence  than  the  opposing  theory  of  their  connexion  with  the  sun. 


CHAPTER  LXIV 

THE  BURNING  OF  HUMAN  BEINGS  IN  THE  FIRES 

§  i.  The  Burning  of  Effigies  in  the  Fires. — We  have  still  to  ask,  What 
is  the  meaning  of  burning  effigies  in  the  fire  at  these  festivals  ?  After 
the  preceding  investigation  the  answer  to  the  question  seems  obvious. 
As  the  fires  are  often  alleged  to  be  kindled  for  the  purpose  of  burning 
the  witches,  and  as  the  effigy  burnt  in  them  is  sometimes  called  “  the 
Witch,”  we  might  naturally  be  disposed  to  conclude  that  all  the  effigies 
consumed  in  the  flames  on  these  occasions  represent  witches  or  warlocks, 
and  that  the  custom  of  burning  them  is  merely  a  substitute  for  burning 
the  wicked  men  and  women  themselves,  since  on  the  principle  of 
homoeopathic  or  imitative  magic  you  practically  destroy  the  witch 
herself  in  destroying  her  effigy.  On  the  whole  this  explanation  of 
the  burning  of  straw  figures  in  human  shape  at  the  festivals  is  perhaps 
the  most  probable. 

Yet  it  may  be  that  this  explanation  does  not  apply  to  all  the  cases, 
and  that  certain  of  them  may  admit  and  even  require  another  inter¬ 
pretation.  For  the  effigies  so  burned,  as  I  have  already  remarked, 
can  hardly  be  separated  from  the  effigies  of  Death  which  are  burned 


LX  IV 


BURNING  OF  EFFIGIES  IN  THE  FIRES 


651 


or  otherwise  destroyed  in  spring  ;  and  grounds  have  been  already 
given  for  regarding  the  so-called  effigies  of  Death  as  really  representa¬ 
tives  of  the  tree-spirit  or  spirit  of  vegetation.  Are  the  other  effigies, 
which  are  burned  in  the  spring  and  midsummer  bonfires,  susceptible 
of  the  same  explanation  ?  It  would  seem  so.  For  just  as  the  frag¬ 
ments  of  the  so-called  Death  are  stuck  in  the  fields  to  make  the  crops 
grow,  so  the  charred  embers  of  the  figure  burned  in  the  spring  bonfires 
are  sometimes  laid  on  the  fields  in  the  belief  that  they  will  keep  vermin 
from  the  crop.  Again,  the  rule  that  the  last  married  bride  must  leap 
over  the  fire  in  which  the  straw-man  is  burned  on  Shrove  Tuesday, 
is  probably  intended  to  make  her  fruitful.  But,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  power  of  blessing  women  with  offspring  is  a  special  attribute  of 
tree-spirits  ;  it  is  therefore  a  fair  presumption  that  the  burning  effigy 
over  which  the  bride  must  leap  is  a  representative  of  the  fertilising 
tree-spirit  or  spirit  of  vegetation.  This  character  of  the  effigy,  as 
representative  of  the  spirit  of  vegetation,  is  almost  unmistakable  when 
the  figure  is  composed  of  an  unthreshed  sheaf  of  corn  or  is  covered 
from  head  to  foot  with  flowers.  Again,  it  is  to  be  noted  that,  instead 
of  a  puppet,  trees,  either  living  or  felled,  are  sometimes  burned  both 
in  the  spring  and  midsummer  bonfires.  Now,  considering  the  frequency 
with  which  the  tree-spirit  is  represented  in  human  shape,  it  is  hardly 
rash  to  suppose  that  when  sometimes  a  tree  and  sometimes  an  effigy 
is  burned  in  these  fires,  the  effigy  and  the  tree  are  regarded  as  equivalent 
to  each  other,  each  being  a  representative  of  the  tree-spirit.  This, 
again,  is  confirmed  by  observing,  first,  that  sometimes  the  effigy  which 
is  to  be  burned  is  carried  about  simultaneously  with  a  May-tree,  the 
former  being  carried  by  the  boys,  the  latter  by  the  girls  ;  and,  second, 
that  the  effigy  is  sometimes  tied  to  a  living  tree  and  burned  with  it. 
In  these  cases,  we  can  scarcely  doubt,  the  tree-spirit  is  represented, 
as  we  have  found  it  represented  before,  in  duplicate,  both  by  the  tree 
and  by  the  effigy.  That  the  true  character  of  the  effigy  as  a  repre¬ 
sentative  of  the  beneficent  spirit  of  vegetation  should  sometimes  be 
forgotten,  is  natural.  The  custom  of  burning  a  beneficent  god  is  too 
foreign  to  later  modes  of  thought  to  escape  misinterpretation.  Natu¬ 
rally  enough  the  people  who  continued  to  bum  his  image  came  in 
time  to  identify  it  as  the  effigy  of  persons,  whom,  on  various  grounds, 
they  regarded  with  aversion,  such  as  Judas  Iscariot,  Luther,  and  a 


witch. 

The  general  reasons  for  killing  a  god  or  his  representative  have 
been  examined  in  a  preceding  chapter.  But  when  the  god  happens 
to  be  a  deity  of  vegetation,  there  are  special  reasons  why  he  should 
die  by  fire.  For  light  and  heat  are  necessary  to  vegetable  growth  ; 
and,  on  the  principle  of  sympathetic  magic,  by  subjecting  the  personal 
representative  of  vegetation  to  their  influence,  you  secure  a  supply 
of  these  necessaries  for  trees  and  crops.  In  other  words,  by  burning 
the  spirit  of  vegetation  in  a  fire  which  represents  the  sun,  you  make 
sure  that,  for  a  time  at  least,  vegetation  shall  have  plenty  of  sun. 
It  may  be  objected  that,  if  the  intention  is  simply  to  secure  enough 


652  THE  BURNING  OF  HUMAN  BEINGS  IN  THE  FIRES  ch. 

sunshine  for  vegetation,  this  end  would  be  better  attained,  on  the 
principles  of  sympathetic  magic,  by  merely  passing  the  representative 
of  vegetation  through  the  fire  instead  of  burning  him.  In  point  of 
fact  this  is  sometimes  done.  In  Russia,  as  we  have  seen,  the  straw 
figure  of  Kupalo  is  not  burned  in  the  midsummer  fire,  but  merely 
carried  backwards  and  forwards  across  it.  But,  for  the  reasons 
already  given,  it  is  necessary  that  the  god  should  die  ;  so  next  day 
Kupalo  is  stripped  of  her  ornaments  and  thrown  into  a  stream.  In 
this  Russian  custom  the  passage  of  the  image  through  the  fire,  if  it  is 
not  simply  a  purification,  may  possibly  be  a  sun-charm  ;  the  killing 
of  the  god  is  a  separate  act,  and  the  mode  of  killing  him— by  drowning 
— is  probably  a  rain-charm.  But  usually  people  have  not  thought  it 
necessary  to  draw  this  fine  distinction  ;  for  the  various  reasons  already 
assigned,  it  is  advantageous,  they  think,  to  expose  the  god  of  vegeta¬ 
tion  to  a  considerable  degree  of  heat,  and  it  is  also  advantageous  to 
kill  him,  and  they  combine  these  advantages  in  a  rough-and-ready 
way  by  burning  him. 

§  2.  The  Burning  of  Men  and  Animals  in  the  Fires . — In  the  popular 
customs  connected  with  the  fire-festivals  of  Europe  there  are  certain 
features  which  appear  to  point  to  a  former  practice  of  human  sacrifice. 
We  have  seen  reasons  for  believing  that  in  Europe  living  persons  have 
often  acted  as  representatives  of  the  tree-spirit  and  corn-spirit  and 
have  suffered  death  as  such.  There  is  no  reason,  therefore,  why 
they  should  not  have  been  burned,  if  any  special  advantages  were 
likely  to  be  attained  by  putting  them  to  death  in  that  way.  The 
consideration  of  human  suffering  is  not  one  which  enters  into  the 
calculations  of  primitive  man.  Now,  in  the  fire-festivals  which  we 
are  discussing,  the  pretence  of  burning  people  is  sometimes  carried 
so  far  that  it  seems  reasonable  to  regard  it  as  a  mitigated  survival 
of  an  older  custom  of  actually  burning  them.  Thus  in  Aachen,  as 
we  saw,  the  man  clad  in  peas-straw  acts  so  cleverly  that  the  children 
really  believe  he  is  being  burned.  At  Jumieges  in  Normandy  the  man 
clad  all  in  green,  who  bore  the  title  of  the  Green  Wolf,  was  pursued 
by  his  comrades,  and  when  they  caught  him  they  feigned  to  fling 
him  upon  the  midsummer  bonfire.  Similarly  at  the  Beltane  fires  in 
Scotland  the  pretended  victim  was  seized,  and  a  show  made  of  throw¬ 
ing  him  into  the  flames,  and  for  some  time  afterwards  people  affected 
to  speak  of  him  as  dead.  Again,  in  the  Hallowe’en  bonfires  of  North¬ 
eastern  Scotland  we  may  perhaps  detect  a  similar  pretence  in  the 
custom  observed  by  a  lad  of  lying  down  as  close  to  the  fire  as  possible 
and  allowing  the  other  lads  to  leap  over  him.  The  titular  king  at 
Aix,  who  reigned  for  a  year  and  danced  the  first  dance  round  the 
midsummer  bonfire,  may  perhaps  in  days  of  old  have  discharged  the 
less  agreeable  duty  of  serving  as  fuel  for  that  fire  which  in  later  times 
he  only  kindled.  In  the  following  customs  Mannhardt  is  probably 
right  in  recognising  traces  of  an  old  custom  of  burning  a  leaf-clad 
representative  of  the  spirit  of  vegetation.  At  Wolfeck,  in  Austria, 
on  Midsummer  Day,  a  boy  completely  clad  in  green  fir  branches 


lxiv  BURNING  OF  MEN  AND  ANIMALS  IN  THE  FIRES  653 

goes  from  house  to  house,  accompanied  by  a  noisy  crew,  collecting 
wood  for  the  bonfire.  As  he  gets  the  wood  he  sings  : 

“  Forest  trees  I  want,  But  beer  and  wine, 

No  sour  milk  for  me,  So  can  the  wood-man  be  jolly  and  gay.” 

In  some  parts  of  Bavaria,  also,  the  boys  who  go  from  house  to 
house  collecting  fuel  for  the  midsummer  bonfire  envelop  one  of  their 
number  from  head  to  foot  in  green  branches  of  firs,  and  lead  him  by 
a  rope  through  the  whole  village.  At  Moosheim,  in  Wurtemberg, 
the  festival  of  St.  John’s  Fire  usually  lasted  for  fourteen  days,  ending 
on  the  second  Sunday  after  Midsummer  Day.  On  this  last  day  the 
bonfire  was  left  in  charge  of  the  children,  while  the  older  people  retired 
to  a  wood.  Here  they  encased  a  young  fellow  in  leaves  and  twigs, 
who,  thus  disguised,  went  to  the  fire,  scattered  it,  and  trod  it  out. 
All  the  people  present  fled  at  the  sight  of  him. 

But  it  seems  possible  to  go  farther  than  this.  Of  human  sacrifices 
offered  on  these  occasions  the  most  unequivocal  traces,  as  we  have 
seen,  are  those  which,  about  a  hundred  years  ago,  still  lingered  at  the 
Beltane  fires  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  that  is,  among  a  Celtic 
people  who,  situated  in  a  remote  corner  of  Europe  and  almost  com¬ 
pletely  isolated  from  foreign  influence,  had  till  then  conserved  their 
old  heathenism  better  perhaps  than  any  other  people  in  the  West  of 
Europe.  It  is  significant,  therefore,  that  human  sacrifices  by  fire  are 
known,  on  unquestionable  evidence,  to  have  been  systematically 
practised  by  the  Celts.  The  earliest  description  of  these  sacrifices 
has  been  bequeathed  to  us  by  Julius  Caesar.  As  conqueror  of  the 
hitherto  independent  Celts  of  Gaul,  Caesar  had  ample  opportunity  of 
observing  the  national  Celtic  religion  and  manners,  while  these  were 
still  fresh  and  crisp  from  the  native  mint  and  had  not  yet  been  fused 
in  the  melting-pot  of  Roman  civilisation.  With  his  own  notes  Caesar 
appears  to  have  incorporated  the  observations  of  a  Greek  explorer, 
by  name  Posidonius,  who  travelled  in  Gaul  about  fifty  years  before 
Caesar  carried  the  Roman  arms  to  the  English  Channel.  The  Greek 
geographer  Strabo  and  the  historian  Diodorus  seem  also  to  have 
derived  their  descriptions  of  the  Celtic  sacrifices  from  the  work  of 
Posidonius,  but  independently  of  each  other,  and  of  Caesar,  for  each 
of  the  three  derivative  accounts  contains  some  details  which  are  not 
to  be  found  in  either  of  the  others.  By  combining  them,  therefore, 
we  can  restore  the  original  account  of  Posidonius  with  some  probability, 
and  thus  obtain  a  picture  of  the  sacrifices  offered  by  the  Celts  of  Gaul 
at  the  close  of  the  second  century  before  our  era.  The  following 
seem  to  have  been  the  main  outlines  of  the  custom.  Condemned 
criminals  were  reserved  by  the  Celts  in  order  to  be  sacrificed  to  the 
gods  at  a  great  festival  which  took  place  once  in  every  five  years. 
The  more  there  were  of  such  victims,  the  greater  was  believed  to  be 
the  fertility  of  the  land.  If  there  were  not  enough  criminals  to  furnish 
victims,  captives  taken  in  war  were  immolated  to  supply  the  deficiency. 
When  the  time  came  the  victims  were  sacrificed  by  the  Druids  or 


654  THE  BURNING  OF  HUMAN  BEINGS  IN  THE  FIRES  ch. 

priests.  Some  they  shot  down  with  arrows,  some  they  impaled,  and 
some  they  burned  alive  in  the  following  manner.  Colossal  images  of 
wicker-work  or  of  wood  and  grass  were  constructed  ;  these  were 
filled  with  live  men,  cattle,  and  animals  of  other  kinds  ;  fire  was  then 
applied  to  the  images,  and  they  were  burned  with  their  living  contents. 

Such  were  the  great  festivals  held  pnce  every  five  years.  But 
besides  these  quinquennial  festivals,  celebrated  on  so  grand  a  scale, 
and  with,  apparently,  so  large  an  expenditure  of  human  life,  it  seems 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  festivals  of  the  same  sort,  only  on  a  lesser 
scale,  were  held  annually,  and  that  from  these  annual  festivals  are 
lineally  descended  some  at  least  of  the  fire-festivals  which,  with  their 
traces  of  human  sacrifices,  are  still  celebrated  year  by  year  in  many 
parts  of  Europe.  The  gigantic  images  constructed  of  osiers  or  covered 
with  grass  in  which  the  Druids  enclosed  their  victims  remind  us  of 
the  leafy  framework  in  which  the  human  representative  of  the  tree- 
spirit  is  still  so  often  encased.  Hence,  seeing  that  the  fertility  of  the 
land  was  apparently  supposed  to  depend  upon  the  due  performance  of 
these  sacrifices,  Mannhardt  interpreted  the  Celtic  victims,  cased  in 
osiers  and  grass,  as  representatives  of  the  tree  -  spirit  or  spirit  of 
vegetation. 

These  wicker  giants  of  the  Druids  seem  to  have  had  till  lately,  if 
not  down  to  the  present  time,  their  representatives  at  the  spring 
and  midsummer  festivals  of  modern  Europe.  At  Douay,  down  at 
least  to  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  a  procession  took 
place  annually  on  the  Sunday  nearest  to  the  seventh  of  July.  The 
great  feature  of  the  procession  was  a  colossal  figure,  some  twenty 
or  thirty  feet  high,  made  of  osiers,  and  called  “  the  giant,”  which 
was  moved  through  the  streets  by  means  of  rollers  and  ropes  worked 
by  men  who  were  enclosed  within  the  effigy.  The  figure  was  armed 
as  a  knight  with  lance  and  sword,  helmet  and  shield.  Behind 
him  marched  his  wife  and  his  three  children,  all  constructed  of  osiers 
on  the  same  principle,  but  on  a  smaller  scale.  At  Dunkirk  the 
procession  of  the  giants  took  place  on  Midsummer  Day,  the  twenty- 
fourth  of  June.  The  festival,  which  was  known  as  the  Follies  of 
Dunkirk,  attracted  multitudes  of  spectators.  The  giant  was  a  huge 
figure  of  wicker-work,  occasionally  as  much  as  forty-five  feet  high, 
dressed  in  a  long  blue  robe  with  gold  stripes,  which  reached  to  his  feet, 
concealing  the  dozen  or  more  men  who  made  it  dance  and  bob  its 
head  to  the  spectators.  This  colossal  effigy  went  by  the  name  of  Papa 
Reuss,  and  carried  in  its  pocket  a  bouncing  infant  of  Brobdingnagian 
proportions.  The  rear  was  brought  up  by  the  daughter  of  the  giant, 
constructed,  like  her  sire,  of  wicker-work,  and  little,  if  at  all,  inferior 
to  him  in  size.  Most  towns  and  even  villages  of  Brabant  and  Flanders 
have,  or  used  to  have,  similar  wicker  giants  which  were  annually  led 
about  to  the  delight  of  the  populace,  who  loved  these  grotesque  figures, 
spoke  of  them  with  patriotic  enthusiasm,  and  never  wearied  of  gazing  at 
them.  At  Antwerp  the  giant  was  so  big  that  no  gate  in  the  city  was 
large  enough  to  let  him  go  through  ;  hence  he  could  not  visit  his 


lxiv  BURNING  OF  MEN  AND  ANIMALS  IN  THE  FIRES  655 

brother  giants  in  neighbouring  towns,  as  the  other  Belgian  giants 
used  to  do  on  solemn  occasions. 

In  England  artificial  giants  seem  to  have  been  a  standing  feature 
of  the  midsummer  festival.  A  writer  of  the  sixteenth  century  speaks 
of  ”  Midsommer  pageants  in  London,  where  to  make  the  people  wonder, 
are  set  forth  great  and  uglie  gyants  marching  as  if  they  were  alive, 
and  armed  at  all  points,  but  within  they  are  stuffed  full  of  browne 
paper  and  tow,  which  the  shrewd  boyes,  underpeering,  do  guilefully 
discover,  and  turne  to  a  greate  derision.”  At  Chester  the  annual 
pageant  on  Midsummer  Eve  included  the  efhgies  of  four  giants,  with 
animals,  hobby-horses,  and  other  figures.  At  Coventry  it  appears 
that  the  giant’s  wife  figured  beside  the  giant.  At  Burford,  in  Oxford¬ 
shire,  Midsummer  Eve  used  to  be  celebrated  with  great  jollity  by  the 
carrying  of  a  giant  and  a  dragon  up  and  down  the  town.  The  last 
survivor  of  these  perambulating  English  giants  lingered  at  Salisbury, 
where  an  antiquary  found  him  mouldering  to  decay  in  the  neglected 
hall  of  the  Tailors’  Company  about  the  year  1844.  His  bodily  frame¬ 
work  was  of  lath  and  hoop,  like  the  one  which  used  to  be  worn  by 
Jack-in-the-Green  on  May  Day. 

In  these  cases  the  giants  merely  figured  in  the  processions.  But 
sometimes  they  were  burned  in  the  summer  bonfires.  Thus  the  people 
of  the  Rue  aux  Ours  in  Paris  used  annually  to  make  a  great  wicker¬ 
work  figure,  dressed  as  a  soldier,  which  they  promenaded  up  and 
down  the  streets  for  several  days,  and  solemnly  burned  on  the  third 
of  July,  the  crowd  of  spectators  singing  Salve  Regina.  A  personage 
who  bore  the  title  of  king  presided  over  the  ceremony  with  a  lighted 
torch  in  his  hand.  The  burning  fragments  of  the  image  were  scattered 
among  the  people,  who  eagerly  scrambled  for  them.  The  custom 
was  abolished  in  1743.  In  Brie,  Isle  de  France,  a  wicker-work  giant, 
eighteen  feet  high,  was  annually  burned  on  Midsummer  Eve. 

Again,  the  Druidical  custom  of  burning  live  animals,  enclosed  in 
wicker-work,  has  its  counterpart  at  the  spring  and  midsummer  festivals. 
At  Luchon  in  the  Pyrenees  on  Midsummer  Eve  “  a  hollow  column, 
composed  of  strong  wickerwork,  is  raised  to  the  height  of  about  sixty 
feet  in  the  centre  of  the  principal  suburb,  and  interlaced  with  green  foli¬ 
age  up  to  the  very  top  ;  while  the  most  beautiful  flowers  and  shrubs 
procurable  are  artistically  arranged  in  groups  below,  so  as  to  form  a 
sort  of  background  to  the  scene.  The  column  is  then  filled  with  com¬ 
bustible  materials,  ready  for  ignition.  At  an  appointed  hour — about 
8  p.m. — a  grand  procession,  composed  of  the  clergy,  followed  by 
young  men  and  maidens  in  holiday  attire,  pour  forth  from  the  town 
chanting  hymns,  and  take  up  their  position  around  the  column. 
Meanwhile,  bonfires  are  lit,  with  beautiful  effect,  in  the  surrounding 
hills.  As  many  living  serpents  as  could  be  collected  are  now  thrown 
into  the  column,  which  is  set  on  fire  at  the  base  by  means  of  torches, 
armed  with  which  about  fifty  boys  and  men  dance  around  with  frantic 
gestures.  The  serpents,  to  avoid  the  flames,  wriggle  their  way  to  the 
top,  whence  they  are  seen  lashing  out  laterally  until  finally  obliged  to 


656  THE  BURNING  OF  HUMAN  BEINGS  IN  THE  FIRES  ch. 

drop,  their  struggles  for  life  giving  rise  to  enthusiastic  delight  among 
the  surrounding  spectators.  This  is  a  favourite  annual  ceremony 
for  the  inhabitants  of  Luchon  and  its  neighbourhood,  and  local  tradition 
assigns  it  to  a  heathen  origin.”  In  the  midsummer  fires  formerly 
kindled  on  the  Place  de  Greve  at  Paris  it  was  the  custom  to  burn  a 
basket,  barrel,  or  sack  full  of  live  cats,  which  was  hung  from  a  tall 
mast  in  the  midst  of  the  bonfire  ;  sometimes  a  fox  was  burned.  The 
people  collected  the  embers  and  ashes  of  the  fire  and  took  them  home, 
believing  that  they  brought  good  luck.  The  French  kings  often 
witnessed  these  spectacles  and  even  lit  the  bonfire  with  their  own  hands. 
In  1648  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  crowned  with  a  wreath  of  roses  and 
carrying  a  bunch  of  roses  in  his  hand,  kindled  the  fire,  danced  at  it 
and  partook  of  the  banquet  afterwards  in  the  town  hall.  But  this  was 
the  last  occasion  when  a  monarch  presided  at  the  midsummer  bonfire 
in  Paris.  At  Metz  midsummer  fires  were  lighted  with  great  pomp 
on  the  esplanade,  and  a  dozen  cats,  enclosed  in  wicker  cages,  were 
burned  alive  in  them,  to  the  amusement  of  the  people.  Similarly  at 
Gap,  in  the  department  of  the  High  Alps,  cats  used  to  be  roasted  over 
the  midsummer  bonfire.  In  Russia  a  white  cock  was  sometimes  burned 
in  the  midsummer  bonfire  ;  in  Meissen  or  Thuringia  a  horse’s  head 
used  to  be  thrown  into  it.  Sometimes  animals  are  burned  in  the 
spring  bonfires.  In  the  Vosges  cats  were  burned  on  Shrove  Tuesday  ; 
in  Alsace  they  were  thrown  into  the  Easter  bonfire.  In  the  depart¬ 
ment  of  the  Ardennes  cats  were  flung  into  the  bonfires  kindled  on  the 
first  Sunday  in  Lent  ;  sometimes,  by  a  refinement  of  cruelty,  they  were 
hung  over  the  fire  from  the  end  of  a  pole  and  roasted  alive.  “  The 
cat,  which  represented  the  devil,  could  never  suffer  enough.”  While 
the  creatures  were  perishing  in  the  flames,  the  shepherds  guarded 
their  flocks  and  forced  them  to  leap  over  the  fire,  esteeming  this  an 
infallible  means  of  preserving  them  from  disease  and  witchcraft.  We 
have  seen  that  squirrels  were  sometimes  burned  in  the  Easter  fire. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  sacrificial  rites  of  the  Celts  of  ancient  Gaul 
can  be  traced  in  the  popular  festivals  of  modern  Europe.  Naturally 
it  is  in  France,  or  rather  in  the  wider  area  comprised  within  the  limits 
of  ancient  Gaul,  that  these  rites  have  left  the  clearest  traces  in  the 
customs  of  burning  giants  of  wicker-work  and  animals  enclosed  in 
wicker-work  or  baskets.  These  customs,  it  will  have  been  remarked, 
are  generally  observed  at  or  about  midsummer.  From  this  we  may 
infer  that  the  original  rites  of  which  these  are  the  degenerate  successors 
were  solemnised  at  midsummer.  This  inference  harmonises  with  the 
conclusion  suggested  by  a  general  survey  of  European  folk-custom, 
that  the  midsummer  festival  must  on  the  whole  have  been  the  most 
widely  diffused  and  the  most  solemn  of  all  the  yearly  festivals  celebrated 
by  the  primitive  Aryans  in  Europe.  At  the  same  time  we  must 
bear  in  mind  that  among  the  British  Celts  the  chief  fire-festivals  of 
the  year  appear  certainly  to  have  been  those  of  Beltane  (May  Day) 
and  Hallowe’en  (the  last  day  of  October)  ;  and  this  suggests  a  doubt 
whether  the  Celts  of  Gaul  also  may  not  have  celebrated  their  principal 


lxiv  BURNING  OF  MEN  AND  ANIMALS  IN  THE  FIRES  657 

rites  of  fire,  including  their  burnt  sacrifices  of  men  and  animals,  at 

the  beginning  of  May  or  the  beginning  of  November  rather  than  at 
Midsummer. 

We  have  still  to  ask,  What  is  the  meaning  of  such  sacrifices  ? 
Why  were  men  and  animals  burnt  to  death  at  these  festivals  ?  If  we 
are  right  in  interpreting  the  modern  European  fire  -  festivals  as 
attempts  to  break  the  power  of  witchcraft  by  burning  or  banning  the 
witches  and  warlocks,  it  seems  to  follow  that  we  must  explain  the 
human  sacrifices  of  the  Celts  in  the  same  manner ;  that  is,  we  must 
suppose  that  the  men  whom  the  Druids  burnt  in  wicker-work  images 
were  condemned  to  death  on  the  ground  that  they  were  witches 
or  wizards,  and  that  the  mode  of  execution  by  fire  was  chosen 
because  burning  alive  is  deemed  the  surest  mode  of  getting  rid  of 
these  noxious  and  dangerous  beings.  The  same  explanation  would 
aPP]y  ^  the  cattle  and  wild  animals  of  many  kinds  which  the 
Celts  burned  along  with  the  men.  They,  too,  we  may  conjecture, 
were  supposed  to  be  either  under  the  spell  of  witchcraft  or  actually 
to  be  the  witches  and  wizards,  who  had  transformed  themselves  into 
animals  for  the  purpose  of  prosecuting  their  infernal  plots  against  the 
welfare  of  their  fellow-creatures.  This  conjecture  is  confirmed  by 
the  observation  that  the  victims  most  commonly  burned  in  modern 
bonfires  have  been  cats,  and  that  cats  are  precisely  the  animals  into 
which,  with  the  possible  exception  of  hares,  witches  were  most  usually 
supposed  to  transform  themselves.  Again,  we  have  seen  that  serpents 
and  foxes  used  sometimes  to  be  burnt  in  the  midsummer  fires  ;  and 
Welsh  and  German  witches  are  reported  to  have  assumed  the  form 
both  of  foxes  and  serpents.  In  short,  when  we  remember  the  great 
variety  of  animals  whose  forms  witches  can  assume  at  pleasure,  it 
seems  easy  on  this  hypothesis  to  account  for  the  variety  of  living 
creatures  that  have  been  burnt  at  festivals  both  in  ancient  Gaul  and 
modern  Europe  ;  all  these  victims,  we  may  surmise,  were  doomed  to 
the  flames,  not  because  they  were  animals,  but  because  they  were 
believed  to  be  witches  who  had  taken  the  shape  of  animals  for  their 
nefarious  purposes.  One  advantage  of  explaining  the  ancient  Celtic 
sacrifices  in  this  way  is  that  it  introduces,  as  it  were,  a  harmony  and 
consistency  into  the  treatment  which  Europe  has  meted  out  to  witches 
from  the  earliest  times  down  to  about  two  centuries  ago,  when  the 
growing  influence  of  rationalism  discredited  the  belief  in  witchcraft 
and  put  a  stop  to  the  custom  of  burning  witches.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
we  can  now  perhaps  understand  why  the  Druids  believed  that  the 
more  persons  they  sentenced  to  death,  the  greater  would  be  the  fertility 
of  the  land.  To  a  modern  reader  the  connexion  at  first  sight  may  not 
be  obvious  between  the  activity  of  the  hangman  and  the  productivity 
of  the  earth.  But  a  little  reflection  may  satisfy  him  that  when  the 
criminals  who  perish  at  the  stake  or  on  the  gallows  are  witches, 
whose  delight  it  is  to  blight  the  crops  of  the  farmer  or  to  lay  them 
low  under  storms  of  hail,  the  execution  of  these  wretches  is  really 
calculated  to  ensure  an  abundant  harvest  by  removing  one  of  the 


BALDER  AND  THE  MISTLETOE 


CH. 


658 

principal  causes  which  paralyse  the  efforts  and  blast  the  hopes  of 
the  husbandman. 

The  Druidical  sacrifices  which  we  are  considering  were  explained 
in  a  different  way  by  W.  Mannhardt.  He  supposed  that  the  men 
whom  the  Druids  burned  in  wicker-work  images  represented  the  spirits 
of  vegetation,  and  accordingly  that  the  custom  of  burning  them  was 
a  magical  ceremony  intended  to  secure  the  necessary  sunshine  for  the 
crops.  Similarly,  he  seems  to  have  inclined  to  the  view  that  the 
animals  which  used  to  be  burnt  in  the  bonfires  represented  the  corn- 
spirit,  which,  as  we  saw  in  an  earlier  part  of  this  work,  is  often  supposed 
to  assume  the  shape  of  an  animal.  This  theory  is  no  doubt  tenable, 
and  the  great  authority  of  W.  Mannhardt  entitles  it  to  careful  con¬ 
sideration.  I  adopted  it  in  former  editions  of  this  book  ;  but  on 
reconsideration  it  seems  to  me  on  the  whole  to  be  less  probable  than 
the  theory  that  the  men  and  animals  burnt  in  the  fires  perished  in  the 
character  of  witches.  This  latter  view  is  strongly  supported  by  the 
testimony  of  the  people  who  celebrate  the  fire-festivals,  since  a  popular 
name  for  the  custom  of  kindling  the  fires  is  “  burning  the  witches/' 
effigies  of  witches  are  sometimes  consumed  in  the  flames,  and  the  fires, 
their  embers,  or  their  ashes  are  supposed  to  furnish  protection  against 
witchcraft.  On  the  other  hand  there  is  little  to  show  that  the  effigies 
or  the  animals  burnt  in  the  fires  are  regarded  by  the  people  as  repre¬ 
sentatives  of  the  vegetation-spirit,  and  that  the  bonfires  are  sun-charms. 
With  regard  to  serpents  in  particular,  which  used  to  be  burnt  in  the 
midsummer  fire  at  Luchon,  I  am  not  aware  of  any  certain  evidence 
that  in  Europe  snakes  have  been  regarded  as  embodiments  of  the  tree- 
spirit  or  corn-spirit,  though  in  other  parts  of  the  world  the  conception 
appears  to  be  not  unknown.  Whereas  the  popular  faith  in  the  trans¬ 
formation  of  witches  into  animals  is  so  general  and  deeply  rooted, 
and  the  fear  of  these  uncanny  beings  is  so  strong,  that  it  seems  safer 
to  suppose  that  the  cats  and  other  animals  which  were  burnt  in  the 
fire  suffered  death  as  embodiments  of  witches  than  that  they  perished 
as  representatives  of  vegetation-spirits. 


CHAPTER  LXV 


BALDER  AND  THE  MISTLETOE 


The  reader  may  remember  that  the  preceding  account  of  the  popular 
fire-festivals  of  Europe  was  suggested  by  the  myth  of  the  Norse  god 
Balder,  who  is  said  to  have  been  slain  by  a  branch  of  mistletoe  and 
burnt  in  a  great  fire.  We  have  now  to  enquire  how  far  the  customs 
which  have  been  passed  in  review  help  to  shed  light  on  the  myth.  In 
this  enquiry  it  may  be  convenient  to  begin  with  the  mistletoe,  the 
instrument  of  Balder’s  death. 

From  time  immemorial  the  mistletoe  has  been  the  object  of  super- 


LXV 


BALDER  AND  THE  MISTLETOE 


659 


stitious  veneration  in  Europe.  It  was  worshipped  by  the  Druids, 
as  we  learn  from  a  famous  passage  of  Pliny.  After  enumerating  the 
different  kinds  of  mistletoe,  he  proceeds  :  "In  treating  of  this  subject, 
the  admiration  in  which  the  mistletoe  is  held  throughout  Gaul  ought 
not  to  pass  unnoticed.  The  Druids,  for  so  they  call  their  wizards, 
esteem  nothing  more  sacred  than  the  mistletoe  and  the  tree  on  which 
it  grows,  provided  only  that  the  tree  is  an  oak.  But  apart  from  this 
they  choose  oak-woods  for  their  sacred  groves  and  perform  no  sacred 
rites  without  oak-leaves  ;  so  that  the  very  name  of  Druids  may  be 
regarded  as  a  Greek  appellation  derived  from  their  worship  of  the  oak. 
For  they_believe  that  whatever  grows  on  these_ trees  is  sent  from  heaven, 
and  is  a  sign  that  the  tree  has  been  chosen  by  the  god  himself.  The 
mistletoe  is  very  rarely  to  be  met  with  ;  but  when  it  is  found,  they 
gather  it  with  solemn  ceremony.  This  they  do  above  all  on  the  sixth 
day  of  the  moon,  from  whence  they  date  the  beginnings  of  their  months, 
of  their  years,  and  of  their  thirty  years’  cycle,  because  by  the  sixth 
day  the  moon  has  plenty  of  vigour  and  has  not  run  half  its  course. 
After  due  preparations  have  been  made  for  a  sacrifice  and  a  feast 
under  the  tree,  they  hail  it  as  the  universal  healer  and  bring  to  the 
spot  two  white  bulls,  whose  horns  have  never  been  bound  before.  A 
priest  clad  in  a  white  robe  climbs  the  tree  and  with  a  golden  .sickle  cuts 
the  mistletoe,  which  is  caught  in  a  white  cloth.  Then  "they  sacrifice 
the  victims,  praying  that  God  may  make  his  own  gift  to  prosper  with 
those  upon  whom  he  has  bestowed  it.  They  believe  that  a  potion 
prepared  from  mistletoe  will  make  barren  animals  to  bring  forth,  and 
that  the  plant  is  a  remedy  against  all  poison.” 

In  another  passage  Pliny  tells  us  that  in  medicine  the  mistletoe 
which  grows  on  an  oak  was  esteemed  the  most  efficacious,  and  that 
its  efficacy  was  by  some  superstitious  people  supposed  to  be  increased 
if  the  plant  was  gathered  on  the  first  day  of  the  moon  without  the  use 
of  iron,  and  if  when  gathered  it  was  not  allowed  to  touch  the  earth  ; 
oak-mistletoe  thus  obtained  was  deemed  a  cure  for  epilepsy  ;  carried 
about  by  women  it  assisted  them  to  conceive  ;  and  it  healed  ulcers 
most  effectually,  if  only  the  sufferer  chewed  a  piece  of  the  plant  and 
laid  another  piece  on  the  sore.  Yet  again,  he  says  that  mistletoe 
was  supposed,  like  vinegar  and  an  egg,  to  be  an  excellent  means  of 
extinguishing  a  fire. 

If  in  these  latter  passages  Pliny  refers,  as  he  apparently  does,  to 
the  beliefs  current  among  his  contemporaries  in  Italy,  it  will  follow 
that  the  Druids  and  the  Italians  were  to  some  extent  agreed  as  to  the 
valuable  properties  possessed  by  mistletoe  which  grows  on  an  oak  ; 
both  of  them  deemed  it  an  effectual  remedy  for  a  number  of  ailments, 
and  both  of  them  ascribed  to  it  a  quickening  virtue,  the  Druids  believing 
that  a  potion  prepared  from  mistletoe  would  fertilise  barren  cattle, 
and  the  Italians  holding  that  a  piece  of  mistletoe  carried  about  by  a 
woman  would  help  her  to  conceive  a  child.  Further,  both  peoples 
thought  that  if  the  plant  were  to  exert  its  medicinal  properties  it  must 
be  gathered  in  a  certain  way  and  at  a  certain  time.  It  might  not  be 


66o 


BALDER  AND  THE  MISTLETOE 


CH. 


cut  with  iron,  hence  the  Druids  cut  it  with  gold  ;  and  it  might  not 
touch  the  earth,  hence  the  Druids  caught  it  in  a  white  cloth.  In 
choosing  the  time  for  gathering  the  plant,  both  peoples  were  deter¬ 
mined  by  observation  of  the  moon  ;  only  they  differed  as  to  the 
particular  day  of  the  moon,  the  Italians  preferring  the  first,  and  the 
Druids  the  sixth. 

With  these  beliefs  of  the  ancient  Gauls  and  Italians  as  to  the 
wonderful  medicinal  properties  of  mistletoe  we  may  compare  the 
similar  beliefs  of  the  modern  Aino  of  Japan.  We  read  that  they, 

“  like  many  nations  of  the  Northern  origin,  hold  tjie  juisjdetoe  in 
peculiar  veneration.  They  look  upon  it  as  a  medicine,  good  in  almost 
every  disease,  and  it  is  sometimes  taken  in  food  and  at  others  separately 
as  a  decoction.  The  leaves  are  used  in  preference  to  the  berries,  the 
latter  being  of  too  sticky  a  nature  for  general  purposes.  .  .  .  But 
many,  too,  suppose  this  plant  to  have  the  power  of  making  the  gardens  , 
bear  plentifully.  When  used  for  this  purpose,  the  leaves  are  cut  up 
into  fine  pieces,  and,  after  having  been  prayed  over,  are  sown  with 
the  millet  and  other  seeds,  a  little  also  being  eaten  with  the  food. 
Barren  women  have  also  been  known  to  eat  the  mistletoe,  in  order  to 
be  made  to  bear  children.  That  mistletoe  which  grows  upon  the 
willow  is  supposed  to  have  the  greatest  efficacy.  This  is  because  the 
willow  is  looked  upon  by  them  as  being  an  especially  sacred  tree/’ 

Thus  the  Aino  agree  with  the  Druids  in  regarding  mistletoe  as  a  . 
cure  for  almost  every  disease,  and  they  agree  with  the  ancient  Italians 
that  applied  to  women  it  helps  them  to  bear  children.  Again,  the 
Druidical  notion  that  the  mistletoe  was  an  “  all-healer  ”  or  panacea 
may  be  compared  with  a  notion  entertained  by  the  Walos  of  Sene- 
gambia.  These  people  “  have  much  veneration  for  a  sort  of  mistletoe,  , 
which  they  call  tob  ;  they  carry  leaves  of  it  on  their  persons  when  they 
go  to  war  as  a  preservative  against  wounds,  just  as  if  the  leaves  were  ( 
real  talismans  (gris-gris) The  French  writer  who  records  this  practice 
adds  :  “  Is  it  not  very  curious  that  the  mistletoe  should  be  in  this 
part  of  Africa  what  it  was  in  the  superstitions  of  the  Gauls  ?  This 
prejudice,  common  to  the  two  countries,  may  have  the  same  origin ;  ; 
blacks  and  whites  will  doubtless  have  seen,  each  of  them  for  them-  , 
selves,  something  supernatural  in  a  plant  which  grows  and  flourishes 
without  having  roots  in  the  earth.  May  they  not  have  believed,  in 
fact,  that  it  was  a  plant  fallen  from  the  sky,  a  gift  of  the  divinity  ?  ” 

This  suggestion  as  to  the  origin  of  the  superstition  is  strongly 
confirmed  by  the  Druidical  belief,  reported  by  Pliny,  that  whatever 
grew  on  an  oak  was  sent  from  heaven  and  was  a  sign  thad  the  tree 
had  been  chosen  by  the  god  himself.  Such  a  belief  explains  why  the 
Druids  cut  the  mistletoe,  not  with  a  common  knife,  but  with  a  golden 
sickle,  and  why,  when  cut,  it  was  not  suffered  to  touch  the  earth  ; 
probably  they  thought  that  the  celestial  plant  would  have  been 
profaned  and  its  marvellous  virtue  lost  by  contact  with  the  ground. 
With  the  ritual  observed  by  the  Druids  in  cutting  the  mistletoe  we 
may  compare  the  ritual  which  in  Cambodia  is  prescribed  in  a  similar 


66 1 


lxv  BALDER  AND  THE  MISTLETOE 


case.  They  say  that  when  you  see  an  orchid  growing  as  a  parasite 
on  a  tamarind  tiee,  you  should  dress  in  white,  take  a  new  earthenware 
pot,  then  climb  the  tree  at  noon,  break  off  the  plant,  put  it  in  the  pot 
and  let  the  pot  fall  to  the  ground.  After  that  you  make  in  the  pot  a 
decoction  which  confers  the  gift  of  invulnerability.  Thus  just  as  in 
Africa  the  leaves  of  one  parasitic  plant  are  supposed  to  render  the 
wearer  invulnerable,  so  in  Cambodia  a  decoction  made  from  another 
parasitic  plant  is  considered  to  render  the  same  service  to  such  as  make 
use  of  it,  whether  by  drinking  or  washing.  We  may  conjecture  that 
in  both  places  the  notion  of  invulnerability  is  suggested  by  the  position 
of  the  plant,  which,  occupying  a  place  of  comparative  security  above  the 
ground,  appears  to  promise  to  its  fortunate  possessor  a  similar  security 
from  some  of  the  ills  that  beset  the  life  of  man  on  earth.  We  have 
already  met  with  examples  of  the  store  which  the  primitive  mind  sets 
on  such  vantage  grounds. 

Whatever  may  be  the  origin  of  these  beliefs  and  practices  con¬ 
cerning  the  mistletoe,  certain  it  is  that  some  of  them  have  their  analogies 
in  the  folk-lore  of  modern  European  peasants.  For  example,  it  is  laid 
down  as  a  rule  in  various  parts  of  Europe  that  mistletoe  may  not  be 
cut  in  the  ordinary  way  but  must  be  shot  or  knocked  down  with 
stones  from  the  tree  on  which  it  is  growing.  Thus,  in  the  Swiss 
canton  of  Aargau  all  parasitic  plants  are  esteemed  in  a  certain  sense 
holy  by  the  country  folk,  but  most  particularly  so  the  mistletoe  growing 
on  an  oak.  They  ascribe  great  powers  to  it,  but  shrink  from  cutting 
it  off  in  the  usual  manner.  Instead  of  that  they  procure  it  in  the 
following  manner.  When  the  sun  is  in  Sagittarius  and  the  moon  is  on 
the  wane,  on  the  first,  third,  or  fourth  day  before  the  new  moon, 
one  ought  to  shoot  down  with  an  arrow  the  mistletoe  of  an  oak  and  to 
catch  it  with  the  left  hand  as  it  falls.  Such  mistletoe  is  a  remedy 
for  every  ailment  of  children.' '  Here  among  the  Swiss  peasants,  as 
among  the  Druids  of  old,  special  virtue  is  ascribed  to  mistletoe  which 


grows  on  an  oak  :  it  may  not  be  cut  in  the  usual  way  :  it  must  be 
caught  as  it  falls  to  the  ground  ;  and  it  is  esteemed  a  panacea  for  all 
diseases,  at  least  of  children.  In  Sweden,  also,  it  is  a  popular  super¬ 
stition  that  if  mistletoe  is  to  possess  itsjgeculiar  virtue,  it  must  either 
be  shot  djaffin_put  of  the_oak  or  knocked  down  with  stones.  Similarly, 
so  late  as  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  people  in  Wales 
believed  that  for  the  mistletoe  to  have  any  power,  it  must  be  shot 
or  struck  down  with  stones  off  the  tree  where  it  grew." 

Again,  in  respect  of  the  healing  virtues  of  mistletoe  the  opinion 
of  modern  peasants,  and  even  of  the  learned,  has  to  some  extent 
agreed  with  that  of  the  ancients.  The  Druids  appear  to  have  called 
the  plant,  or  perhaps  the  oak  on  which  it  grew,  the  “  all-healer  "  ; 
and  “  all-healer  "  is  said  to  be  still  a  name  of  the  mistletoe  in  the  modern 
Celtic  speech  of  Brittany,  Wales,  Ireland,  and  Scotland.  On  St.  John's 
morning  (Midsummer  morning)  peasants  of  Piedmont  and  Lombardy 
?o  out  to  search  the  oak-leaves  for  the  “  oil  of  St.  John,"  which  is 
supposed  to  heal  all  wounds  made  with  cutting  instruments. 


662 


BALDER  AND  THE  MISTLETOE 


CII. 


Originally,  perhaps,  the  "  oil  of  St.  John  ”  was  simply  the  mistletoe, 
or  a  decoction  made  from  it.  For  in  Holstein  the  mistletoe,  especially 
oak-mistletoe,  is  still  regarded  as  a  panacea  for  green  wounds  and  as 
a  sure  charm  to  secure  success  in  hunting  ;  and  at  Lacaune,  in  the 
south  of  France,  the  old  Druidical  belief  in  the  mistletoe  as  am  antidote 
to  all  poisons  still  survives  among  the  peasantry  ;  they  apply  the  plant 
to  the  stomach  of  the  sufferer  or  give  him  a  decoction  of  it  to  drink. 
Again,  the  ancient  belief  that  mistletoe  is  a  cure  for  epilepsy  has 
survived  in  modern  times  not  only  among  the  ignorant  but  among  the 
learned.  Thus  in  Sweden  persons  afflicted  with  the  falling  sickness 
think  they  can  ward  off  attacks  of  the  malady  by  carrying  about  with 
them  a  knife  which  has  a  handle  of  oak  mistletoe ;  and  in  Germany 
for  a  similar  purpose  pieces  of  mistletoe  used  to  be  hung  round  the 
necks  of  children.  In  the  French  province  of  Bourbonnais  a  popular 
remedy  for  epilepsy  is  a  decoction  of  mistletoe  which  has  been  gathered 
on  an  oak  on  St.  John’s  Day  and  boiled  with  rye-flour.  So  at  Bottes- 
ford  in  Lincolnshire  a  decoction  of  mistletoe  is  supposed  to  be  a 
palliative  for  this  terrible  disease.  Indeed  mistletoe  was  recommended 
as  a  remedy  for  the  falling  sickness  by  high  medical  authorities  in 
England  and  Holland  down  to  the  eighteenth  century. 

However,  the  opinion  of  the  medical  profession  as  to  the  curative 
virtues  of  mistletoe  has  undergone  a  radical  alteration.  Whereas  the 
Druids  thought  that  mistletoe  cured  everything,  modern  doctors  appear 
to  think  that  it  cures  nothing.  If  they  are  right,  we  must  conclude 
that  the  ancient  and  widespread  faith  in  the  medicinal  virtue  of 
mistletoe  is  a  pure  superstition  based  on  nothing  better  than  the 
fanciful  inferences  which  ignorance  has  drawn  from  the  parasitic 
nature  of  the  plant,  its  position  high  up  on  the  branch  of  a  tree  seeming 
to  protect  it  from  the  dangers  to  which  plants  and  animals  are  subject 
on  the  surface  of  the  ground.  From  this  point  of  view  we  can  perhaps 
understand  why  mistletoe  has  so  long  and  so  persistently  been  pre¬ 
scribed  as  a  cure  for  the  falling  sickness.  As  mistletoe  cannot  fall  to 
the  ground  because  it  is  rooted  on  the  branch  of  a  tree  high  above  the 
earth,  it  seems  to  follow  as  a  necessary  consequence  that  an  epileptic 
patient  cannot  possibly  fall  down  in  a  fit  so  long  as  he  carries  a  piece 
of  mistletoe  in  his  pocket  or  a  decoction  of  mistletoe  in  his  stomach. 
Such  a  train  of  reasoning  would  probably  be  regarded  even  now  as 
cogent  by  a  large  portion  of  the  human  species. 

Again  the  ancient  Italian  opinion  that  mistletoe  extinguishes 
fire  appears  to  be  shared  by  Swedish  peasants,  who  hang  up  bunches 
of  oak-mistletoe  on  the  ceilings  of  their  rooms  as  a  protection  against 
harm  in  general  and  conflagration  in  particular.  A  hint  as  to  the  way 
in  which  mistletoe  comes  to  be  possessed  of  this  property  is  furnished 
by  the  epithet  “  thunder-besom,”  which  people  of  the  Aargau  canton 
in  Switzerland  apply  to  the  plant.  For  a  thunder-besom  is  a  shaggy, 
bushy  excrescence  on  branches  of  trees,  which  is  popularly  believed  to 
be  produced  by  a  flash  of  lightning  ;  hence  in  Bohemia  a  thunder- 
besom  burnt  in  the  fire  protects  the  house  against  being  struck  by 


LXV 


BALDER  AND  THE  MISTLETOE 


663 


a  thunder-bolt.  Being  itself  a  product  of  lightning  it  naturally  serves, 
on  homoeopathic  principles,  as  a  protection  against  lightning,  in  fact 
as  a  kind  of  lightning-conductor.  Hence  the  fire  which  mistletoe  in 
Sweden  is  designed  especially  to  avert  from  houses  may  be  hre  kindled 
by  lightning  ;  though  no  doubt  the  plant  is  equally  effective  against 
conflagration  in  general. 

Again,  mistletoe  acts  as  a  master-key  as  well  as  a  lightning-con¬ 
ductor  ;  for  it  is  said  to  open  all  locks.  But  perhaps  the  most  precious 
of  all  the  virtues  of  mistletoe  is  that  it  affords  efficient  protection  against 
sorcery  and  witchcraft.  That,  no  doubt,  is  the  reason  why  in  Austria 
a  twig  of  mistletoe  is  laid  on  the  threshold  as  a  preventive  of  night¬ 
mare  ;  and  it  may  be  the  reason  why  in  the  north  of  England  they 
say  that  if  you  wish  your  dairy  to  thrive  you  should  give  your  bunch 
of  mistletoe  to  the  first  cow  that  calves  after  New  Year’s  Day,  for  it  is 
well  known  that  nothing  is  so  fatal  to  milk  and  butter  as  witchcraft. 
Similarly  in  Wales,  for  the  sake  of  ensuring  good  luck  to  the  dairy, 
people  used  to  give  a  branch  of  mistletoe  to  the  first  cow  that  gave 
birth  to  a  calf  after  the  first  hour  of  the  New  Year  ;  and  in  rural  districts 
of  Wales,  where  mistletoe  abounded,  there  was  always  a  profusion  of 
it  in  the  farmhouses.  When  mistletoe  was  scarce,  Welsh  farmers 
used  to  say,  “  No  mistletoe,  no  luck  ”  ;  but  if  there -was  a  fine  crop 
of  mistletoe,  they  expected  a  fine  crop  of  corn.  In  Sweden  mistletoe  is 
diligently  sought  after  on  St.  John’s  Eve,  the  people  “  believing  it  to  be, 
in  a  high  degree,  possessed  of  mystic  qualities ;  and  that  if  a  sprig  of  it 
be  attached  to  the  ceiling  of  the  dwelling-house,  the  horse’s  stall,  or  the 
cow’s  crib,  the  Troll  will  then  be  powerless  to  injure  either  man  or  beast.” 

With  regard  to  the  time  when  the  mistletoe  should  be  gathered 
opinions  have  varied.  The  Druids  gathered  it  above  all  on  the  sixth 
day  of  the  moon,  the  ancient  Italians  apparently  on  the  first  day  of 
the  moon.  In  modern  times  some  have  preferred  the  full  moon  of 
March  and  others  the  waning  moon  of  winter  when  the  sun  is  in  Sagit¬ 
tarius.  But  the  favourite  time  would  seem  to  be  Midsummer  Eve 
or  Midsummer  Day.  We  have  seen  that  both  in  France  and  Sweden 
special  virtues  are  ascribed  to  mistletoe  gathered  at  Midsummer. 
The  rule  in  Sweden  is  that  “  mistletoe  must  be  cut  on  the  night  of 
Midsummer  Eve  when  sun  and  moon  stand  in  the  sign  of  their  might.” 
Again,  in  Wales  it  was  believed  that  a  sprig  of  mistletoe  gathered  on 
St.  John’s  Eve  (Midsummer  Eve),  or  at  any  time  before  the  berries 
appeared,  would  induce  dreams  of  omen,  both  good  and  bad,  if  it  were 
placed  under  the  pillow  of  the  sleeper.  Thus  mistletoe  is  one  of  the 
many  plants  whose  magical  or  medicinal  virtues  are  believed  to 
culminate  with  the  culmination  of  the  sun  on  the  longest  day  of  the 
year.  Hence  it  seems  reasonable  to  conjecture  that  in  the  eyes  of 
the  Druids,  also,  who  revered  the  plant  so  highly,  the  sacred  mistletoe 
may  have  acquired  a  double  portion  of  its  mystic  qualities  at  the 
solstice  in  June,  and  that  accordingly  they  may  have  regularly  cut 
it  with  solemn  ceremony  on  Midsummer  Eve. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  certain  it  is  that  the  mistletoe,  the  instrument 


BALDER  AND  THE  MISTLETOE 


CH. 


664 

of  Balder’s  death,  has  been  regularly  gathered  for  the  sake  of  its  mystic 
qualities  on  Midsummer  Eve  in  Scandinavia,  Balder’s  home.  The  plant 
is  found  commonly  growing  on  pear-trees,  oaks,  and  other  trees  in 
thick  damp  woods  throughout  the  more  temperate  parts  of  Sweden. 
Thus  one  of  the  two  main  incidents  of  Balder’s  myth  is  reproduced 
in  the  great  midsummer  festival  of  Scandinavia.  But  the  other  main 
incident  of  the  myth,  the  burning  of  Balder’s  body  on  a  pyre,  has  also 
its  counterpart  in  the  bonfires  which  still  blaze,  or  blazed  till  lately, 
in  Denmark,  Norway,  and  Sweden  on  Midsummer  Eve.  It  does  not 
appear,  indeed,  that  any  effigy  is  burned  in  these  bonfires  ;  but  the 
burning  of  an  effigy  is  a  feature  which  might  easily  drop  out  after  its 
meaning  was  forgotten.  And  the  name  of  Balder’s  balefires  [Balder’ s 
Bdlar),  by  which  these  midsummer  fires  were  formerly  known  in 
Sweden,  puts  their  connexion  with  Balder  beyond  the  reach  of  doubt, 
and  makes  it  probable  that  in  former  times  either  a  living  representa¬ 
tive  or  an  effigy  of  Balder  was  annually  burned  in  them.  Midsummer 
was  the  season  sacred  to  Balder,  and  the  Swedish  poet  Tegner,  in  placing 
the  burning  of  Balder  at  midsummer,  may  very  well  have  followed  an 
old  tradition  that  the  summer  solstice  was  the  time  when  the  good 
god  came  to  his  untimely  end. 

Thus  it  has  been  shown  that  the  leading  incidents  of  the  Balder 
myth  have  their  counterparts  in  those  fire-festivals  of  our  European 
peasantry  which  undoubtedly  date  from  a  time  long  prior  to  the 
introduction  of  Christianity.  The  pretence  of  throwing  the  victim 
chosen  by  lot  into  the  Beltane  fire,  and  the  similar  treatment  of  the 
man,  the  future  Green  Wolf,  at  the  midsummer  bonfire  in  Normandy, 
may  naturally  be  interpreted  as  traces  of  an  older  custom  of  actually 
burning  human  beings  on  these  occasions ;  and  the  green  dress  of  the 
Green  Wolf,  coupled  with  the  leafy  envelope  of  the  young  fellow  who 
trod  out  the  midsummer  fire  at  Moosheim,  seems  to  hint  that  the 
persons  who  perished  at  these  festivals  did  so  in  the  character  of  tree- 
spirits  or  deities  of  vegetation.  From  all  this  we  may  reasonably 
infer  that  in  the  Balder  myth  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  fire-festivals 
and  custom  of  gathering  mistletoe  on  the  other  hand,  we  have,  as  it 
were,  the  two  broken  and  dissevered  halves  of  an  original  whole.  In 
other  words,  we  may  assume  with  some  degree  of  probability  that 
the  myth  of  Balder’s  death  was  not  merely  a  myth,  that  is,  a  description 
of  physical  phenomena  in  imagery  borrowed  from  human  life,  but  that 
it  was  at  the  same  time  the  story  which  people  told  to  explain  why  they 
annually  burned  a  human  representative  of  the  god  and  cut  the 
mistletoe  with  solemn  ceremony;  LET  anTrighfTthe  story  oFBalder’s 
tragic  endHormed,  so  to  say,  thE  text  of  the  sacred  drama  which  was 
acted  year  by  year  as  a  magical  rite  to  cause  the  sun  to  shine,  trees 
to  grow,  crops  to  thrive,  and  to  guard  man  and  beast  from  the  baleful 
arts  of  fairies  and  trolls,  of  witches  and  warlocks.  The  tale  belonged, 
in  short,  to  that  class  of  nature  myths  which  are  meant  to  be  supple¬ 
mented  by  ritual ;  here,  as  so  often,  mythstood  to  magic  in  the  relation 
of  theory  to  practice. 


LXV 


BALDER  AND  THE  MISTLETOE 


665 


But  if  the  victims — the  human  Balders — who  died  by  fire,  whether 
in  spring  or  at  midsummer,  were  put  to  death  as  living  embodiments 
of  tree-spirits  or  deities  of  vegetation,  it  would  seem  that  Balder 
himself  must  have  been  a  tree-spirit  or  deity  of  vegetation.  It  becomes 
desirable,  therefore,  to  determine,  if  we  can,  the  particular  kind  of 
tree  or  trees,  of  which  a  personal  representative  was  burned  at  the 
fire-festivals.  For  we  may  be  quite  sure  that  it  was  not  as  a  repre¬ 
sentative  of  vegetation  in  general  that  the  victim  suffered  death. 
The  idea  of  vegetation  in  general  is  too  abstract  to  be  primitive. 
Most  probably  the  victim  at  first  represented  a  particular  kind  of 
sacred  tree.  But  of  all  European  trees  none  has  such  claims  as  the 
oak  to  be  considered  as  pre-eminently  the  sacred  tree  of  the  Aryans. 
We  have  seen  that  its  worship  is  attested  for  all  the  great  branches 
of  the  Aryan  stock  in  Europe ;  hence  we  may  certainly  conclude  that 
the  tree  was  venerated  by  the  Aryans  in  common  before  the  dispersion, 
and  that  their  primitive  home  must  have  lain  in  a  land  which  was 
clothed  with  forests  of  oak. 

Now,  considering  the  primitive  character  and  remarkable  similarity 
of  the  fire-festivals  observed  by  all  the  branches  of  the  Aryan  race 
in  Europe,  we  may  infer  that  these  festivals  form  part  of  the  common 
stock  of  religious  observances  which  the  various  peoples  carried  with 
them  in  their  wanderings  from  their  old  home.  But,  if  I  am  right, 
an  essential  feature  of  those  primitive  fire-festivals  was  the  burning 
of  a  man  who  represented  the  tree-spirit.  In  view,  then,  of  the  place 
occupied  by  the  oak  in  the  religion  of  the  Aryans,  the  presumption  is 
that  the  tree  so  represented  at  the  fire-festivals  must  originally  have 
been  the  oak.  So  far  as  the  Celts  and  Lithuanians  are  concerned, 
this  conclusion  will  perhaps  hardly  be  contested.  But  both  for  them 
and  for  the  Germans  it  is  confirmed  by  a  remarkable  piece  of  religious 
conservatism.  The  most  primitive  method  known  to  man  of  produc¬ 
ing  fire  is  by  rubbing  two  pieces  of  wood  against  each  other  till  they 
ignite  ;  and  we  have  seen  that  this  method  is  still  used  in  Europe 
for  kindling  sacred  fires  such  as  the  need-fire,  and  that  most  probably 
it  was  formerly  resorted  to  at  all  the  fire-festivals  under  discussion. 
Now  it  is  sometimes  required  that  the  need-fire,  or  other  sacred  fire, 
should  be  made  by  the  friction  of  a  particular  kind  of  wood  ;  and 
when  the  kind  of  wood  is  prescribed,  whether  among  Celts,  Germans, 
or  Slavs,  that  wood  appears  to  be  generally  the  oak.  But  if  the 
sacred  fire  was  regularly  kindled  by  the  friction  of  oak-wood,  we  may 
infer  that  originally  the  fire  was  also  fed  with  the  same  material. 
In  point  of  fact,  it  appears  that  the  perpetual  fire  of  Vesta  at  Rome 
was  fed  with  oak-wood,  and  that  oak-wood  was  the  fuel  consumed 
in  the  perpetual  fire  which  burned  under  the  sacred  oak  at  the  great 
Lithuanian  sanctuary  of  Romove.  Further,  that  oak-wood  was 
formerly  the  fuel  burned  in  the  midsummer  fires  may  perhaps  be 
inferred  from  the  custom,  said  to  be  still  observed  by  peasants  in 
many  mountain  districts  of  Germany,  of  making  up  the  cottage  fire 
on  Midsummer  Day  with  a  heavy  block  of  oak-wood.  The  block 


666 


BALDER  AND  THE  MISTLETOE 


CII. 


is  so  arranged  that  it  smoulders  slowly  and  is  not  finally  reduced 
to  charcoal  till  the  expiry  of  a  year.  Then  upon  next  Midsummer 
Day  the  charred  embers  of  the  old  log  are  removed  to  make  room 
for  the  new  one,  and  are  mixed  with  the  seed-corn  or  scattered  about 
the  garden.  This  is  believed  to  guard  the  food  cooked  on  the  hearth 
from  witchcraft,  to  preserve  the  luck  of  the  house,  to  promote  the 
growth  of  the  crops,  and  to  keep  them  from  blight  and  vermin. 
Thus  the  custom  is  almost  exactly  parallel  to  that  of  the  Yule-log, 
which  in  parts  of  Germany,  France,  England,  Serbia,  and  other  Slavonic 
lands  was  commonly  of  oak-wood.  The  general  conclusion  is,  that 
at  those  periodic  or  occasional  ceremonies  the  ancient  Aryans  both 
kindled  and  fed  the  fire  with  the  sacred  oak-wood. 

But  if  at  these  solemn  rites  the  fire  was  regularly  made  of  oak- 
wood,  it  follows  that  any  man  who  was  burned  in  it  as  a  personification 
of  the  tree-spirit  could  have  represented  no  tree  but  the  oak.  The 
sacred  oak  was  thus  burned  in  duplicate  ;  the  wood  of  the  tree  was 
consumed  in  the  fire,  and  along  with  it  was  consumed  a  living  man 
as  a  personification  of  the  oak-spirit.  The  conclusion  thus  drawn  for 
the  European  Aryans  in  general  is  confirmed  in  its  special  application 
to  the  Scandinavians  by  the  relation  in  which  amongst  them  the 
mistletoe  appears  to  have  stood  to  the  burning  of  the  victim  in  the 
midsummer  fire.  We  have  seen  that  among  Scandinavians  it  has 
been  customary  to  gather  the  mistletoe  at  midsummer.  But  so  far 
as  appears  on  the  face  of  this  custom,  there  is  nothing  to  connect  it 
with  the  midsummer  fires  in  which  human  victims  or  effigies  of  them 
were  burned.  Even  if  the  fire,  as  seems  probable,  was  originally 
always  made  with  oak-wood,  why  should  it  have  been  necessary  to 
pull  the  mistletoe  ?  The  last  link  between  the  midsummer  customs 
of  gathering  the  mistletoe  and  lighting  the  bonfires  is  supplied  by 
Balder’s  myth,  which  can  hardly  be  disjoined  from  the  customs  in 
,  question.  The  myth  suggests  that  a  vital  connexion  may  once  have 
been  believed  to  subsist  between  the  mistletoe  and  the  human  repre¬ 
sentative  of  the  oak  who  was  burned  in  the  fire.  According  to  the 
myth,  Balder  could  be  killed  by  nothing  in  heaven  or  earth  except 
the  mistletoe  ;  and  so  long  as  the  mistletoe  remained  on  the  oak, 
he  was  not  only  immortal  but  invulnerable.  Now,  if  we  suppose 
that  Balder  was  the  oak,  the  origin  of  the  myth  becomes  intelligible. 
The  mistletoe  was  viewed  as  the  seat  of  life  of  the  oak,  and  so  long 
as  it  was  uninjured  nothing  could  kill  or  even  wound  the  oak.  The 
conception  of  the  mistletoe  as  the  seat  of  life  of  the  oak  would  naturally 
be  suggested  to  primitive  people  by  the  observation  that  while  the 
oak  is  deciduous,  the  mistletoe  which  grows  on  it  is  evergreen.  In 
winter  the  sight  of  its  fresh  foliage  among  the  bare  branches  must 
have  been  hailed  by  the  worshippers  of  the  tree  as  a  sign  that  the 
divine  life  which  had  ceased  to  animate  the  branches  yet  survived 
in  the  mistletoe,  as  the  heart  of  a  sleeper  still  beats  when  his  body 
is  motionless.  Hence  when  the  god  had  to  be  killed — when  the  sacred 
tree  had  to  be  burnt — it  was  necessary  to  begin  by  breaking  off  the 


lxvi  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-TALES  667 

mistletoe.  For  so  long  as  the  mistletoe  remained  intact,  the  oak  (so 
people  might  think)  was  invulnerable  ;  all  the  blows  of  their  knives 
and  axes  would  glance  harmless  from  its  surface.  But  once  tear  from 
the  oak  its  sacred  heart — the  mistletoe — and  the  tree  nodded  to  its 
fall.  And  when  in  later  times  the  spirit  of  the  oak  came  to  be  repre¬ 
sented  by  a  living  man,  it  was  logically  necessary  to  suppose  that, 
like  the  tree  he  personated,  he  could  neither  be  killed  nor  wounded 
so  long  as  the  mistletoe  remained  uninjured.  The  pulling  of  the 
mistletoe  was  thus  at  once  the  signal  and  the  cause  of  his  death. 

On  this  view  the  invulnerable  Balder  is  neither  more  nor  less  than 
a  personification  of  a  mistletoe-bearing  oak.  The  interpretation  is 
confirmed  by  what  seems  to  have  been  an  ancient  Italian  belief,  that 
the  mistletoe  can  be  destroyed  neither  by  fire  nor  water  ;  for  if  the 
parasite  is  thus  deemed  indestructible,  it  might  easily  be  supposed 
to  communicate  its  own  indestructibility  to  the  tree  on  which  it  grows, 
so  long  as  the  two  remain  in  conjunction.  Or,  to  put  the  same  idea 
in  mythical  form,  we  might  tell  how  the  kindly  god  of  the  oak  had 
his  life  securely  deposited  in  the  imperishable  mistletoe  which  grew 
among  the  branches  ;  how  accordingly  so  long  as  the  mistletoe  kept 
its  place  there,  the  deity  himself  remained  invulnerable  ;  and  how 
at  last  a  cunning  foe,  let  into  the  secret  of  the  god’s  invulnerability, 
tore  the  mistletoe  from  the  oak,  thereby  killing  the  oak-god  and 
afterwards  burning  his  body  in  a  fire  which  could  have  made  no  im¬ 
pression  on  him  so  long  as  the  incombustible  parasite  retained  its 
seat  among  the  boughs.  ^ 

But  since  the  idea  of  a  being  whose  life  is  thus,  in  a  sense,  outside 
himself,  must  be  strange  to  many  readers,  and  has,  indeed,  not  yet 
been  recognised  in  its  full  bearing  on  primitive  superstition,  it  will 
be  worth  while  to  illustrate  it  by  examples  drawn  both  from  story 
and  custom.  The  result  will  be  to  show  that,  in  assuming  this  idea 
as  the  explanation  of  Balder’s  relation  to  the  mistletoe,  I  assume  a 
principle  which  is  deeply  engraved  on  the  mind  of  primitive  man. 


CHAPTER  LXVI 

THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-TALES 

In  a  former  part  of  this  work  we  saw  that,  in  the  opinion  of  primitive 
people,  the  soul  may  temporarily  absent  itself  from  the  body  without 
causing  death.  Such  temporary  absences  of  the  soul  are  often  believed 
to  involve  considerable  risk,  since  the  wandering  soul  is  liable  to  a 
variety  of  mishaps  at  the  hands  of  enemies,  and  so  forth.  But  there 
is  another  aspect  to  this  power  of  disengaging  the  soul  from  the  body. 
Ijonly  the  safety  of  the  soul  can  be  ensured  during  its  absence,  there 
ismo  reason  why  the  soul  should  not  continue  absent  for  an  indefinite 
time  ;  indeed  a  man  may,  An  a ~ pure  calculation^  of  personal  salety7 


668 


THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-TALES 


CH. 

desire  that  his  soul  should  never  return  to  his  body.  Unable  to  con¬ 
ceive  of  life  abstractly  as  a  “  permanent  possibility  of  sensation  ”  or 
a  “  continuous  adjustment  of  internal  arrangements  to  external 
relations,”  the  savage  thinks  of  it  as  a  concrete  material  thing  of  a 
definite  bulk,  capable  of  being  seen  and  handled,  kept  in  a  box  or  jar, 
and  liable  to  be  bruised,  fractured,  or  smashed  in  pieces.  It  is  not 
needful  that  the  life,  so  conceived,  should  be  in  the  man  ;  it  may  be 
absent  from  his  body  and  still  continue  to  animate  him  by  virtue  of 
a  sort  of  sympathy  or  action  at  a  distance.  So  long  as  this  object 
which  he  calls  his  life  or  soul  remains  unharmed,  the  man  is  well ; 
if  it  is  injured,  he  suffers  ;  if  it  is  destroyed,  he  dies.  Or,  to  put  it 
otherwise,  when  a  man  is  ill  or  dies,  the  fact  is  explained  by  saying 
that  the  material  object  called  his  life  or  soul,  whether  it  be  in  his 
body  or  out  of  it,  has  either  sustained  injury  or  been  destroyed.  But 
there  may  be  circumstances  in  which,  if  the  life  or  soul  remains  in 
the  man,  it  stands  a  greater  chance  of  sustaining  injury  than  if  it 
were  stowed  away  in  some  safe  and  secret  place.  Accordingly,  in 
such  circumstances,  primitive  man  takes  his  soul  out  of  his  body 
and  deposits  it  for  security  in  some  snug  spot,  intending  to  replace 
it  in  his  body  when  the  danger  is  past.  Or  if  he  should  discover 
some  place  of  absolute  security,  he  may  be  content  to  leave  his  soul 
there  permanently.  The  advantage  of  this  is  that,  so  long  as  the  soul 
remains  unharmed  in  the  place  where Jie  has  deposited  it,  the  man  him¬ 
self  isjmmortal  ;  nothing  can  kill  his  body,  since  his  life  is  not  in  it. 

Evidence  of  this  primitive  belief  is  furnished  by  a  class'  of  folk¬ 
tales  of  which  the  Norse  story  of  "  The  giant  who  had  no  heart  in  his 
body  ”  is  perhaps  the  best-known  example.  Stories  of  this  kind  are 
widely  diffused  over  the  world,  and  from  their  number  and  the  variety 
of  incident  and  of  details  in  which  the  leading  idea  is  embodied  we 
may  infer  that  the  conception  of  an  external  soul  is  one  which  has  had 
a  powerful  hold  on  the  minds  of  men  at  an  early  stage  of  history. 
For  folk-tales  are  a  faithful  reflection  of  the  world  as  it  appeared  to 
the  primitive  mind  ;  and  we  may  be  sure  that  any  idea  which  commonly 
occurs  in  them,  however  absurd  it  may  seem  to  us,  must  once  have 
been  an  ordinary  article  of  belief.  This  assurance,  so  far  as  it  concerns 
the  supposed  power  of  disengaging  the  soul  from  the  body  for  a  longer 
or  shorter  time,  is  amply  corroborated  by  a  comparison  of  the  folk¬ 
tales  in  question  with  the  actual  beliefs  and  practices  of  savages.  To 
this  we  shall  return  after  some  specimens  of  the  tales  have  been  given. 
The  specimens  will  be  selected  with  a  view  of  illustrating  both  the 
characteristic  features  and  the  wide  diffusion  of  this  class  of  tales. 

In  the  first  place,  the  story  of  the  external  soul  is  told,  in  various 
forms,  by  all  Aryan  peoples  from  Hindoostan  to  the  Hebrides.  A 
very  common  form  of  it  is  this  :  A  warlock,  giant,  or  other  fairyland 
being  is  invulnerable  and  immortal  because  he  keeps  his  soul  hidden 
far  away  in  some  secret  place  ;  but  a  fair  princess,  whom  he  holds 
enthralled  in  his  enchanted  castle,  wiles  his  secret  from  him  and  reveals 
it  to  the  hero,  who  seeks  out  the  warlock’s  soul,  heart,  life,  or  death 


LXV1 


THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-TALES  669 

(as  it  is  variously  called),  and  by  destroying  it,  simultaneously  kills 
the  warlock.  Thus  a  Hindoo  story  tells  how  a  magician  called  Punch- 
km  held  a  queen  captive  for  twelve  years,  and  would  fain  marry  her 
but  she  would  not  have  him.  At  last  the  queen’s  son  came  to  rescue 
her  and  the  two  plotted  together  to  kill  Punchkin.  So  the  queen 
spoke  the  magician  fair,  and  pretended  that  she  had  at  last  made  up 
her  mind  to  marry  him.  "  And  do  tell  me,”  she  said,  “  are  you  quite 
immortal  ?  Can  death  never  touch  you  ?  And  are  you  too  great 
an  enchanter  ever  to  feel  human  suffering  ?  ”  “  It  is  true  ”  he  snirl 

that  I  am  not  as  others.  Far,  far  away,  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  miles  from  this,  there  lies  a  desolate  country  covered  with  thick 
jungle.  In  the  midst  of  the  jungle  grows  a  circle  of  palm  trees  and 
m  the  centre  of  the  circle  stand  six  chattees  full  of  water  piled  one 
above  another  :  below  the  sixth  chattee  is  a  small  cage,  which  contains 

a  little  green  parrot ;  on  the  life  of  the  parrot  depends  my  life  _ 

and  if  the  parrot  is  killed  I  must  die.  It  is,  however/'  he  added 
impossible  that  the  pairot  should  sustain  any  injury,  both  on 
account  of  the  inaccessibility  of  the  country,  and  because,  by  mv 
appointment,  many  thousand  genii  surround  the  palm  trees  and  kill 

1  ^ProacVhe  Place-”  But  the  queen's  young  son  overcame 
all  difficulties,  and  got  possession  of  the  parrot.  He  brought  it  to  the 
door  of  the  magician's  palace,  and  began  playing  with  it.  Punchkin 
t  e  magician,  saw  him,  and,  coming  out,  tried  to  persuade  the  boy  to 
give  hun  the  parrot.  “  Give  me  my  parrot  !  "  cried  Punchkin  Then 
the  boy  took  hold  of  the  parrot  and  tore  off  one  of  his  wings  ■  and  as 
he  did  so  the  magician's  right  arm  fell  off.  Punchkin  then  stretched 

oat^ls  left  crymg>  “  Give  me  my  parrot  !  "  The  prince  pulled 
oil  the  parrot  s  second  wing,  and  the  magician's  left  arm  tumbled  off 
Give  me  my  parrot  !  "  cried  he,  and  fell  on  his  knees.  The  prince 
pulled  off  the  parrot's  right  leg,  the  magician's  right  leg  fell  off  •  the 
prince  pulled  off  the  parrot's  left  leg,  down  fell  the  magician's  left 
Nothing  remained  of  him  except  the  trunk  and  the  head  ;  but  still 
he  rolled  his  eyes,  and  cried,  “  Give  me  my  parrot  !  "  “  Take  your 

parrot,  then,  cried  the  boy  ;  and  with  that  he  wrung  the  bird's  neck 
and  threw  it  at  the  magician  ;  and,  as  he  did  so,  Punchkin’s  head 
twisted  round,  and,  with  a  fearful  groan,  he  died  !  In  another  Hindoo 
tale  an  ogie  is  asked  by  his  daughter,  “  Papa,  where  do  you  keep  your 
soul  ?  "  "  Sixteen  miles  away  from  this  place,"  he  said,  “  is  a  tree 

Round  the  tree  are  tigers,  and  bears,  and  scorpions,  and  snakes  ;  on  the 
top  of  the  tree  is  a  very  great  fat  snake  ;  on  his  head  is  a  little  cage  * 
m  the  cage  is  a  bird  ;  and  my  soul  is  in  that  bird."  The  end  of  the  o-re 
is  like  that  of  the  magician  in  the  previous  tale.  As  the  bird’s  wings 
and  legs  are  torn  off,  the  ogre's  arms  and  legs  drop  off ;  and  when  its 
neck  is  wrung  he  falls  down  dead.  In  a  Bengalee  story  it  is  said  that 
all  the  ogres  dwell  in  Ceylon,  and  that  all  their  lives  are  in  a  single 
lemon.  A  boy  cuts  the  lemon  in  pieces,  and  all  the  ogres  die. 

In  a  Siamese  or  Cambodian  story,  probably  derived  from  India 
we  are  told  that  Thossakan  or  Ravana,  the  King  of  Ceylon,  was  able 


CH. 


670  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-TALES 

by  magic  art  to  take  his  soul  out  of  his  body  and  leave  it  in  a  box 
at  home,  while  he  went  to  the  wars.  Thus  he  was  invulnerable  in 
battle.  When  he  was  about  to  give  battle  to  Rama,-  he  deposited 
his  soul  with  a  hermit  called  Fire-eye,  who  was  to  keep  it  safe  for  him. 
So  in  the  fight  Rama  was  astounded  to  see  that  his  arrows  struck 
the  king  without  wounding  him.  But  one  of  Rama’s  allies,  knowing 
the  secret  of  the  king’s  invulnerability,  transformed  himself  by  magic 
into  the  likeness  of  the  king,  and  going  to  the  hermit  asked  back  his 
soul.  On  receiving  it  he  soared  up  into  the  air  and  flew  to  Rama, 
brandishing  the  box  and  squeezing  it  so  hard  that  all  the  breath  left 
the  King  of  Ceylon’s  body,  and  he  died.  In  a  Bengalee  story  a  prince 
going  into  a  far  country  planted  with  his  own  hands  a  tree  in  the  court¬ 
yard  of  his  father’s  palace,  and  said  to  his  parents,  “  This  tree  is  my 
life.  When  you  see  the  tree  green  and  fresh,  then  know  that  it  is  well 
with  me  ;  when  you  see  the  tree  fade  in  some  parts,  then  know  that  I 
am  in  an  ill  case  ;  and  when  you  see  the  whole  tree  fade,  then  know  that 
I  am  dead  and  gone.”  In  another  Indian  tale  a  prince,  setting  forth 
on  his  travels,  left  behind  him  a  barley  plant,  with  instructions  that  it 
should  be  carefully  tended  and  watched  ;  for  if  it  flourished,  he  would 
be  alive  and  well,  but  if  it  drooped,  then  some  mischance  was  about  to 
happen  to  him.  And  so  it  fell  out.  For  the  prince  was  beheaded,  and 
as  his  head  rolled  off,  the  barley  plant  snapped  in  two  and  the  ear 
of  barley  fell  to  the  ground. 

In  Greek  tales,  ancient  and  modern,  the  idea  of  an  external  soul  is 
not  uncommon.  When  Meleager  was  seven  days  old,  the  Fates 
appeared  to  his  mother  and  told  her  that  Meleager  would  die  when 
the  brand  which  was  blazing  on  the  hearth  had  burnt  down.  So  his 
mother  snatched  the  brand  from  the  fire  and  kept  it  in  a  box.  But 
in  after-years,  being  enraged, at  her  son  for  slaying  her  brothers,  she 
burnt  the  brand  in  the  fire  and  Meleager  expired  in  agonies,  as  if 
flames  were  preying  on  his  vitals.  Again,  Nisus  King  of  Megara 
had  a  purple  or  golden  hair  on  the  middle  of  his  head,  and  it  was  fated 
that  whenever  the  hair  was  pulled  out  the  king  should  die.  When 
Megara  was  besieged  by  the  Cretans,  the  king’s  daughter  Scylla  fell 
in  love  with  Minos,  their  king,  and  pulled  out  the  fatal  hair  from  her 
father’s  head.  So  he  died.  In  a  modern  Greek  folk-tale  a  man’s 
strength  lies  in  three  golden  hairs  on  his  head.  When  his  mother 
pulls  them  out,  he  grows  weak  and  timid  and  is  slain  by  his  enemies. 
In  another  modern  Greek  story  the  life  of  an  enchanter  is  bound  up 
with  three  doves  which  are  in  the  belly  of  a  wild  boar.  When  the  first 
dove  is  killed,  the  magician  grows  sick  ;  when  the  second  is  killed,  he 
grows  very  sick  ;  and  when  the  third  is  killed,  he  dies.  In  another 
Greek  story  of  the  same  sort  an  ogre’s  strength  is  in  three  singing 
birds  which  are  in  a  wild  boar.  The  hero  kills  two  of  the  birds,  and 
then  coming  to  the  ogre’s  house  finds  him  lying  on  the  ground  in 
great  pain.  He  shows  the  third  bird  to  the  ogre,  who  begs  that  the 
hero  will  either  let  it  fly  away  or  give  it  to  him  to  eat.  But  the  hero 
wrings  the  bird’s  neck,  and  the  ogre  dies  on  the  spot. 


LXVI 


THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-TALES  671 

In  a  modern  Roman  version  of  “  Aladdin  and  the  Wonderful 
Lamp  the  magician  tells  the  princess,  whom  he  holds  captive  in  a 
floating  lock  in  mid-ocean,  that  he  will  never  die.  The  princess  reports 
this  to  the  piince  her  husband,  who  has  come  to  rescue  her.  The 
prince  replies,  It  is  impossible  but  that  there  should  be  some  one 
thing  01  other  that  is  fatal  to  him  ;  ask  him  what  that  one  fatal  thing 
is.  So  the  princess  asked  the  magician,  and  he  told  her  that  in  the 
wood  was  a  hydra  with  seven  heads  ;  in  the  middle  head  of  the  hydra 
was  a  leveret,  in  the  head  of  the  leveret  was  a  bird,  in  the  bird’s  head 
was  a  precious  stone,  and  if  this  stone  were  put  under  his  pillow  he 
would  die.  The  prince  procured  the  stone,  and  the  princess  laid  it 
under  the  magician  s  pillow.  No  sooner  did  the  enchanter  lay  his 
head  on  the  pillow  than  he  gave  three  terrible  yells,  turned  himself 
round  and  round  three  times,  and  died. 

Stories  of  the  same  sort  are  current  among  Slavonic  peoples. 
Thus  a  Russian  story  tells  how  a  warlock  called  Koshchei  the  Deathless 
carried  off  a  princess  and  kept  her  prisoner  in  his  golden  castle.  How- 
evei,  a  piince  made  up  to  her  one  day  as  she  was  walking  alone  and 
disconsolate  in  the  castle  garden,  and  cheered  by  the  prospect  of  escap¬ 
ing  with  him  she  went  to  the  warlock  and  coaxed  him  with  false  and 
flattering  woids,  saying,  My  dearest  friend,  tell  me,  I  pray  you 
will  you  never  die  ?  ”  "  Certainly  not,”  says  he.  "  Well,”  says  she! 

“  anywhere  is  your  death  ?  is  it  in  your  dwelling  ?  ”  “  To  be  sure 

it  is,  ’  says  he,  “it  is  in  the  broom  under  the  threshold.”  There¬ 
upon  the  princess  seized  the  broom  and  threw  it  on  the  lire,  but 
although  the  broom  burned,  the  deathless  Koshchei  remained  alive  * 
indeed  not  so  much  as  a  hair  of  him  was  singed.  Balked  in  her  first 
attempt,  the  artful  hussy  pouted  and  said,  “  You  do  not  love  me 
true,  for  you  have  not  told  me  where  your  death  is  j  yet  I  am  not 
but  love  you  with  all  my  heart.”  With  these  fawning  words 
she  besought  the  warlock  to  tell  her  truly  where  his  death  was.  So 
he  laughed  and  said,  “  Why  do  you  wish  to  know  ?  Well  then,  out 
of  love  I  will  tell  you  where  it  lies.  In  a  certain  field  there  stand 
three  green  oaks,  and  under  the  roots  of  the  largest  oak  is  a  worm, 
and  if  ever  this  worm  is  found  and  crushed,  that  instant  I  shall  die.” 
When  the  princess  heard  these  words,  she  went  straight  to  her  lover 
and  told  him  all ;  and  he  searched  till  he  found  the  oaks  and  dug  up 
the  worm  and  crushed  it.  Then  he  hurried  to  the  warlock’s  castle,  but 
only  to  learn  from  the  princess  that  the  warlock  was  still  alive.  Then 
she  fell  to  wheedling  and  coaxing  Koshchei  once  more,  and  this  time, 
overcome  by  her  wiles,  he  opened  his  heart  to  her  and  told  her  the  truth. 

“  My  death,”  said  he,  "  is  far  from  here  and  hard  to  find,  on  the  wide 
ocean.  In  that  sea  is  an  island,  and  on  the  island  there  grows  a  green 
oak,  and  beneath  the  oak  is  an  iron  chest,  and  in  the  chest  is  a  small 
basket,  and  in  the  basket  is  a  hare,  and  in  the  hare  is  a  duck,  and  in 
the  duck  is  an  egg  ;  and  he  who  finds  the  egg  and  breaks  it,  kills  me 
at  the  same  time.”  The  prince  naturally  procured  the  fateful  egg  and 
with  it  in  his  hands  he  confronted  the  deathless  warlock.  The  monster 


672  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-TALES  ch. 

would  have  killed  him,  but  the  prince  began  to  squeeze  the  egg.  At 
that  the  warlock  shrieked  with  pain,  and  turning  to  the  false  princess, 
who  stood  by  smirking  and  smiling,  “  Was  it  not  out  of  love  for  you," 
said  he,  “  that  I  told  you  where  my  death  was  ?  And  is  this  the 
return  you  make  to  me  ?  "  With  that  he  grabbed  at  his  sword,  which 
hung  from  a  peg  on  the  wall ;  but  before  he  could  reach  it,  the  prince 
had  crushed  the  egg,  and  sure  enough  the  deathless  warlock  found  his 
death  at  the  same  moment.  “  In  one  of  the  descriptions  of  Koshchei’s 
death,  he  is  said  to  be  killed  by  a  blow  on  the  forehead  inflicted  by  the 
mysterious  egg — that  last  link  in  the  magic  chain  by  which  his  life 
is  darkly  bound.  In  another  version  of  the  same  story,  but  told  of 
a  snake,  the  fatal  blow  is  struck  by  a  small  stone  found  in  the  yolk 
of  an  egg,  which  is  inside  a  duck,  which  is  inside  a  hare,  which  is  inside 
a  stone,  which  is  on  an  island." 

Amongst  peoples  of  the  Teutonic  stock  stories  of  the  external 
soul  are  not  wanting.  In  a  tale  told  by  the  Saxons  of  Transylvania 
it  is  said  that  a  young  man  shot  at  a  witch  again  and  again.  The 
bullets  went  clean  through  her  but  did  her  no  harm,  and  she  only 
laughed  and  mocked  at  him.  “  Silly  earthworm,"  she  cried,  “  shoot 
as  much  as  you  like.  It  does  me  no  harm.  For  know  that  my  life 
resides  not  in  me  but  far,  far  away.  In  a  mountain  is  a  pond,  on  the 
pond  swims  a  duck,  in  the  duck  is  an  egg,  in  the  egg  burns  a  light, 
that  light  is  my  life.  If  you  could  put  out  that  light,  my  life  would  be 
at  an  end.  But  that  can  never,  never  be."  However,  the  young  man 
got  hold  of  the  egg,  smashed  it,  and  put  out  the  light,  and  with  it  the 
witch’s  life  went  out  also.  In  a  German  story  a  cannibal  called  Body 
without  Soul  or  Soulless  keeps  his  soul  in  a  box,  which  stands  on  a  rock 
in  the  middle  of  the  Red  Sea.  A  soldier  gets  possession  of  the  box 
and  goes  with  it  to  Soulless,  who  begs  the  soldier  to  give  him  back  his 
soul.  But  the  soldier  opens  the  box,  takes  out  the  soul,  and  flings  it 
backward  over  his  head.  At  the  same  moment  the  cannibal  drops 
dead  to  the  ground. 

In  another  German  story  an  old  warlock  lives  with  a  damsel  all 
alone  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  and  gloomy  wood.  She  fears  that  being 
old  he  may  die  and  leave  her  alone  in  the  forest.  But  he  reassures 
her.  “  Dear  child,"  he  said,  "  I  cannot  die,  and  I  have  no  heart  in 
my  breast."  But  she  importuned  him  to  tell  her  where  his  heart  was. 
So  he  said,  “  Far,  far  from  here  in  an  unknown  and  lonesome  land 
stands  a  great  church.  The  church  is  well  secured  with  iron  doors, 
and  round  about  it  flows  a  broad  deep  moat.  In  the  church  flies  a 
bird  and  in  the  bird  is  my  heart.  So  long  as  the  bird  lives,  I  live.  It 
cannot  die  of  itself*  and  no  one  can  catch  it ;  therefore  I  cannot  die, 
and  you  need  have  no  anxiety."  However  the  young  man,  whose 
bride  the  damsel  was  to  have  been  before  the  warlock  spirited  her  away, 
contrived  to  reach  the  church  and  catch  the  bird.  He  brought  it  to 
the  damsel,  who  stowed  him  and  it  away  under  the  warlock’s  bed. 
Soon  the  old  warlock  came  home.  He  was  ailing,  and  said  so.  The 
girl  wept  and  said,  “  Alas,  daddy  is  dying  ;  he  has  a  heart  in  his  breast 


LXVI 


THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-TALES  673 

■  after  all.”  "  Child/’  replied  the  warlock,  "  hold  your  tongue.  I  cant 
die.  It  will  soon  pass  over.”  At  that  the  young  man  under  the  bed 
gave  the  bird  a  gentle  squeeze  ;  and  as  he  did  so,  the  old  warlock  felt 
very  unwell  and  sat  down.  Then  the  young  man  gripped  the  bird 
tighter,  and  the  warlock  fell  senseless  from  his  chair.  “  Now  squeeze 
him  dead,”  cried  the  damsel.  Her  lover  obeyed,  and  when  the  bird 
was  dead,  the  old  warlock  also  lay  dead  on  the  floor. 

In  the  Norse  tale  of  "  the  giant  who  had  no  heart  in  his  body,” 
the  giant  tells  the  captive  princess,  “  Far,  far  away  in  a  lake  lies  an 
island,  on  that  island  stands  a  church,  in  that  church  is  a  well,  in  that 
well  swims  a  duck,  in  that  duck  there  is  an  egg,  and  in  that  egg  there 
lies  my  heart.”  The  hero  of  the  tale,  with  the  help  of  some  animals 
to  whom  he  had  been  kind,  obtains  the  egg  and  squeezes  it,  at  which 
the  giant  screams  piteously  and  begs  for  his  life.  But  the  hero  breaks 
the  egg  in  pieces  and  the  giant  at  once  bursts.  In  another  Norse 
story  a  hill-ogre  tells  the  captive  princess  that  she  will  never  be  able 
to  return  home  unless  she  finds  the  grain  of  sand  which  lies  under  the 
ninth  tongue  of  the  ninth  head  of  a  certain  dragon  ;  but  if  that  grain 
of  sand  were  to  come  over  the  rock  in  which  the  ogres  live,  they  would 
all  burst  “  and  the  rock  itself  would  become  a  gilded  palace,  and  the 
lake  green  meadows.”  The  hero  finds  the  grain  of  sand  and  takes  it 
to  the  top  of  the  high  rock  in  which  the  ogres  live.  So  all  the  ogres 
burst  and  the  rest  falls  out  as  one  of  the  ogres  had  foretold. 

In  a  Celtic  tale,  recorded  in  the  West  Highlands  of  Scotland,  a 
giant  is  questioned  by  a  captive  queen  as  to  where  he  keeps  his  soul. 
At  last,  after  deceiving  her  several  times,  he  confides  to  her  the  fatal 
secret  :  “  There  is  a  great  flagstone  under  the  threshold.  There  is 
a  wether  under  the  flag.  There  is  a  duck  in  the  wether’s  belly,  and 
an  egg  in  the  belly  of  the  duck,  and  it  is  in  the  egg  that  my  soul  is.” 
On  the  morrow  when  the  giant  was  gone,  the  queen  contrived  to  get 
possession  of  the  egg  and  crushed  it  in  her  hands,  and  at  that  very 
moment  the  giant,  who  was  coming  home  in  the  dusk,  fell  down  dead. 
Tn  another  Celtic  tale,  a  sea  beast  has  carried  off  a  king’s  daughter, 
and  an  old  smith  declares  that  there  is  no  way  of  killing  the  beast  but 
me.  “  In  the  island  that  is  in  the  midst  of  the  loch  is  Eillid  Chaisfhion 
—the  white-footed  hind,  of  the  slenderest  legs,  and  the  swiftest  step, 
md  though  she  should  be  caught,  there  would  spring  a  hoodie  out  of 
aer,  and  though  the  hoodie  should  be  caught,  there  would  spring  a 
-rout  out  of  her,  but  there  is  an  egg  in  the  mouth  of  the  trout,  and 
-he  soul  of  the  beast  is  in  the  egg,  and  if  the  egg  breaks,  the  beast  is 
lead.”  As  usual  the  egg  is  broken  and  the  beast  dies. 

In  an  Irish  story  we  read  how  a  giant  kept  a  beautiful  damsel  a 
prisoner  in  his  castle  on  the  top  of  a  hill,  which  was  white  with  the 
aones  of  the  champions  who  had  tried  in  vain  to  rescue  the  fair  captive. 
\t  last  the  hero,  after  hewing  and  slashing  at  the  giant  all  to  no  purpose, 
liscovered  that  the  only  way  to  kill  him  was  to  rub  a  mole  on  the 
pant’s  right  breast  with  a  certain  egg,  which  was  in  a  duck,  which 
vas  in  a  chest,  which  lay  locked  and  bound  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 


674  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-TALES  ch. 

With  the  help  of  some  obliging  animals,  the  hero  made  himself  master 
of  the  precious  egg  and  slew  the  giant  by  merely  striking  it  against 
the  mole  on  his  right  breast.  Similarly  in  a  Breton  story  there  figures 
a  giant  whom  neither  fire  nor  water  nor  steel  can  harm.  He  tells 
his  seventh  wife,  whom  he  has  just  married  after  murdering  all  her 
predecessors,  “  I  am  immortal,  and  no  one  can  hurt  me  unless  he 
crushes  on  my  breast  an  egg,  which  is  in  a  pigeon,  which  is  in  the ‘belly 
of  a  hare  ;  this  hare  is  in  the  belly  of  a  wolf,  and  this  wolf  is  in  the 
belly  of  my  brother,  who  dwells  a  thousand  leagues  from  here.  So  I 
am  quite  easy  on  that  score.”  A  soldier  contrived  to  obtain  the  egg 
and  crush  it  on  the  breast  of  the  giant,  who  immediately  expired.  In 
another  Breton  tale  the  life  of  a  giant  resides  in  an  old  box-tree  which 
grows  in  his  castle  garden  ;  and  to  kill  him  it  is  necessary  to  sever 
the  tap-root  of  the  tree  at  a  single  blow  of  an  axe  without  injuring 
any  of  the  lesser  roots.  This  task  the  hero,  as  usual,  successfully 
accomplishes,  and  at  the  same  moment  the  giant  drops  dead. 

The  notion  of  an  external  soul  has  now  been  traced  in  folk-tales 
told  by  Aryan  peoples  from  India  to  Ireland.  We  have  still  to  show 
that  the  same  idea  occurs  commonly  in  the  popular  stories  of  peoples 
who  do  not  belong  to  the  Aryan  stock.  In  the  ancient  Egyptian  tale 
of  “The  Two  Brothers,”  which  was  written  down  in  the  reign  of 
Rameses  II.,  about  1300  b.c.,  we  read  how  one  of  the  brothers  en¬ 
chanted  his  heart  and  placed  it  in  the  flower  of  an  acacia  tree,  and  how, 
when  the  flower  was  cut  at  the  instigation  of  his  wife,  he  immediately 
fell  down  dead,  but  revived  when  his  brother  found  the  lost  heart  in  the 
berry  of  the  acacia  and  threw  it  into  a  cup  of  fresh  water. 

In  the  story  of  Seyf  el-Mulook  in  the  Arabian  Nights  the  jinnee 
tells  the  captive  daughter  of  the  King  of  India,  “  When  I  was  born, 
the  astrologers  declared  that  the  destruction  of  my  soul  would  be] 
effected  by  the  hand  of  one  of  the  sons  of  the  human  kings.  I  therefore 
took  my  soul,  and  put  it  into  the  crop  of  a  sparrow,  and  I  imprisoned 
the  sparrow  in  a  little  box,  and  put  this  into  another  small  box,  and 
this  I  put  within  seven  other  small  boxes,  and  I  put  these  within  seven 
chests,  and  the  chests  I  put  into  a  coffer  of  marble  within  the  verge  of 
this  circumambient  ocean  ;  for  this  part  is  remote  from  the  countries 
of  mankind,  and  none  of  mankind  can  gain  access  to  it.”  But  Seyf 
el-Mulook  got  possession  of  the  sparrow  and  strangled  it,  and  the 
jinnee  fell  upon  the  ground  a  heap  of  black  ashes.  In  a  Kabyle  story 
an  ogre  declares  that  his  fate  is  far  away  in  an  egg,  which  is  in  a  pigeon, 
which  is  in  a  camel,  which  is  in  the  sea.  The  hero  procures  the  egg 
and  crushes  it  between  his  hands,  and  the  ogre  dies.  In  a  Magyar 
folk-tale,  an  old  witch  detains  a  young  prince  called  Ambrose  in  the 
bowels  of  the  earth.  At  last  she  confided  to  him  that  she  kept  a  wild 
boar  in  a  silken  meadow, and  if  it  were  killed,  they  would  find  a  hare 
inside,  and  inside  the  hare  a  pigeon,  and  inside  the  pigeon  a  small  box, 
and  inside  the  box  one  black  and  one  shining  beetle  :  the  shining  beetle 
held  her  life,  and  the  black  one  held  her  power  ;*  if  these  two  beetles 
died,  then  her  life  would  come  to  an  end  also.  When  the  old  hag  went 


lx vi  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-TALES  675 

out,  Ambrose  killed  the  wild  boar,  and  took  out  the  hare  ;  from  the 
hare  he  took  the  pigeon,  from  the  pigeon  the  box,  and  from  the  box 
the  two  beetles  ;  he  killed  the  black  beetle,  but  kept  the  shining  one 
alive.  So  the  witch's  power  left  her  immediately,  and  when  she  came 
home,  she  had  to  take  to  her  bed.  Having  learned  from  her  how  to 
[  escape  from  his  prison  to  the  upper  air,  Ambrose  killed  the  shining 
beetle,  and  the  old  hag’s  spirit  left  her  at  once.  In  a  Kalmuck  tale 
we  read  how  a  certain  khan  challenged  a  wise  man  to  show  his  skill 
by  stealing  a  precious  stone  on  which  the  khan’s  life  depended.  The 
sage  contrived  to  purloin  the  talisman  while  the  khan  and  his  guards 
slept ;  but  not  content  with  this  he  gave  a  further  proof  of  his  dexterity 
by  bonneting  the  slumbering  potentate  with  a  bladder.  This  was  too 
much  for  the  khan.  Next  morning  he  informed  the  sage  that  he  could 
overlook  everything  else,  but  that  the  indignity  of  being  bonneted 
with  a  bladder  was  more  than  he  could  bear  ;  and  he  ordered  his 
facetious  friend  to  instant  execution.  Pained  at  this  exhibition  of 
royal  ingratitude,  the  sage  dashed  to  the  ground  the  talisman  which 
he  still  held  in  his  hand  ;  and  at  the  same  instant  blood  flowed  from 
the  nostrils  of  the  khan,  and  he  gave  up  the  ghost. 

In  a  Tartar  poem  two  heroes  named  Ak  Molot  and  Bulat  engage 
in  mortal  combat.  Ak  Molot  pierces  his  foe  through  and  through 
with  an  arrow,  grapples  with  him,  and  dashes  him  to  the  ground, 
but  all  in  vain,  Bulat  could  not  die.  At  last  when  the  combat  has 
lasted  three  years,  a  friend  of  Ak  Molot  sees  a  golden  casket  hanging 
by  a  white  thread  from  the  sky,  and  bethinks  him  that  perhaps  this 
casket  contains  Bulat’s  soul.  So  he  shot  through  the  white  thread 
with  an  arrow,  and  down  fell  the  casket.  He  opened  it,  and  in  the 
casket  sat  ten  white  birds,  and  one  of  the  birds  was  Bulat’s  soul. 
Bulat  wept  when  he  saw  that  his  soul  was  found  in  the  casket.  But 
one  after  the  other  the  birds  were  killed,  and  then  Ak  Molot  easily 
slew  his  foe.  In  another  Tartar  poem,  two  brothers  going  to  fight 
two  other  brothers  take  out  their  souls  and  hide  them  in  the  form 
of  a  white  herb  with  six  stalks  in  a  deep  pit.  But  one  of  their  foes 
sees  them  doing  so  and  digs  up  their  souls,  which  he  puts  into  a  golden 
ram’s  horn,  and  then  sticks  the  ram’s  horn  in  his  quiver.  The  two 
warriors  whose  souls  have  thus  been  stolen  know  that  they  have  no 
chance  of  victory,  and  accordingly  make  peace  with  their  enemies. 
In  another  Tartar  poem  a  terrible  demon  sets  all  the  gods  and  heroes 
at  defiance.  At  last  a  valiant  youth  fights  the  demon,  binds  him 
hand  and  foot,  and  slices  him  with  his  sword.  But  still  the  demon 
is  not  slain.  So  the  youth  asked  him,  “Tell  me,  where  is  your  soul 
hidden  ?  For  if  your  soul  had  been  hidden  in  your  body,  you  must 
have  been  dead  long  ago.”  The  demon  replied,  “  On  the  saddle  of 
my  horse  is  a  bag.  In  the  bag  is  a  serpent  with  twelve  heads.  In 
the  serpent  is  my  soul.  When  you  have  killed  the  serpent,  you  have 
killed  me  also.”  So  the  youth  took  the  saddle-bag  from  the  horse 
and  killed  the  twelve-headed  serpent,  whereupon  the  demon  expired. 
In  another  Tartar  poem  a  hero  called  Kok  Chan  deposits  with  a  maiden 


THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-TALES 


CH. 


676 


a  golden  ring,  in  which  is  half  his  strength.  Afterwards  when  Kok 
Chan  is  wrestling  long  with  a  hero  and  cannot  kill  him,  a  woman  drops 
into  his  mouth  the  ring  which  contains  half  his  strength.  Thus  inspired 
with  fresh  force  he  slays  his  enemy. 

In  a  Mongolian  story  the  hero  Joro  gets  the  better  of  his  enemy 
the  lama  Tschoridong  in  the  following  way.  The  lama,  who  is  an 
enchanter,  sends  out  his  soul  in  the  form  of  a  wasp  to  sting  Joro’s 
eyes.  But  Joro  catches  the  wasp  in  his  hand,  and  by  alternately 
shutting  and  opening  his  hand  he  causes  the  lama  alternately  to  lose 
and  recover  consciousness.  In  a  Tartar  poem  two  youths  cut  open 
the  body  of  an  old  witch  and  tear  out  her  bowels,  but  all  to  no  purpose, 
she  still  lives.  On  being  asked  where  her  soul  is,  she  answers  that 
it  is  in  the  middle  of  her  shoe-sole  in  the  form  of  a  seven-headed  speckled 
snake.  So  one  of  the  youths  slices  her  shoe-sole  with  his  sword,  takes 
out  the  speckled  snake,  and  -cuts  off  its  seven  heads.  Then  the  witch 
dies.  Another  Tartar  poem  describes  how  the  hero  Kartaga  grappled 
with  the  Swan-woman.  Long  they  wrestled.  Moons  waxed  and 
waned  and  still  they  wrestled  ;  years  came  and  went,  and  still  the 
struggle  went  on.  But  the  piebald  horse  and  the  black  horse  knew 
that  the  Swan-woman’s  soul  was  not  in  her.  Under  the  black  earth 
flow  nine  seas  ;  where  the  seas  meet  and  form  one,  the  sea  comes  to 
the  surface  of  the  earth.  At  the  mouth  of  the  nine  seas  rises  a  rock 
of  copper  ;  it  rises  to  the  surface  of  the  ground,  it  rises  up  between 
heaven  and  earth,  this  rock  of  copper.  At  the  foot  of  the  copper 
rock  is  a  black  chest,  in  the  black  chest  is  a  golden  casket,  and  in  the 
golden  casket  is  the  soul  of  the  Swan-woman.  Seven  little  birds  are 
the  soul  of  the  Swan-woman  ;  if  the  birds  are  killed  the  Swan-woman 
will  die  straightway.  So  the  horses  ran  to  the  foot  of  the  copper 
rock,  opened  the  black  chest,  and  brought  back  the  golden  casket. 
Then  the  piebald  horse  turned  himself  into  a  bald-headed  man,  opened 
the  golden  casket,  and  cut  off  the  heads  of  the  seven  birds.  So  the 
Swan-woman  died.  In  another  Tartar  poem  the  hero,  pursuing  his 
sister  who  has  driven  away  his  cattle,  is  warned  to  desist  from  the 
pursuit  because  his  sister  has  carried  away  his  soul  in  a  golden  sword 
and  a  golden  arrow,  and  if  he  pursues  her  she  will  kill  him  by  throwing 
the  golden  sword  or  shooting  the  golden  arrow  at  him. 

A  Malay  poem  relates  how  once  upon  a  time  in  the  city  of  Indra- 
poora  there  was  a  certain  merchant  who  was  rich  and  prosperous, 
but  he  had  no  children.  One  day  as  he  walked  with  his  wife  by  the 
river  they  found  a  baby  girl,  fair  as  an  angel.  So  they  adopted  the 
child  and  called  her  Bidasari.  The  merchant  caused  a  golden  fish 
to  be  made,  and  into  this  fish  he  transferred  the  soul  of  his  adopted 
daughter.  Then  he  put  the  golden  fish  in  a  golden  box  full  of  water, 
and  hid  it  in  a  pond  in  the  midst  of  his  garden.  In  time  the  girl 
grew  to  be  a  lovely  woman.  Now  the  King  of  Indrapoora  had  a  fair 
young  queen,  who  lived  in  fear  that  the  king  might  take  to  himself 
a  second  wife.  So,  hearing  of  the  charms  of  Bidasari,  the  queen 
resolved  to  put  her  out  of  the  way.  She  lured  the  girl  to  the  palace 


lxvi  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-TALES  677 

and  tortuied  her  cruelly  ;  but  Bidasari  could  not  die,  because  her 
soul  was  not  in  her.  At  last  she  could  stand  the  torture  no  longer 
and  said  to  the  queen,  If  you  wish  me  to  die,  you  must  bring  the 
box  which  is  in  the  pond  in  my  father's  garden.”  So  the  box  was 
brought  and  opened,  and  there  was  the  golden  fish  in  the  water.  The 
girl  said,  My  soul  is  in  that  fish.  In  the  morning  you  must  take 
the  fish  out  of  the  water,  and  in  the  evening  you  must  put  it  back 
into  the  water.  Do  not  let  the  fish  lie  about,  but  bind  it  round 
your  neck.  If  you  do  this,  I  shall  soon  die.”  So  the  queen  took 
i  the  fish  out  of  the  box  and  fastened  it  round  her  neck  ;  and  no 
sooner  had  she  done  so  than  Bidasari  fell  into  a  swoon.  But  in 
the  evening,  when  the  fish  was  put  back  into  the  water,  Bidasari 
came  to  heiself  again.  Seeing  that  she  thus  had  the  girl  in  her  power, 
the  queen  sent  her  home  to  her  adopted  parents.  To  save  her  from 
further  peisecution  her  parents  resolved  to  remove  their  daughter 
from  the  city.  So  in  a  lonely  and  desolate  spot  they  built  a  house 
and  bi  ought  Bidasari  thither.  There  she  dwelt  alone,  undergoing 
vicissitudes  that  corresponded  with  the  vicissitudes  of  the  golden 
fish  in  which  was  her  soul.  All  day  long,  while  the  fish  was  out  of 
the  water,  she  remained  unconscious  ;  but  in  the  evening,  when  the 
fish  was  put  into  the  water,  she  revived.  One  day  the  king  was  out 
hunting,  and  coming  to  the  house  where  Bidasari  lay  unconscious, 
was  smitten  with  her  beauty.  He  tried  to  waken  her,  but  in  vain. 
Next  day,  towards  evening,  he  repeated  his  visit,  but  still  found  her 
unconscious.  However,  when  darkness  fell,  she  came  to  herself  and 
told  the  king  the  secret  of  her  life.  So  the  king  returned  to  the  palace, 
took  the  fish  from  the  queen,  and  put  it  in  water.  Immediatelv 
Bidasari  revived,  and  the  king  took  her  to  wife. 

Another  story  of  an  external  soul  comes  from  Nias,  an  island  to 
the  west  of  Sumatra.  Once  on  a  time  a  chief  was  captured  by  his 
enemies,  who  tried  to  put  him  to  death  but  failed.  Water  would 
not  drown  him  nor  fire  burn  him  nor  steel  pierce  him.  At  last  his 
wife  revealed  the  secret.  On  his  head  he  had  a  hair  as  hard  as  a  copper 
wire  ;  and  with  this  wire  his  life  was  bound  up.  So  the  hair  was 
plucked  out,  and  with  it  his  spirit  fled. 

A  West  African  story  from  Southern  Nigeria  relates  how  a  king 
kept  his  soul  in  a  little  brown  bird,  which  perched  on  a  tall  tree  beside 
the  gate,  of  the  palace.  The  king's  life  was  so  bound  up  with  that 
of  the  bird  that  whoever  should  kill  the  bird  would  simultaneously 
kill  the  king  and  succeed  to  the  kingdom.  The  secret  was  betrayed 
by  the  queen  to  her  lover,  who  shot  the  bird  with  an  arrow  and  thereby 
slew  the  king  and  ascended  the  vacant  throne.  A  tale  told  by  the 
Ba-Ronga  of  South  Africa  sets  forth  how  the  lives  of  a  whole  family 
were  contained  in  one  cat.  When  a  girl  of  the  family,  named  Titishan, 
married  a  husband,  she  begged  her  parents  to  let  her  take  the  precious 
-at  with  her  to  her  new  home.  But  they  refused,  saying,  “You 
know  that  our  life  is  attached  to  it  ”  ;  and  they  offered  to  give  her 
m  antelope  or  even  an  elephant  instead  of  it.  But  nothing  would 


678  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-TALES  ch. 

satisfy  her  but  the  cat.  So  at  last  she  carried  it  off  with  her  and 
shut  it  up  in  a  place  where  nobody  saw  it  ;  even  her  husband  knew 
nothing  about  it.  One  day,  when  she  went  to  work  in  the  fields, 
the  cat  escaped  from  its  place  of  concealment,  entered  the  hut,  put 
on  the  warlike  trappings  of  the  husband,  and  danced  and  sang.  Some 
children,  attracted  by  the  noise,  discovered  the  cat  at  its  antics,  and 
when  they  expressed  their  astonishment,  the  animal  only  capered 
the  more  and  insulted  them  besides.  So  they  went  to  the  owner 
and  said,  “  There  is  somebody  dancing  in  your  house,  and  he  insulted 
us.”  “  Hold  your  tongues,”  said  he,  “  Ell  soon  put  a  stop  to  your 
lies.”  So  he  went  and  hid  behind  the  door  and  peeped  in,  and  there 
sure  enough  was  the  cat  prancing  about  and  singing.  He  fired  at 
it,  and  the  animal  dropped  down  dead.  At  the  same  moment  his 
wife  fell  to  the  ground  in  the  field  where  she  was  at  work  ;  said  she, 
“  I  have  been  killed  at  home.”  But  she  had  strength  enough  left 
to  ask  her  husband  to  go  with  her  to  her  parents'  village,  taking  with 
him  the  dead  cat  wrapt  up  in  a  mat.  All  her  relatives  assembled, 
and  bitterly  they  reproached  her  for  having  insisted  on  taking  the 
animal  with  her  to  her  husband’s  village.  As  soon  as  the  mat  was 
unrolled  and  they  saw  the  dead  cat,  they  all  fell  down  lifeless  one 
after  the  other.  So  the  Clan  of  the  Cat  was  destroyed  ;  and  the 
bereaved  husband  closed  the  gate  of  the  village  with  a  branch,  and 
returned  home,  and  told  his  friends  how  in  killing  the  cat  he  had 
killed  the  whole  clan,  because  their  lives  depended  on  the  life  of  the  cat. 

Ideas  of  the  same  sort  meet  us  in  stories  told  by  the  North  American 
Indians.  Thus  the  Navajoes  tell  of  a  certain  mythical  being  called 
"  the  Maiden  that  becomes  a  Bear,”  who  learned  the  art  of  turning 
herself  into  a  bear  from  the  prairie  wolf.  She  was  a  great  warrior 
and  quite  invulnerable  ;  for  when  she  went  to  war  she  took  out  her 
vital  organs  and  hid  them,  so  that  no  one  could  kill  her  ;  and  when 
the  battle  was  over  she  put  the  organs  back  in  their  places  again. 
The  Kwakiutl  Indians  of  British  Columbia  tell  of  an  ogress,  who 
could  not  be  killed  because  her  life  was  in  a  hemlock  branch.  A 
brave  boy  met  her  in  the  woods,  smashed  her  head  with  a  stone, 
scattered  her  brains,  broke  her  bones,  and  threw  them  into  the  water. 
Then,  thinking  he  had  disposed  of  the  ogress,  he  went  into  her  house. 
There  he  saw  a  woman  rooted  to  the  floor,  who  warned  him,  saying, 
“  Now  do  not  stay  long.  I  know  that  you  have  tried  to  kill  the  ogress. 
It  is  the  fourth  time  that  somebody  has  tried  to  kill  her.  She  never 
dies  ;  she  has  nearly  come  to  life.  There  in  that  covered  hemlock 
branch  is  her  life.  Go  there,  and  as  soon  as  you  see  her  enter,  shoot 
her  life.  Then  she  will  be  dead.”  Hardly  had  she  finished  speaking 
when  sure  enough  in  came  the  ogress,  singing  as  she  walked.  But 
the  boy  shot  at  her  life,  and  she  fell  dead  to  the  floor. 


lxvii  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  INANIMATE  THINGS  679 

CHAPTER  LXVII 

THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-CUSTOM 

§  i.  The  External  Soul  in  Inanimate  Things. — Thus  the  idea  that  the 
soul  may  be  deposited  for  a  longer  or  shorter  time  in  some  place  of 
security  outside  the  body,  or  at  ail  events  in  the  hair,  is  found  in  the 
popular  tales  of  many  races.  It  remains  to  show  that  the  idea  is  not 
a  mere  figment  devised  to  adorn  a  tale,  but  is  a  real  article  of  primitive 
faith,  which  has  given  rise  to  a  corresponding  set  of  customs. 

We  have  seen  that  in  the  tales  the  hero,  as  a  preparation  for  battle, 
sometimes  removes  his  soul  from  his  body,  in  order  that  his  body  may 
be  invulnerable  and  immortal  in  the  combat.  With  a  like  intention 
the  savage  removes  his  soul  from  his  body  on  various  occasions  of  real 
or  imaginary  peril.  Thus  among  the  people  of  Minahassa  in  Celebes, 
when  a  family  moves  into  a  new  house,  a  priest  collects  the  souls  of 
the  whole  family  in  a  bag,  and  afterwards  restores  them  to  their  owners, 
because  the  moment  of  entering  a  new  house  is  supposed  to  be  fraught 
with  supernatural  danger.  In  Southern  Celebes,  when  a  woman  is 
brought  to  bed,  the  messenger  who  fetches  the  doctor  or  the  midwife 
always  carries  with  him  something  made  of  iron,  such  as  a  chopping- 
knife,  which  he  delivers  to  the  doctor.  The  doctor  must  keep  the 
thing  in  his  house  till  the  confinement  is  over,  when  he  gives  it  back, 
receiving  a  fixed  sum  of  money  for  doing  so.  The  chopping-knife, 
or  whatever  it  is,  represents  the  woman’s  soul,  which  at  this  critical 
time  is  believed  to  be  safer  out  of  her  body  than  in  it.  Hence  the 
doctor  must  take  great  care  of  the  object  ;  for  were  it  lost,  the  woman’s 
soul  would  assuredly,  they  think,  be  lost  with  it. 

Among  the  Dyaks  of  Pinoeh,  a  district  of  South-eastern  Borneo, 
when  a  child  is  born,  a  medicine-man  is  sent  for,  who  conjures  the 
soul  of  the  infant  into  half  a  coco-nut,  which  he  thereupon  covers  with 
a  cloth  and  places  on  a  square  platter  or  charger  suspended  by  cords 
from  the  roof.  This  ceremony  he  repeats  at  every  new  moon  for  a  year. 
The  intention  of  the  ceremony  is  not  explained  by  the  writer  who 
describes  it,  but  we  may  conjecture  that  it  is  to  place  the  soul  of  the 
child  in  a  safer  place  than  its  own  frail  little  body.  This  conjecture 
is  confirmed  by  the  reason  assigned  for  a  similar  custom  observed 
elsewhere  in  the  Indian  Archipelago.  In  the  Kei  Islands,  when  there 
is  a  newly-born  child  in  a  house,  an  empty  coco-nut,  split  and  spliced 
together  again,  may  sometimes  be  seen  hanging  beside  a  rough  wooden 
image  of  an  ancestor.  The  soul  of  the  infant  is  believed  to  be  tempor¬ 
arily  deposited  in  the  coco-nut  in  order  that  it  may  be  safe  from  the 
attacks  of  evil  spirits  ;  but  when  the  child  grows  bigger  and  stronger, 
the  soul  will  take  up  its  permanent  abode  in  its  own  body.  Similarly 
among  the  Esquimaux  of  Alaska,  when  a  child  is  sick,  the  medicine¬ 
man  will  sometimes  extract  its  soul  from  its  body  and  place  it  for  safe¬ 
keeping  in  an  amulet,  which  for  further  security  he  deposits  in  his  own 


68o 


THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-CUSTOM 


CH. 


medicine-bag.  It  seems  probable  that  many  amulets  have  been 
similarly  regarded  as  soul-boxes,  that  is,  as  safes  in  which  the  souls 
of  the  owners  are  kept  for  greater  security.  An  old  Mang’anje  woman 
in  the  West  Shire  district  of  British  Central  Africa  used  to  wear 
round  her  neck  an  ivory  ornament,  hollow,  and  about  three  inches 
long,  which  she  called  her  life  or  soul.  Naturally,  she  would  not 
part  with  it ;  a  planter  tried  to  buy  it  of  her,  but  in  vain.  When 
Mr.  James  Macdonald  was  one  day  sitting  in  the  house  of  a  Hlubi  chief, 
awaiting  the  appearance  of  that  great  man,  who  was  busy  decorating  his 
person,  a  native  pointed  to  a  pair  of  magnificent  ox-horns,  and  said, 
“  Ntame  has  his  soul  in  these  horns.”  The  horns  were  those  of  an 
animal  which  had  been  sacrificed,  and  they  were  held  sacred.  A 
magician  had  fastened  them  to  the  roof  to  protect  the  house  and  its 
inmates  from  the  thunder-bolt.  “  The  idea,”  adds  Mr.  Macdonald,  “  is 
in  no  way  foreign  to  South  African  thought.  A  man’s  soul  there  may 
dwell  in  the  roof  of  his  house,  in  a  tree,  by  a  spring  of  water,  or  on 
some  mountain  scaur.”  Among  the  natives  of  the  Gazelle  Peninsula 
in  New  Britain  there  is  a  secret  society  which  goes  by  the  name  of 
Ingniet  or  Ingiet.  On  his  entrance  into  it  every  man  receives  a  stone 
in  the  shape  either  of  a  human  being  or  of  an  animal,  and  henceforth 
his  soul  is  believed  to  be  knit  up  in  a  manner  with  the  stone.  If  it 
breaks,  it  is  an  evil  omen  for  him  ;  they  say  that  the  thunder  has 
struck  the  stone  and  that  he  who  owns  it  will  soon  die.  If  nevertheless 
the  man  survives  the  breaking  of  his  soul-stone,  they  say  that  it  was 
not  a  proper  soul-stone  and  he  gets  a  new  one  instead.  The  emperor 
Romanus  Lecapenus  was  once  informed  by  an  astronomer  that  the 
life  of  Simeon,  prince  of  Bulgaria,  was  bound  up  with  a  certain  column 
in  Constantinople,  so  that  if  the  capital  of  the  column  were  removed, 
Simeon  would  immediately  die.  The  emperor  took  the  hint  and 
removed  the  capital,  and  at  the  same  hour,  as  the  emperor  learned  by 
enquiry,  Simeon  died  of  heart  disease  in  Bulgaria. 

Again,  we  have  seen  that  in  folk-tales  a  man’s  soul  or  strength  is 
sometimes  represented  as  bound  up  with  his  hair,  and  that  when  his 
hair  is  cut  off  he  dies  or  grows  weak.  So  the  natives  of  Amboyna  used 
to  think  that  their  strength  was  in  their  hair  and  would  desert  them 
if  it  were  shorn.  A  criminal  under  torture  in  a  Dutch  Court  of  that 
island  persisted  in  denying  his  guilt  till  his  hair  was  cut  off,  when  he 
immediately  confessed.  One  man,  who  was  tried  for  murder,  endured 
without  flinching  the  utmost  ingenuity  of  his  torturers  till  he  saw  the 
surgeon  standing  with  a  pair  of  shears.  On  asking  what  this  was  for, 
and  being  told  that  it  was  to  cut  his  hair,  he  begged  they  would  not  do 
it,  and  made  a  clean  breast.  In  subsequent  cases,  when  torture  failed 
to  wring  a  confession  from  a  prisoner,  the  Dutch  authorities  made  a 
practice  of  cutting  off  his  hair. 

Here  in  Europe  it  used  to  be  thought  that  the  maleficent  powers  of 
witches  and  wizards  resided  in  their  hair,  and  that  nothing  could  make 
any  impression  on  these  miscreants  so  long  as  they  kept  their  hair  on. 
Hence  in  France  it  was  customary  to  shave  the  whole  bodies  of  persons 


LXVII 


681 


THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  PLANTS 


charged  with  sorcery  before  handing  them  over  to  the  torturer. 
Millaeus  witnessed  the  torture  of  some  persons  at  Toulouse,  from  whom 
no  confession  could  be  wrung  until  they  were  stripped  and  completely 
shaven,  when  they  readily  acknowledged  the  truth  of  the  charge.  A 
woman  also,  who  apparently  led  a  pious  life,  was  put  to  the  torture  on 
suspicion  of  witchcraft,  and  bore  her  agonies  with  incredible  constancy, 
until  complete  depilation  drove  her  to  admit  her  .guilt.  The  noted 
inquisitor  Sprenger  contented  himself  with  shaving  the  head  of  the 
suspected  witch  or  wizard  ;  but  his  more  thoroughgoing  colleague 
Cumanus  shaved  the  whole  bodies  of  forty-seven  women  before  com¬ 
mitting  them  all  to  the  flames.  He  had  high  authority  for  this  rigorous 
scrutiny,  since  Satan  himself,  in  a  sermon  preached  from  the  pulpit 
of  North  Berwick  church,  comforted  his  many  servants  by  assuring 
them  that  no  harm  could  befall  them  “  sa  lang  as  their  hair  wes  on, 
and  sould  newir  latt  ane  teir  fall  fra  thair  ene.”  Similarly  in  Bastard 
a  province  of  India,  "  if  a  man  is  adjudged  guilty  of  witchcraft,  he  is 
beaten  by  the  crowd,  his  hair  is  shaved,  the  hair  being  supposed  to 
constitute  his  power  of  mischief,  his  front  teeth  are  knocked  out,  in 
order,  it  is  said,  to  prevent  him  from  muttering  incantations.  .  .  . 
Women  suspected  of  sorcery  have  to  undergo  the  same  ordeal ;  if 
found  guilty,  the  same  punishment  is  awarded,  and  after  being  shaved, 
their  hair  is  attached  to  a  tree  in  some  public  place/’  So  among  the 
Bhils  of  India,  when  a  woman  was  convicted  of  witchcraft  and  had 
been  subjected  to  various  forms  of  persuasion,  such  as  hanging  head 
downwards  from  a  tree  and  having  pepper  put  into  her  eyes,  a  lock  of 
hair  was  cut  from  her  head  and  buried  in  the  ground,  “  that  the  last 
link  between  her  and  her  former  powers  of  mischief  might  be  broken.” 
In  like  manner  among  the  Aztecs  of  Mexico,  when  wizards  and  witches 


"  had  done  their  evil  deeds,  and  the  time  came  to  put  an  end  to  their 
detestable  life,  some  one  laid  hold  of  them  and  cropped  the  hair  on 
the  crown  of  their  heads,  which  took  from  them  all  their  power  of 
sorcery  and  enchantment,  and  then  it  was  that  by  death  they  put  an 
end  to  their  odious  existence.” 

§  2.  The  External  Soul  in  Plants. — Further  it  has  been  shown  that 
in  folk-tales  the  life  of  a  person  is  sometimes  so  bound  up  with  the  life 
of  a  plant  that  the  withering  of  the  plant  will  immediately  follow  or  be 
followed  by  the  death  of  the  person.  Among  the  M’Bengas  in  Western 
Africa,  about  the  Gaboon,  when  two  children  are  bom  on  the  same  day, 
the  people  plant  two  trees  of  the  same  kind  and  dance  round  them. 
The  life  of  each  of  the  children  is  believed  to  be  bound  up  with  the  life 
of  one  of  the  trees  ;  and  if  the  tree  dies  or  is  thrown  down,  they  are 
sure  that  the  child  will  soon  die.  In  the  Cameroons,  also,  the  life 
of  a  person  is  believed  to  be  sympathetically  bound  up  with  that  of  a 
tree.  The  chief  of  Old  Town  in  Calabar  kept  his  soul  in  a  sacred  grove 
near  a  spring  of  water.  When  some  Europeans,  in  frolic  or  ignorance, 
cut  down  part  of  the  grove,  the  spirit  was  most  indignant  and  threatened 
the  perpetrators  of  the  deed,  according  to  the  king,  with  all  manner 
of  evil. 


682  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-CUSTOM  ch. 

Some  of  the  Papuans  unite  the  life  of  a  new-born  babe  sym¬ 
pathetically  with  that  of  a  tree  by  driving  a  pebble  into  the  bark  of 
the  tree.  This  is  supposed  to  give  them  complete  mastery  over  the 
child’s  life  ;  if  the  tree  is  cut  down,  the  child  will  die.  After  a  birth 
the  Maoris  used  to  bury  the  navel-string  in  a  sacred  place  and  plant 
a  young  sapling  over  it.  As  the  tree  grew,  it  was  a  tohu  oranga  or  sign 
of  life  for  the  chijd  ;  if  it  flourished,  the  child  would  prosper  ;  if  it 
withered  and  died,  the  parents  augured  the  worst  for  the  little  one.  In 
some  parts  of  Fiji  the  navel-string  of  a  male  infant  is  planted  together 
with  a  coco-nut  or  the  slip  of  a  breadfruit-tree,  and  the  child’s  life  is 
supposed  to  be  intimately  connected  with  that  of  the  tree.  Amongst 
the  Dyaks  of  Landak  and  Taj  an,  districts  of  Dutch  Borneo,  it  is 
customary  to  plant  a  fruit-tree  for  a  baby,  and  henceforth  in  the 
popular  belief  the  fate  of  the  child  is  bound  up  with  that  of  the  tree. 
If  the  tree  shoots  up  rapidly,  it  will  go  well  with  the  child  ;  but  if  the 
tree  is  dwarfed  or  shrivelled,  nothing  but  misfortune  can  be  expected 
for  its  human  counterpart. 

It  is  said  that  there  are  still  families  in  Russia,  Germany,  England, 
France,  and  Italy  who  are  accustomed  to  plant  a  tree  at  the  birth  of  a 
child.  The  tree,  it  is  hoped,  will  grow  with  the  child,  and  it  is  tended 
with  special  care.  The  custom  is  still  pretty  general  in  the  canton  of 
Aargau  in  Switzerland  ;  an  apple-tree  is  planted  for  a  boy  and  a  pear- 
tree  for  a  girl,  and  the  people  think  that  the  child  will  flourish  or 
dwindle  with  the  tree.  In  Mecklenburg  the  afterbirth  is  thrown  out 
at  the  foot  of  a  young  tree,  and  the  child  is  then  believed  to  grow  with 
the  tree.  Near  the  Castle  of  Dalhousie,  not  far  from  Edinburgh, 
there  grows  an  oak-tree,  called  the  Edgewell  Tree,  which  is  popularly 
believed  to  be  linked  to  the  fate  of  the  family  by  a  mysterious  tie  ; 
for  they  say  that  when  one  of  the  family  dies,  or  is  about  to  die,  a 
branch  falls  from  the  Edgewell  Tree.  Thus,  on  seeing  a  great  bough 
drop  from  the  tree  on  a  quiet,  still  day  in  July  1874,  an  old  forester 
exclaimed,  "  The  laird’s  deid  noo  !  ”  and  soon  after  news  came  that 
Fox  Maule,  eleventh  Earl  of  Dalhousie,  was  dead. 

In  England  children  are  sometimes  passed  through  a  cleft  ash-tree 
as  a  cure  for  rupture  or  rickets,  and  thenceforward  a  sympathetic 
connexion  is  supposed  to  exist  between  them  and  the  tree.  An  ash- 
tree  which  had  been  used  for  this  purpose  grew  at  the  edge  of  Shirley 
Heath,  on  the  road  from  Hockly  House  to  Birmingham.  “  Thomas 
Chillingworth,  son  of  the  owner  of  an  adjoining  farm,  now  about 
thirty-four,  was,  when  an  infant  of  a  year  old,  passed  through  a  similar 
tree,  now  perfectly  sound,  which  he  preserves  with  so  much  care  that 
he  will  not  suffer  a  single  branch  to  be  touched,  for  it  is  believed  the 
life  of  the  patient  depends  on  the  life  of  the  tree,  and  the  moment  that 
is  cut  down,  be  the  patient  ever  so  distant,  the  rupture  returns,  and  a 
mortification  ensues,  and  terminates  in  death,  as  was  the  case  in  a 
man  driving  a  waggon  on  the  very  road  in  question.”  “  It  is  not 
uncommon,  however,”  adds  the  writer,  "  for  persons  to  survive  for  a 
time  the  felling  of  the  tree.”  The  ordinary  mode  of  effecting  the  cure 


LXVII 


THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  ANIMALS 


683 


is  to  split  a  young  ash-sapling  longitudinally  for  a  few  feet  and  pass 
the  child,  naked,  either  three  times  or  three  times  three  through  the 
fissure  at  sunrise.  In  the  West  of  England  it  is  said  that  the  passage 
should  be  “  against  the  sun.”  As  soon  as  the  ceremony  has  been 
performed,  the  tree  is  bound  tightly  up  and  the  fissure  plastered  over 
with  mud  or  clay.  The  belief  is  that  just  as  the  cleft  in  the  tree  closes 
up,  so  the  rupture  in  the  child’s  body  will  be  healed  ;  but  that  if 
the  rift  in  the  tree  remains  bpen,  the  rupture  in  the  child  will  remain 
too,  and  if  the  tree  were  to  die,  the  death  of  the  child  would  surely 
follow. 

A  similar  cure  for  various  diseases,  but  especially  for  rupture  and 
rickets,  has  been  commonly  practised  in  other  parts  of  Europe,  as 
Germany,  France,  Denmark,  and  Sweden  ;  but  in  these  countries 
the  tree  employed  for  the  purpose  is  usually  not  an  ash  but  an  oak  ; 
sometimes  a  willow-tree  is  allowed  or  even  prescribed  instead.  In 
Mecklenburg,  as  in  England,  the  sympathetic  relation  thus  established 
between  the  tree  and  the  child  is  believed  to  be  so  close  that  if  the  tree 
is  cut  down  the  child  will  die. 

§  3.  The  External  Soul  in  Animals. — But  in  practice,  as  in  folk-tales, 
it  is  not  merely  with  inanimate  objects  and  plants  that  a  person  is 
occasionally  believed  to  be  united  by  a  bond  of  physical  sympathy. 
The  same  bond,  it  is  supposed,  may  exist  between  a  man  and  an 
animal,  so  that  the  welfare  of  the  one  depends  on  the  welfare  of  the 
other,  and  when  the  animal  dies  the  man  dies  also.  The  analogy 
between  the  custom  and  the  tales  is  all  the  closer  because  in  both  of 
them  the  power  of  thus  removing  the  soul  from  the  body  and  stowing  it 
away  in  an  animal  is  often  a  special  privilege  of  wizards  and  witches. 
Thus  the  Yakuts  of  Siberia  believe  that  every  shaman  or  wizard  keeps 
his  soul,  or  one  of  his  souls,  incarnate  in  an  animal  which  is  carefully 
concealed  from  all  the  world.  “  Nobody  can  find  my  external  soul,” 
said  one  famous  wizard,  “  it  lies  hidden  far  away  in  the  stony  mountains 
of  Edzhigansk.”  Only  once  a  year,  when  the  last  snows  melt  and  the 
earth  turns  black,  do  these  external  souls  of  wizards  appear  in  the 
shape  of  animals  among  the  dwellings  of  men.  They  wander  every¬ 
where,  yet  none  but  wizards  can  see  them.  The  strong  ones  sweep 
roaring  and  noisily  along,  the  weak  steal  about  quietly  and  furtively. 
Often  they  fight,  and  then  the  wizard  whose  external  soul  is  beaten 
falls  ill  or  dies.  The  weakest  and  most  cowardly  wizards  are  they  whose 
souls  are  incarnate  in  the  shape  of  dogs,  for  the  dog  gives  his  human 
double  no  peace,  but  gnaws  his  heart  and  tears  his  body.  The  most 
powerful  wizards  are  they  whose  external  souls  have  the  shape  of 
stallions,  elks,  black  bears,  eagles,  or  boars.  Again,  the  Samoyeds  of 
the  Turukhinsk  region  hold  that  every  shaman  has  a  familiar  spirit 
in  the  shape  of  a  boar,  which  he  leads  about  by  a  magic  belt.  On 
the  death  of  the  boar  the  shaman  himself  dies  ;  and  stories  are  told  of 
battles  between  wizards,  who  send  their  spirits  to  fight  before  they 
encounter  each  other  in  person.  The  Malays  believe  that  “  the  soul 
of  a  person  may  pass  into  another  person  or  into  an  animal,  or  rather 


684  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-CUSTOM  ch. 

that  such  a  mysterious  relation  can  arise  between  the  two  that  the  fate 
of  the  one  is  wholly  dependent  on  that  of  the  other.” 

Among  the  Melanesians  of  Mot  a,  one  of  the  New  Hebrides  islands, 
the  conception  of  an  external  soul  is  carried  out  in  the  practice  of  daily 
life.  In  the  Mota  language  the  word  tamaniu,  signifies  “  something 
animate  or  inanimate  which  a  man  has  come  to  believe  to  have  an 
existence  intimately  connected  with  his  own.  ...  It  was  not  every 
one  in  Mota  who  had  his  tamaniu  ;  only  Some  men  fancied  that  they 
had  this  relation  to  a  lizard,  a  snake,  or  it  might  be  a  stone  ;  sometimes 
the  thing  was  sought  for  and  found  by  drinking  the  infusion  of  certain 
leaves  and  heaping  together  the  dregs  ;  then  whatever  living  thing 
was  first  seen  in  or  upon  the  heap  was  the  tamaniu.  It  was  watched 
but  not  fed  or  worshipped  ;  the  natives  believed  that  it  came  at  call, 
and  that  the  life  of  the  man  was  bound  up  with  the  life  of  his  tamaniu , 
if  a  living  thing,  or  with  its  safety  ;  should  it  die,  or  if  not  living  get 
broken  or  be  lost,  the  man  would  die.  Hence  in  case  of  sickness 
they  would  send  to  see  if  the  tamaniu  was  safe  and  well.” 

The  theory  of  an  external  soul  deposited  in  an  animal  appears 
to  be  very  prevalent  in  West  Africa,  particularly  in  Nigeria,  the 
Cameroons,  and  the  Gaboon.  Among  the  Fans  of  the  Gaboon  every 
wizard  is  believed  at  initiation  to  unite  his  life  with  that  of  some 
particular  wild  animal  by  a  rite  of  blood-brotherhood  ;  he  draws 
blood  from  the  ear  of  the  animal  and  from  his  own  arm,  and  inoculates 
the  animal  with  his  own  blood,  and  himself  with  the  blood  of  the 
beast.  Henceforth  such  an  intimate  union  is  established  between 
the  two  that  the  death  of  the  one  entails  the  death  of  the  other.  The 
alliance  is  thought  to  bring  to  the  wizard  or  sorcerer  a  great  accession 
of  power,  which  he  can  turn  to  his  advantage  in  various  ways.  In 
the  first  place,  like  the  warlock  in  the  fairy  tales  who  has  deposited 
his  life  outside  of  himself  in  some  safe  place,  the  Fan  wizard  now  deems 
himself  invulnerable.  Moreover,  the  animal  with  which  he  has 
exchanged  blood  has  become  his  familiar,  and  will  obey  any  orders 
he  may  choose  to  give  it  ;  so  he  makes  use  of  it  to  injure  and  kill  his 
enemies.  For  that  reason  the  creature  with  whom  he  establishes 
the  relation  of  blood-brotherhood  is  never  a  tame  or  domestic  animal, 
but  always  a  ferocious  and  dangerous  wild  beast,  such  as  a  leopard, 
a  black  serpent,  a  crocodile,  a  hippopotamus,  a  wild  boar,  or  a  vulture. 
Of  all  these  creatures  the  leopard  is  by  far  the  commonest  familiar 
of  Fan  wizards,  and  next  to  it  comes  the  black  serpent ;  the  vulture 
is  the  rarest.  Witches  as  well  as  wizards  have  their  familiars  ;  but 
the  animals  with  which  the  lives  of  women  are  thus  bound  up  generally 
differ  from  those  to  which  men  commit  their  external  souls.  A  witch 
never  has  a  panther  for  her  familiar,  but  often  a  venomous  species’ 
of  serpent,  sometimes  a  horned  viper,  sometimes  a  black  serpent, 
sometimes  a  green  one  that  lives  in  banana-trees  ;  or  it  may  be  a 
vulture,  an  owl,  or  other  bird  of  night.  In  every  case  the  beast  or 
bird  with  which  the  witch  or  wizard  has  contracted  this  mystic  alliance 
is  an  individual,  never  a  species  ;  and  when  the  individual  animal 


LXVII 


THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  ANIMALS  685 

dies  the  alliance  is  naturally  at  an  end,  since  the  death  of  the  animal 
is  supposed  to  entail  the  death  of  the  man. 

Similar  beliefs  are  held  by  the  natives  of  the  Cross  River  valley 
within  the  provinces  of  the  Cameroons.  Groups  of  people,  generally 
the  inhabitants  of  a  village,  have  chosen  various  animals,  with 
which  they  believe  themselves  to  stand  on  a  footing  of  intimate  friend¬ 
ship  or  lelationship.  Amongst  such  animals  are  hippopotamuses, 
elephants,  leopards,  crocodiles,  gorillas,  fish,  and  serpents,  all  of  them 
creatures  which  are  either  very  strong  or  can  easily  hide  themselves 
in  the  water  or  a  thicket.  This  power  of  concealing  themselves  is 
said  to  be  an  indispensable  condition  of  the  choice  of  animal  familiars, 
since  the  animal  friend  or  helper  is  expected  to  injure  his  owner’s 
enemy  by  stealth  ;  for  example,  if  he  is  a  hippopotamus,  he  will  bob 
up  suddenly  out  of  the  water  and  capsize  the  enemy’s  canoe.  Between 
the  animals  and  their  human  friends  or  kinsfolk  such  a  sympathetic 
relation  is  supposed  to  exist  that  the  moment  the  animal  dies  the  man 
dies  also,  and  similarly  the  instant  the  man  perishes  so  does  the  beast. 
From  this  it  follows  that  the  animal  kinsfolk  may  never  be  shot  at 
or  molested  for  fear  of  injuring  or  killing  the  persons  whose  lives  are 
knit  up  with  the  lives  of  the  brutes.  This  does  not,  however,  prevent 
the  people  of  a  village,  who  have  elephants  for  their  animal  friends, 
from  hunting  elephants.  For  they  do  not  respect  the  whole  species 
but  merely  certain  individuals  of  it,  which  stand  in  an  intimate  relation 
to  certain  individual  men  and  women  ;  and  they  imagine  that  they 
can  always  distinguish  these  brother  elephants  from  the  common 
herd  of  elephants  which  are  mere  elephants  and  nothing  more.  The 
recognition  indeed  is  said  to  be  mutual.  When  a  hunter,  who  has 
an  elephant  for  his  friend,  meets  a  human  elephant,  as  we  may  call 
it,  the  noble  animal  lifts  up  a  paw  and  holds  it  before  his  face,  as 
much  as  to  say,  “  Don’t  shoot.”  Were  the  hunter  so  inhuman  as  to 
fire  on  and  wound  such  an  elephant,  the  person  whose  life  was  bound 
up  with  the  elephant  would  fall  ill. 

The  B along  of  the  Cameroons  think  that  every  man  has  several 
souls,  of  which  one  is  in  his  body  and  another  in  an  animal,  such  as 
an  elephant,  a  wild  pig,  a  leopard,  and  so  forth.  When  a  man  comes 
home,  feeling  ill,  and  says,  “  I  shall  soon  die,”  and  dies  accordingly, 
the  people  aver  that  one  of  his  souls  has  been  killed  in  a  wild  pig  or  a 
leopard,  and  that  the  death  of  the  external  soul  has  caused  the  death 
of  the  soul  in  his  body.  A  similar  belief  in  the  external  souls  of  living 
people  is  entertained  by  the  Ibos,  an  important  tribe  of  the  Niger  delta. 
They  think  that  a  man’s  spirit  can  quit  his  body  for  a  time  during  life 
and  take  up  its  abode  in  an  animal.  A  man  who  wishes  to  acquire  this 
power  procures  a  certain  drug  from  a  wise  man  and  mixes  it  with  his 
food.  After  that  his  soul  goes  out  and  enters  into  an  animal.  If  it 
should  happen  that  the  animal  is  killed  while  the  man’s  soul  is  lodged 
in  it,  the  man  dies  ;  and  if  the  animal  be  wounded,  the  man’s  body 
will  presently  be  covered  with  boils.  This  belief  instigates  to  many 
deeds  of  darkness  ;  for  a  sly  rogue  will  sometimes  surreptitiously 


686  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-CUSTOM  ch. 

administer  the  magical  drug  to  his  enemy  in  his  food,  and  having  thus 
smuggled  the  other’s  soul  into  an  animal  will  destroy  the  creature, 
and  with  it  the  man  whose  soul  is  lodged  in  it. 

The  negroes  of  Calabar,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Niger,  believe  that 
every  person  has  four  souls,  one  of  which  always  lives  outside  of  his 
or  her  body  in  the  form  of  a  wild  beast  in  the  forest.  This  external 
soul,  or  bush  soul,  as  Miss  Kingsley  calls  it,  may  be  almost  any  animal, 
for  example,  a  leopard,  a  fish,  or  a  tortoise  ;  but  it  is  never  a  domestic 
animal  and  never  a  plant.  Unless  he  is  gifted  with  second  sight,  a 
man  cannot  see  his  own  bush  soul,  but  a  diviner  will  often  tell  him 
what  sort  of  creature  his  bush  soul  is,  and  after  that  the  man  will  be 
careful  not  to  kill  any  animal  of  that  species,  and  will  strongly  object 
to  any  one  else  doing  so.  A  man  and  his  sons  have  usually  the  same 
sort  of  animals  for  their  bush  souls,  and  so  with  a  mother  and  her 
daughters.  But  sometimes  all  the  children  of  a  family  take  after  the 
bush  soul  of  their  father  ;  for  example,  if  his  external  soul  is  a  leopard, 
all  his  sons  and  daughters  will  have  leopards  for  their  external  souls. 
And  on  the  other  hand,  sometimes  they  all  take  after  their  mother  ; 
for  instance,  if  her  external  soul  is  a  tortoise,  all  the  external  souls 
of  her  sons  and  daughters  will  be  tortoises  too.  So  intimately  bound 
up  is  the  life  of  the  man  with  that  of  the  animal  which  he  regards  as 
his  external  or  bush  soul,  that  the  death  or  injury  of  the  animal 
necessarily  entails  the  death  or  injury  of  the  man:  And,  conversely, 
when  the  man  dies,  his  bush  soul  can  no  longer  find  a  place  of  rest, 
but  goes  mad  and  rushes  into  the  fire  or  charges  people  and  is  knocked 
on  the  head,  and  that  is  an  end  of  it. 

Near  Eket  in  North  Calabar  there  is  a  sacred  lake,  the  fish  of 
which  are  carefully  preserved  because  the  people  believe  that  their 
own  souls  are  lodged  in  the  fish,  and  that  with  every  fish  killed  a 
human  life  would  be  simultaneously  extinguished.  In  the  Calabar 
River  not  very  many  years  ago  there  used  to  be  a  huge  old  crocodile, 
popularly  supposed  to  contain  the  external  soul  of  a  chief  who  resided 
in  the  flesh  at  Duke  Town.  Sporting  vice-consuls  used  from  time  to 
time  to  hunt  the  animal,  and  once  an  officer  contrived  to  hit  it.  Forth¬ 
with  the  chief  was  laid  up  with  a  wound  in  his  leg.  He  gave  out  that 
a  dog  had  bitten  him,  but  no  doubt  the  wise  shook  their  heads  and 
refused  to  be  put  off  with  so  flimsy  a  pretext.  Again,  among  several 
tribes  on  the  banks  of  the  Niger  between  Lokoja  and  the  delta  there 
prevails  “  a  belief  in  the  possibility  of  a  man  possessing  an  alter  ego 
in  the  form  of  some  animal  such  as  a  crocodile  or  a  hippopotamus. 
It  is  believed  that  such  a  person’s  life  is  bound  up  with  that  of  the 
animal  to  such  an  extent  that  whatever  affects  the  one  produces  a 
corresponding  impression  upon  the  other,  and  that  if  one  dies  the 
other  must  speedily  do  so  too.  It  happened  not  very  long  ago  that 
an  Englishman  shot  a  hippopotamus  close  to  a  native  village  ;  the 
friends  of  a  woman  who  died  the  same  night  in  the  village  demanded 
and  eventually  obtained  five  pounds  as  compensation  for  the  murder 
of  the  woman.” 


LXVII 


687 


THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  ANIMALS 

Amongst  the  Zapotecs  of  Central  America,  when  a  woman  was 
about  to  be  confined,  her  relations  assembled  in  the  hut,  and  began 
to  draw  on  the  floor  figures  of  different  animals,  rubbing  each  one 
out  as  soon  as  it  was  completed..  This  went  on  till  the  moment  of 
birth,  and  the  figure  that  then  remained  sketched  upon  the  ground 
was  called  the  child's  tona  or  second  self.  “  When  the  child  grew  old 
enough,  he  procured  the  animal  that  represented  him  and  took  care 
of  it,  as  it  was  believed  that  health  and  existence  were  bound  up 
with  that  of  the  animal's,  in  fact  that  the  death  of  both  would  occur 
simultaneously,"  or  rather  that  when  the  animal  died  the  man  would 
die  too.  Among  the  Indians  of  Guatemala  and  Honduras  the  nagual 
or  ncrnal  is  “  that  animate  or  inanimate  object,  generally  an  animal, 
which  stands  in  a  parallel  relation  to  a  particular  man,  so  that  the 
weal  and  woe  of  the  man  depend  on  the  fate  of  the  nagual .”  Accord¬ 
ing  to  an  old  writer,  many  Indians  of  Guatemala  “  are  deluded  by 
the  devil  to  believe  that  their  life  dependeth  upon  the  life  of  such 
and  such  a  beast  (which  they  take  unto  them  as  their  familiar  spirit), 
and  think  that  when  that  beast  dieth  they  must  die  ;  when  he  is  chased 
their  hearts  pant ;  when  he  is  faint,  they  are  faint ;  nay,  it  happeneth 
that  by  the  devil’s  delusion  they  appear  in  the  shape  of  that  beast 
(which  commonly  by  their  choice  is  a  buck,  or  doe,  a  lion,  or  tigre, 
or  dog,  or  eagle)  and  in  that  shape  have  been  shot  at  and  wounded." 
The  Indians  were  persuaded  that  the  death  of  their  nagual  would 
entail  their  own.  Legend  affirms  that  in  the  first  battles  with  the 
Spaniards  on  the  plateau  of  Quetzaltenango  the  naguals  of  the  Indian 
chiefs  fought  in  the  form  of  serpents.  The  nagual  of  the  highest 
chief  was  especially  conspicuous,  because  it  had  the  form  of  a  great 
bird,  resplendent  in  green  plumage.  The  Spanish  general  Pedro  de 
Alvarado  killed  the  bird  with  his  lance,  and  at  the  same  moment  the 
Indian  chief  fell  dead  to  the  ground. 

In  many  tribes  of  South-eastern  Australia  each  sex  used  to  regard 
a  particular  species  of  animals  in  the  same  way  that  a  Central  American 
Indian  regarded  his  nagual,  but  with  this  difference,  that  whereas  the 
Indian  apparently  knew  the  individual  animal  with  which  his  life 
was  bound  up,  the  Australians  only  knew  that  each  of  their  lives  was 
bound  up  with  some  one  animal  of  the  species,  but  they  could  not  say 
with  which.  The  result  naturally  was  that  every  man  spared  and 
protected  all  the  animals  of  the  species  with  which  the  lives  of  the 
men  were  bound  up  *;  and  every  woman  spared  and  protected  all  the 
animals  of  the  species  with  which  the  lives  of  the  women  were  bound 
up  ;  because  no  one  knew  but  that  the  death  of  any  animal  of  the 
respective  species  might  entail  his  or  her  own  ;  just  as  the  killing  of 
the  green  bird  was  immediately  followed  by  the  death  of  the  Indian 
chief,  and  the  killing  of  the  parrot  by  the  death  of  Punchkin  in  the 
fairy  tale.  ^  Thus,  for  example,  the  Wotjobaluk  tribe  of  South-eastern 
Australia  “  held  that  ‘  the  life  of  Ngunungunut  (the  Bat)  is  the  life 
of  a  man,  and  the  life  of  Yartatgurk  (the  Nightjar)  is  the  life  of  a 
woman,  and  that  when  either  of  these  creatures  is  killed  the  life  of 


688  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-CUSTOM  ch. 

some  man  or  of  some  woman  is  shortened.  In  such  a  case  every  man 
or  every  woman  in  the  camp  feared  that  he  or  she  might  be  the 
victim,  and  from  this  cause  great  fights  arose  in  this  tribe.  I  learn 
that  in  these  fights,  men  on  one  side  and  women  on  the  other,  it  was 
not  at  all  certain  which  would  be  victorious,  for  at  times  the  women 
gave  the  men  a  severe  drubbing  with  their  yamsticks,  while  often 
women  were  injured  or  killed  by  spears.”  The  Wotjobaluk  said  that 
the  bat  was  the  man’s  “  brother  ”  and  that  the  nightjar  was  his 
“  wife.”  The  particular  species  of  animals  with  which  the  lives  of 
the  sexes  were  believed  to  be  respectively  bound  up  varied  somewhat 
from  tribe  to  tribe.  Thus  whereas  among  the  Wotjobaluk  the  bat 
was  the  animal  of  the  men,  at  Gunbower  Creek  on  the  Lower  Murray 
the  bat  seems  to  have  been  the  animal  of  the  women,  for  the  natives 
would  not  kill  it  for  the  reason  that  “if  it  was  killed,  one  of  their 
lubras  [women]  would  be  sure  to  die  in  consequence.”  But  whatever 
the  particular  sorts  of  creature  with  which  the  lives  of  men  and 
women  were  believed  to  be  bound  up,  the  belief  itself  and  the  fights 
to  which  it  gave  rise  are  known  to  have  prevailed  over  a  large  part  of 
South-eastern  Australia,  and  probably  they  extended  much  farther. 
The  belief  was  a  very  serious  one,  and  so  consequently  were  the  fights 
which  sprang  from  it.  Thus  among  some  tribes  of  Victoria  “  the 
common  bat  belongs  to  the  men,  who  protect  it  against  injury,  even 
to  the  half-killing  of  their  wives  for  its  sake.  The  fern  owl,  or  large 
goatsucker,  belongs  to  the  women,  and,  although  a  bird  of  evil  omen, 
creating  terror  at  night  by  its  cry,  it  is  jealously  protected  by  them.  , 
If  a  man  kills  one,  they  are  as  much  enraged  as  if  it  was  one  of  their 
children,  and  will  strike  him  with  their  long  poles.” 

The  jealous  protection  thus  afforded  by  Australian  men  and  women 
to  bats  and  owls  respectively  (for  bats  and  owls  seem  to  be  the  creatures 
usually  allotted  to  the  two  sexes)  is  not  based  upon  purely  selfish 
considerations.  For  each  man  believes  that  not  only  his  own  life  but  , 
the  lives  of  his  father,  brothers,  sons,  and  so  on  are  bound  up  with 
the  lives  of  particular  bats,  and  that  therefore  in  protecting  the  bat  j 
species  he  is  protecting  the  lives  of  all  his  male  relations  as  well  as  his 
own.  Similarly,  each  woman  believes  that  the  lives  of  her  mother, 
sisters,  daughters,  and  so  forth,  equally  with  her  own,  are  bound  up 
with  the  lives  of  particular  owls,  and  that  in  guarding  the  owl  species 
she  is  guarding  the  lives  of  all  her  female  relations  besides  her  own. 
Now,  when  men’s  lives  are  thus  supposed  to  be  contained  in  certain 
animals,  it  is  obvious  that  the  animals  can  hardly  be  distinguished 
from  the  men,  or  the  men  from  the  animals.  If  my  brother  John’s 
life  is  in  a  bat,  then,  on  the  one  hand,  the  bat  is  my  brother  as  well  as 
John  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  John  is  in  a  sense  a  bat,  since  his  life 
is  in  a  bat.  Similarly,  if  my  sister  Mary’s  life  is  in  an  owl,  then  the 
owl  is  my  sister  and  Mary  is  an  owl.  This  is  a  natural  enough  con¬ 
clusion,  and  the  Australians  have  not  failed  to  draw  it.  When  the 
bat  is  the  man’s  animal,  it  is  called  his  brother  ;  and  when  the  owl 
is  the  woman’s  animal,  it  is  called  her  sister.  And  conversely  a  man 


LXVII 


THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  ANIMALS  689 

|  addresses  a  woman  as  an  owl,  and  she  addresses  him  as  a  bat.  So 
with  the  other  animals  allotted  to  the  sexes  respectively  in  other  tribes. 
For  example,  among  the  Kurnai  all  emu-wrens  were  “  brothers  ”  of 
the  men,  and  all  the  men  were  emu-wrens  ;  all  superb  warblers  were 
sisters  of  the  women,  and  all  the  women  were  superb  warblers. 

But  when  a  savage  names  himself  after  an  animal,  calls  it  his 
brother,  and  refuses  to  kill  it,  the  animal  is  said  to  be  his  totem  Ac¬ 
cordingly  in  the  tribes  of  South-eastern  Australia  which  we  have 
been  considering  the  bat  and  the  owl,  the  emu-wren  and  the  superb 
warbler  may  properly  be  described  as  totems  of  the  sexes.  But  the 
assignation  of  a  totem  to  a  sex  is  comparatively  rare,  and  has  hitherto 
been  discovered  nowhere  but  in  Australia.  Far  more  commonly  the 
totem  is  appropriated  not  to  a  sex,  but  to  a  clan,  and  is  hereditary 
either  in  the  male  or  female  line.  The  relation  of  an  individual  to 
the  clan  totem  does  not  differ  in  kind  from  his  relation  to  the  sex 
totem  ;  he  will  not  kill  it,  he  speaks  of  it  as  his  brother,  and  he  calls 
himself  by  its  name.  Now  if  the  relations  are  similar,  the  explanation 
which  holds  good  of  the  one  ought  equally  to  hold  good  of  the  other. 
Therefore  the  reason  why  a  clan  revere  a  particular  species  of  animals 
or  plants  (for  the  clan  totem  may  be  a  plant)  and  call  themselves  after 
it,  would  seem  to  be  a  belief  that  the  life  of  each  individual  of  the  clan 
is  bound  up  with  some  one  animal  or  plant  of  the  species,  and  that 
his  or  her  death  would  be  the  consequence  of  killing  that  particular 
animal  or  destroying  that  particular  plant.  This  explanation  of 
totemism  squares  very  well  with  Sir  George  Grey’s  definition  of  a 
totem  or  kobong  in  Western  Australia.  He  says  :  “  A  certain  mys¬ 
terious  connexion  exists  between  a  family  and  its  kobong,  so  that  a 
member  of  the  family  will  never  kill  an  animal  of  the  species  to  which 
his  kobong  belongs,  should  he  find  it  asleep  ;  indeed  he  always  kills  it 
reluctantly,  and  never  without  affording  it  a  chance  to  escape.  This 
arises .  from  the  family  belief  that  some  one  individual  of  the  species 
is  their  nearest  friend,  to  kill  whom  would  be  a  great  crime,  and  to 
be  carefully  avoided.  Similarly,  a  native  who  has  a  vegetable  for  his 
kobong  may  not  gather  it  under  certain  circumstances,  and  at  a 
particular  period  of  the  year.”  Here  it  will  be  observed  that  though 
rach  man  spares  all  the  animals  or  plants  of  the  species,  they  are  not 
iill  equally  precious  to  him  *  far  from  it,  out  of  the  whole  species  there 
s  only  one  which  is  specially  dear  to  him  ;  but  as  he  does  not  know 
vhich  the  dear  one  is,  he  is  obliged  to  spare  them  all  from  fear  of  in¬ 
uring  the  one.  Again,  this  explanation  of  the  clan  totem  harmonises 
vith  the  supposed  effect  of  killing  one  of  the  totem  species.  “  One 
lay  one  of  the  blacks  killed  a  crow.  Three  or  four  days  afterwards 
i  Boortwa  (crow)  [i.e.  a  man  of  the  Crow  clan]  named  Larry  died, 
de  had  been  ailing  for  some  days,  but  the  killing  of  his  wingong  [totem] 
lastened  his  death.”  Here  the  killing  of  the  crow  caused  the  death 
>f  a  man  of  the  Crow  clan,  exactly  as,  in  the  case  of  the  sex-totems, 
he  killing  of  a  bat  causes  the  death  of  a  Bat-man  or  the  killing  of  an 
»wl  causes  the  death  of  an  Owl-woman.  Similarly,  the  killing  of  his 


6go  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-CUSTOM  ch. 

nagual  causes  the  death  of  a  Central  American  Indian,  the  killing  of 
his  bush  soul  causes  the  death  of  a  Calabar  negro,  the  killing  of  his 
tamaniu  causes  the  death  of  a  Banks  Islander,  and  the  killing  of  the 
animal  in  which  his  life  is  stowed  away  causes  the  death  of  the  giant 
or  warlock  in  the  fairy  tale. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  story  of  “  The  giant  who  had  no  heart  in 
his  body  ”  may  perhaps  furnish  the  key  to  the  relation  which  is  supposed 
to  subsist  between  a  man  and  his  totem.  The  totem,  on  this  theory, 
is  simply  the  receptacle  in  which  a  man  keeps  his  life,  as  Punchkin 
kept  his  life  in  a  parrot,  and  Bidasari  kept  her  soul  in  a  golden  fish. 
It  is  no  valid  objection  to  this  view  that  when  a  savage  has  both  a 
sex  totem  and  a  clan  totem  his  life  must  be  bound  up  with  two  different 
animals,  the  death  of  either  of  which  would  entail  his  own.  If  a  man 
has  more  vital  places  than  one  in  his  body,  why,  the  savage  may  think, 
should  he  not  have  more  vital  places  than  one  outside  it  ?  Why, 
since  he  can  put  his  life  outside  himself,  should  he  not  transfer  one 
portion  of  it  to  one  animal  and  another  to  another  ?  The  divisibility 
of  life,  or,  to  put  it  otherwise,  the  plurality  of  souls,  is  an  idea  suggested 
by  many  familiar  facts,  and  has  commended  itself  to  philosophers 
like  Plato,  as  well  as  to  savages.  It  is  only  when  the  notion  of  a  soul, 
from  being  a  quasi-scientific  hypothesis,  becomes  a  theological  dogma 
that  its  unity  and  indivisibility  are  insisted  upon  as  essential.  The 
savage,  unshackled  by  dogma,  is  free  to  explain  the  facts  of  life  by 
the  assumption  of  as  many  souls  as  he  thinks  necessary.  Hence,  for 
example,  the  Caribs  supposed  that  there  was  one  soul  in  the  head, 
another  in  the  heart,  and  other  souls  at  all  the  places  where  an  artery 
is  felt  pulsating.  Some  of  the  Hidatsa  Indians  explain  the  phenomena 
of  gradual  death,  when  the  extremities  appear  dead  first,  by  supposing 
that  man  has  four  souls,  and  that  they  quit  the  body,  not  simul¬ 
taneously,  but  one  after  the  other,  dissolution  being  only  complete 
when  all  four  have  departed.  Some  of  the  Dyaks  of  Borneo  and  the 
Malays  of  the  Peninsula  believe  that  every  man  has  seven  souls.  The 
Alfoors  of  Poso  in  Celebes  are  of  opinion  that  he  has  three.  The  natives 
of  Laos  suppose  that  the  body  is  the  seat  of  thirty  spirits,  which  reside 
in  the  hands,  the  feet,  the  mouth,  the  eyes,  and  so  on.  Hence,  from 
the  primitive  point  of  view,  it  is  perfectly  possible  that  a  savage  should 
have  one  soul  in  his  sex  totem  and  another  in  his  clan  totem.  How¬ 
ever,  as  I  have  observed,  sex  totems  have  been  found  nowhere  but  in 
Australia ;  so  that  as  a  rule  the  savage  who  practises  totemism  need 
not  have  more  than  one  soul  out  of  his  body  at  a  time. 

If  this  explanation  of  the  totem  as  a  receptacle  in  which  a  man 
keeps  his  soul  or  one  of  his  souls  is  correct,  we  should  expect  to  find 
some  totemic  people  of  whom  it  is  expressly  said  that  every  man 
amongst  them  is  believed  to  keep  at  least  one  soul  permanently  out 
of  his  body,  and  that  the  destruction  of  this  external  soul  is  supposed 
to  entail  the  death  of  its  owner.  Such  a  people  are  the  Bataks  of 
Sumatra.  The  Bataks  are  divided  into  exogamous  clans  (margas) 
with  descent  in  the  male  line  ;  and  each  clan  is  forbidden  to  eat  the 


lxvh  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  ANIMALS 


691 


flesh  of  a  particular  animal.  One  clan  may  not  eat  the  tiger,  another 
the  ape  another  the  crocodile,  another  the  dog,  another  the  cat, 
another  the  dove,  another  the  white  buffalo,  and  another  the  locust! 
The  reason  given  by  members  of  a  clan  for  abstaining  from  the  flesh 
of  the  particular  animal  is  either  that  they  are  descended  from  animals 
o  that  species  and  that  their  souls  after  death  may  transmigrate 
into  the  animals,  or  that  they  or  their  forefathers  have  been  under 
certain  obligations  to  the  creatures.  Sometimes,  but  not  always  the 
clan  bears  the  name  of  the  animal.  Thus  the  Bataks  have  totemism 
n  nil.  But,  further,  each  Batak  believes  that  he  has  seven  or  on  a 
more  moderate  computation,  three  souls.  One  of  these  souls  is  always 
outside  the  body,  but  nevertheless  whenever  it  dies,  however  far  away 
it  may  be  at  the  time,  that  same  moment  the  man  dies  also.  The 
'  writer  who  mentions  this  belief  says  nothing  about  the  Batak  totems  • 
but  on  the  analogy  of  the  Australian,  Central  American,  and  African 
evidence  we  may  conjecture  that  the  external  soul,  whose  death  entails 
the  death  of  the  man,  is  housed  in  the  totemic  animal  or  plant. 

Against  this  view  it  can  hardly  be  thought  to  militate  that  the 
Batak  does  not  m  set  terms  affirm  his  external  soul  to  be  in  his  totem 
but  alleges  other  grounds  for  respecting  the  sacred  animal  or  plant  of 
his  clan.  For  if  a  savage  seriously  believes  that  his  life  is  bound  up 
with  an  external  object,  it  is  in  the  last  degree  unlikely  that  he  will 
let  any  stranger  into  the  secret.  In  all  that  touches  his  inmost  life 
:  and  beliefs  the  savage  is  exceedingly  suspicious  and  reserved  ;  Euro¬ 
peans  have  resided  among  savages  for  years  without  discovering  some 
of  their  capital  articles  of  faith,  and  in  the  end  the  discovery  has  often 
;been  the  result  of  accident.  Above  all,  the  savage  lives  in  an  intense 
ia  .  perpetual  dread  of  assassination  by  sorcery  ;  the  most  trifling 
relics  of  his  person— the  clippings  of  his  hair  and  nails,  his  spittle,  the 
remnants  of  his  food,  his  very  name— all  these  may,  he  fancies  be 
turned  by  the  sorcerer  to  his  destruction,  and  he  is  therefore  anxiously 
careful  to  conceal  or  destroy  them.  But  if  in  matters  such  as  these 
which  are  but  the  outposts  and  outworks  of  his  life,  he  is  so  shy  and 
secretive,  how  close  must  be  the  concealment,  how  impenetrable  the 
reserve  in  which  he  enshrouds  the  inner  keep  and  citadel  of  his  being  ! 
When  the  princess  in  the  fairy  tale  asks  the  giant  where  he  keeps  his 
jsoul,  he  often  gives  false  or  evasive  answers,  and  it  is  only  after  much 
coaxing  and  wheedling  that  the  secret  is  at  last  wrung  from  him.  In 
Qis  jealous  reticence  the  giant  resembles  the  timid  and  furtive  savage  ; 
blit  whereas  the  exigencies  of  the  story  demand  that  the  giant  should 
it  last  reveal  his  secret,  no  such  obligation  is  laid  on  the  savage  ;  and 
10  inducement  that  can  be  offered  is  likely  to  tempt  him  to  imperil 
ais  soul  by  revealing  its  hiding-place  to  a  stranger.  It  is  therefore 
10  matter  for  surprise  that  the  central  mystery  of  the  savage’s  life 
should  so  long  have  remained  a  secret,  and  that  we  should  be  left  to 
riece  it  together  from  scattered  hints  and  fragments  and  from  the 
•ecollections  of  it  which  linger  in  fairy  tales. 

§  4-  The  Ritual  of  Death  and  Resurrection. — This  view  of  totemism 


692  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-CUSTOM  ch. 

throws  light  on  a  class  of  religious  rites  of  which  no  adequate  explana¬ 
tion,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  has  yet  been  offered.  Amongst  many 
savage  tribes,  especially  such  as  are  known  to  practise  totcmism,  it 
is  customary  for  lads  at  puberty  to  undergo  certain  initiatory  rites, 
of  which  one  of  the  commonest  is  a  pretence  of  killing  the  lad  and 
bringing  him  to  life  again.  Such  rites  become  intelligible  if  we  suppose 
that  their  substance  consists  in  extracting  the  youth’s  soul  in  order 
to  transfer  it  to  his  totem.  For  the  extraction  of  his  soul  would 
naturally  be  supposed  to  kill  the  youth  or  at  least  to  throw  him  into 
a  death-like  trance,  which  the  savage  hardly  distinguishes  from  death. 
His  recovery  would  then  be  attributed  either  to  the  gradual  recovery 
of  his  system  from  the  violent  shock  which  it  had  received,  or,  more 
probably,  to  the  infusion  into  him  of  fresh  life  drawn  from  the  totem. 
Thus  the  essence  of  these  initiatory  rites,  so  far  as  they  consist  in  a 
simulation  of  death  and  resurrection,  would  be  an  exchange  of  life 
or  souls  between  the  man  and  his  totem.  The  primitive  belief  in 
the  possibility  of  such  an  exchange  of  souls  comes  clearly  out  in  a 
story  of  a  Basque  hunter  who  affirmed  that  he  had  been  killed  by  a 
bear,  but  that  the  bear  had,  after  killing  him,  breathed  its  own  soul 
into  him,  so  that  the  bear’s  body  was  now  dead,  but  he  himself  was 
a  bear,  being  animated  by  the  bear’s  soul.  This  revival  of  the  dead 
hunter  as  a  bear  is  exactly  analogous  to  what,  on  the  theory  here 
suggested,  is  supposed  to  take  place  in  the  ceremony  of  killing  a  lad 
at  puberty  and  bringing  him  to  life  again.  The  lad  dies  as  a  man 
and  comes  to  life  again  as  an  animal ;  the  animal’s  soul  is  now  in 
him,  and  his  human  soul  is  in  the  animal.  With  good  right,  therefore, 
does  he  call  himself  a  Bear  or  a  Wolf,  etc.,  according  to  his  totem ; 
and  with  good  right  does  he  treat  the  bears  or  the  wolves,  etc.,  as  his 
brethren,  since  in  these  animals  are  lodged  the  souls  of  himself  and 

his  kindred.  #  . 

Examples  of  this  supposed  death  and  resurrection  at  initiation 

are  as  follows.  In  the  Wonghi  or  Wonghibon  tribe  of  New  South 
Wales  the  youths  on  approaching  manhood  are  initiated  at  a  secret 
ceremony,  which  none  but  initiated  men  may  witness.  Part  of  the 
proceedings  consists  in  knocking  out  a  tooth  and  giving  a  new  name 
to  the  novice,  indicative  of  the  change  from  youth  to  manhood.  While 
the  teeth  are  being  knocked  out  an  instrument  known  as  a  bull-roarer, 
which  consists  of  a  flat  piece  of  wood  with  serrated  edges  tied  to  the 
end  of  a  string,  is  swung  round  so  as  to  produce  a  loud  humming 
noise.  The  uninitiated  are  not  allowed  to  see  this  instrument.  Women 
are  forbidden  to  witness  the  ceremonies  under  pain  of  death.  It  is 
given  out  that  the  youths  are  each  met  in  turn  by  a  mythical  being 
called  Thuremlin  (more  commonly  known  as  Daramulun),  who  takes 
the  youth  to  a  distance,  kills  him,  and  in  some  instances  cuts  him 
up,  after  which  he  restores  him  to  life  and  knocks  out  a  tooth.  Their 
belief  in  the  power  of  Thuremlin  is  said  to  be  undoubted. 

The  Ualaroi  of  the  Upper  Darling  River  said  that  at  initiation  the 
boy  met  a  ghost,  who  killed  him  and  brought  him  to  life  again  as  a 


lxvii  THE  RITUAL  OF  DEATH  AND  RESURRECTION  693 

young  man.  Among  the  natives  on  the  Lower  Lachlan  and  Murray 
Rivers  it  was  Thrumalun  (Daramulun)  who  was  thought  to  slay  and 
resuscitate  the  novices.  In  the  Unmat j era  tribe  of  Central  Australia 
women  and  children  believe  that  a  spirit  called  Twanyirika  kills 
the  youth  and  afterwards  brings  him  to  life  again  during  the  period 
of  initiation.  The  rites  of  initiation  in  this  tribe,  as  in  the  other 
Central  tribes,  comprise  the  operations  of  circumcision  and  sub¬ 
incision  ,  and  as  soon  as  the  second  of  these  has  been  performed 
on  him,  the  young  man  receives  from  his  father  a  sacred  stick 
(churinga),  with  which,  he  is  told,  his  spirit  was  associated  in  the 
remotest  past.  While  he  is  out  in  the  bush  recovering  from  his 
wounds,  he  must  swing  the  bull-roarer,  or  a  being  who  lives  up  in 
the  sky  will  swoop  down  and  carry  him  off.  In  the  Binbinga  tribe, 
on  the  western  coast  of  the  Gulf  of  Carpentaria,  the  women  and  children 
believe  that  the  noise  of  the  bull-roarer  at  initiation  is  made  by  a 
spirit  named  Katajalina,  who  lives  in  an  ant-hill  and  comes  out  and 
eats  up  the  boy,  afterwards  restoring  him  to  life.  Similarly  among 
their  neighbours  the  Anula  the  women  imagine  that  the  droning 
sound  of  the  bull-roarer  is  produced  by  a  spirit  called  Gnabaia,  who 
swallows  the  lads  at  initiation  and  afterwards  disgorges  them  in  the 
form  of  initiated  men. 

Among  the  tribes  settled  on  the  southern  coast  of  New  South 
Wales,  of  which  the  Coast  Murring  tribe  may  be  regarded  as  typical, 
the  drama  of  resurrection  from  the  dead  was  exhibited  in  a  graphic 
form  to  the  novices  at  initiation.  The  ceremony  has  been  described 
for  us  by  an  eye-witness.  A  man,  disguised  with  stringy  bark 
fibre,  lay  down  in  a  grave  and  was  lightly  covered  up  with  sticks 
and  earth.  In  his  hand  he  held  a  small  bush,  which  appeared 
to  be  growing  in  the  soil,  and  other  bushes  were  stuck  in  the 
ground  to  heighten  the  effect.  Then  the  novices  were  brought  and 
placed  beside  the  grave.  Next,  a  procession  of  men,  disguised  in 
stringy  bark  fibre,  drew  near.  They  represented  a  party  of  medicine- 
tnen,  guided  by  two  reverend  seniors,  who  had  come  on  pilgrimage 
to  the  grave  of  a  brother  medicine-man,  who  lay  buried  there.  When 
the  little  procession,  chanting  an  invocation  to  Daramulun,  had 
defiled  from  among  the  rocks  and  trees  into  the  open,  it  drew  up  on 
the  side  of  the  grave  opposite  to  the  novices,  the  two  old  men  taking 
up  a  position  in  the  rear  of  the  dancers.  For  some  time  the  dance 
and  song  went  on  till  the  tree  that  seemed  to  grow  from  the  grave 
began  to  quiver.  “  Look  there  !  ”  cried  the  men  to  the  novices, 
pointing  to  the  trembling  leaves.  As  they  looked,  the  tree  quivered 
giore  and  more,  then  was  violently  agitated  and  fell  to  the  ground, 
vvhile  amid  the  excited  dancing  of  the  dancers  and  the  chanting  of 
:he  choir  the  supposed  dead  man  spurned  from  him  the  superincumbent 
nass  of  sticks  and  leaves,  and  springing  to  his  feet  danced  his  magic 
lance  in  the  grave  itself,  and  exhibited  in  his  mouth  the  magic  sub¬ 
dances  which  he  was  supposed  to  have  received  from  Daramulun  in 
berson. 


THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-CUSTOM 


CH. 


694 


Some  tribes  of  Northern  New  Guinea — the  Yabim,  Bukaua,  Kai, 
and  Tami — like  many  Australian  tribes,  require  every  male  member 
of  the  tribe  to  be  circumcised  before  he  ranks  as  a  full-grown  man  ; 
and  the  tribal  initiation,  of  which  circumcision  is  the  central  feature, 
is  conceived  by  them,  as  by  some  Australian  tribes,  as  a  process  of 
being  swallowed  and  disgorged  by  a  mythical  monster,  whose  voice 
is  heard  in  the  humming  sound  of  the  bull-roarer.  Indeed  the  New 
Guinea  tribes  not  only  impress  this  belief  on  the  minds  of  women 
and  children,  but  enact  it  in  a  dramatic  form  at  the  actual  rites  of 
initiation,  at  which  no  woman  or  uninitiated  person  may  be  present. 
For  this  purpose  a  hut  about  a  hundred  feet  long  is  erected  either 
in  the  village  or  in  a  lonely  part  of  the  forest.  It  is  modelled  in  the 
shape  of  the  mythical  monster  ;  at  the  end  which  represents  his  head 
it  is  high,  and  it  tapers  away  at  the  other  end.  A  betel-palm,  grubbed 
up  with  the  roots,  stands  for  the  backbone  of  the  great  being  and 
its  clustering  fibres  for  his  hair  ;  and  to  complete  the  resemblance 
the  butt  end  of  the  building  is  adorned  by  a  native  artist  with  a  pair 
of  goggle  eyes  and  a  gaping  mouth.  When  after  a  tearful  parting 
from  their  mothers  and  women  folk,  who  believe  or  pretend  to  believe 
in  the  monster  that  swallows  their  dear  ones,  the  awe-struck  novices 
are  brought  face  to  face  with  this  imposing  structure,  the  huge  creature 
emits  a  sullen  growl,  which  is  in  fact  no  other  than  the  humming 
note  of  bull-roarers  swung  by  men  concealed  in  the  monster’s  belly. 
The  actual  process  of  deglutition  is  variously  enacted.  Among  the 
Tami  it  is  represented  by  causing  the  candidates  to  defile  past  a  row 
of  men  who  hold  bull-roarers  over  their  heads  ;  among  the  Kai  it  is 
more  graphically  set  forth  by  making  them  pass  under  a  scaffold  on 
which  stands  a  man,  who  makes  a  gesture  of  swallowing  and  takes  in 
fact  a  gulp  of  water  as  each  trembling  novice  passes  beneath  him. 
But  the  present  of  a  pig,  opportunely  offered  for  the  redemption  of 
the  youth,  induces  the  monster  to  relent  and  disgorge  his  victim  ; 
the  man  who  represents  the  monster  accepts  the  gift  vicariously,  a 
gurgling  sound  is  heard,  and  the  water  which  had  just  been  swallowed 
descends  in  a  jet  on  the  novice.  This  signifies  that  the  young  man 
has  been  released  from  the  monster’s  belly.  However,  he  has  now 
to  undergo  the  more  painful  and  dangerous  operation  of  circumcision. 
It  follows  immediately,  and  the  cut  made  by  the  knife  of  the  operator 
is  explained  to  be  a  bite  or  scratch  which  the  monster  inflicted  on  the 
novice  in  spewing  him  out  of  his  capacious  maw.  While  the  operation 
is  proceeding,  a  prodigious  noise  is  made  by  the  swinging  of  bull- 
roarers  to  represent  the  roar  of  the  dreadful  being  who  is  in  the  act 
of  swallowing  the  young  men. 

When,  as  sometimes  happens,  a  lad  dies  from  the  effect  of  the 
operation,  he  is  buried  secretly  in  the  forest,  and  his  sorrowing  mother 
is  told  that  the  monster  has  a  pig’s  stomach  as  well  as  a  human  stomach, 
and  that  unfortunately  her  son  slipped  into  the  wrong  stomach,  from 
which  it  was  impossible  to  extricate  him.  After  they  have  been 
circumcised  the  lads  must  remain  for  some  months  in  seclusion,  shun- 


lx vi i  THE  RITUAL  OF  DEATH  AND  RESURRECTION  695 

ning  all  contact  with  women  and  even  the  sight  of  them.  They  live 
in  the  long  hut  which  represents  the  monster’s  belly.  When  at  last 
the  lads,  now  ranking  as  initiated  men,  are  brought  back  with  great 
pomp  and  ceremony  to  the  village,  they  are  received  with  sobs  and 
tears  of  joy  by  the  women,  as  if  the  grave  had  given  up  its  dead.  At 
first  the  young  men  keep  their  eyes  rigidly  closed  or  even  sealed  with 
a  plaster  of  chalk,  and  they  appear  not  to  understand  the  words  of 
command  which  are  given  them  by  an  elder.  Gradually,  however, 
they  come  to  themselves  as  if  awaking  from  a  stupor,  and  next  day 
they  bathe  and  wash  off  the  crust  of  white  chalk  with  which  their 
bodies  had  been  coated. 

It  is  highly  significant  that  all  these  tribes  of  New  Guinea  apply 
the  same  word  to  the  bull-roarer  and  to  the  monster,  who  is  supposed 
to  swallow  the  novices  at  circumcision,  and  whose  fearful  roar  is 
represented  by  the  hum  of  the  harmless  wooden  instruments.  Further, 
it  deserves  to  be  noted  that  in  three  languages  out  of  the  four  the 
same  word  which  is  applied  to  the  bull-roarer  and  to  the  monster 
means  also  a  ghost  or  spirit  of  the  dead,  while  in  the  fourth  language 
(the  Kai)  it  signifies  “  grandfather.”  From  this  it  seems  to  follow 
that  the  being  who  swallows  and  disgorges  the  novices  at  initiation 
is  believed  to  be  a  powerful  ghost  or  ancestral  spirit,  and  that  the 
bull-roarer,  which  bears  his  name,  is  his  material  representative. 
That  would  explain  the  jealous  secrecy  with  which  the  sacred  imple¬ 
ment  is  kept  from  the  sight  of  women.  While  they  are  not  in  use, 
the  bull-roarers  are  stowed  away  in  the  men’s  club-houses,  which  no 
woman  may  enter  ;  indeed  no  woman  or  uninitiated  person  may  set 
eyes  on  a  bull-roarer  under  pain  of  death.  Similarly  among  the 
Tugeri  or  Kaya-Kaya,  a  large  Papuan  tribe  on  the  south  coast  of 
Dutch  New  Guinea,  the  name  of  the  bull-roarer,  which  they  call  sosom, 
is  given  to  a  mythical  giant,  who  is  supposed  to  appear  every  year 
with  the  south-east  monsoon.  When  he  comes,  a  festival  is  held  in 
his  honour  and  bull-roarers  are  swung.  Boys  are  presented  to  the 
giant,  and  he  kills  them,  but  considerately  brings  them  to  life  again. 

In  certain  districts  of  Viti  Levu,  the  largest  of  the  Fijian  Islands, 
the  drama  of  death  and  resurrection  used  to  be  acted  with  much 
solemnity  before  the  eyes  of  young  men  at  initiation.  In  a  sacred 
enclosure  they  were  shown  a  row  of  dead  or  seemingly  dead  men 
lying  on  the  ground,  their  bodies  cut  open  and  covered  with  blood, 
their  entrails  protruding.  But  at  a  yell  from  the  high  priest  the 
counterfeit  dead  men  started  to  their  feet  and  ran  down  to  the  river 
to  cleanse  themselves  from  the  blood  and  guts  of  pigs  with  which 
they  were  beslobbered.  Soon  they  marched  back  to  the  sacred  en¬ 
closure  as  if  come  to  life,  clean,  fresh,  and  garlanded,  swaying  their 
bodies  in  time  to  the  music  of  a  solemn  hymn,  and  took  their 
places  in  front  of  the  novices.  Such  was  the  drama  of  death  and 
resurrection. 

The  people  of  Rook,  an  island  between  New  Guinea  and  New 
Britain,  hold  festivals  at  which  one  or  two  disguised  men,  their  heads 


696  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-CUSTOM  ch. 

covered  with  wooden  masks,  go  dancing  through  the  village,  followed 
by  all  the  other  men.  They  demand  that  the  circumcised  boys  who 
have  not  yet  been  swallowed  by  Marsaba  (the  devil)  shall  be  given 
up  to  them.  The  boys,  trembling  and  shrieking,  are  delivered  to 
them,  and  must  creep  between  the  legs  of  the  disguised  men.  Then 
the  procession  moves  through  the  village  again,  and  announces  that 
Marsaba  has  eaten  up  the  boys,  and  will  not  disgorge  them  till  he 
receives  a  present  of  pigs,  taro,  and  so  forth.  So  all  the  villagers, 
according  to  their  means,  contribute  provisions,  which  are  then  con¬ 
sumed  in  the  name  of  Marsaba. 

In  the  west  of  Ceram  boys  at  puberty  are  admitted  to  the  Kakian 
association.  Modern  writers  have  commonly  regarded  this  association 
as  primarily  a  political  league  instituted  to  resist  foreign  domination. 
In  reality  its  objects  are  purely  religious  and  social,  though  it  is  possible 
that  the  priests  may  have  occasionally  used  their  powerful  influence 
for  political  ends.  The  society  is  in  fact  merely  one  of  those  widely- 
diffused  primitive  institutions  of  which  a  chief  object  is  the  initiation 
of  young  men.  In  recent  years  the  true  nature  of  the  association 
has  been  duly  recognised  by  the  distinguished  Dutch  ethnologist, 
J.  G.  F.  Riedel.  The  Kakian  house  is  an  oblong  wooden  shed,  situated 
under  the  darkest  trees  in  the  depth  of  the  forest,  and  is  built  to  admit 
so  little  light  that  it  is  impossible  to  see  what  goes  on  in  it.  Every 
village  has  such  a  house.  Thither  the  boys  who  are  to  be  initiated 
are  conducted  blindfold,  followed  by  their  parents  and  relations. 
Each  boy  is  led  by  the  hand  by  two  men,  who  act  as  his  sponsors 
or  guardians,  looking  after  him  during  the  period  of  initiation.  When 
all  are  assembled  before  the  shed,  the  high  priest  calls  aloud  upon 
the  devils.  Immediately  a  hideous  uproar  is  heard  to  proceed  from 
the  shed.  It  is  made  by  men  with  bamboo  trumpets,  who  have  been 
secretly  introduced  into  the  building  by  a  back  door,  but  the  women 
and  children  think  it  is  made  by  the  devils,  and  are  much  terrified. 
Then  the  priests  enter  the  shed,  followed  by  the  boys,  one  at  a  time. 
As  soon  as  each  boy  has  disappeared  within  the  precincts,  a  dull  chop¬ 
ping  sound  is  heard,  a  fearful  cry  rings  out,  and  a  sword  or  spear, 
dripping  with  blood,  is  thrust  through  the  roof  of  the  shed.  This  is 
a  token  that  the  boy’s  head  has  been  cut  off,  and  that  the  devil  has 
carried  him  away  to  the  other  world,  there  to  regenerate  and  transform 
him.  So  at  sight  of  the  bloody  sword  the  mothers  weep  and  wail, 
crying  that  the  devil  has  murdered  their  children.  In  some  places, 
it  would  seem,  the  boys  are  pushed  through  an  opening  made  in  the 
shape  of  a  crocodile’s  jaws  or  a  cassowary’s  beak,  and  it  is  then  said 
that  the  devil  has  swallowed  them.  The  boys  remain  in  the  shed 
for  five  or  nine  days.  Sitting  in  the  dark,  they  hear  the  blast  of  the 
bamboo  trumpets,  and  from  time  to  time  the  sound  of  musket  shots 
and  the  clash  of  swords.  Every  day  they  bathe,  and  their  faces 
and  bodies  are  smeared  with  a  yellow  dye,  to  give  them  the  appearance 
of  having  been  swallowed  by  the  devil.  During  his  stay  in  the  Kakian 
house  each  boy  has  one  or  two  crosses  tattooed  with  thorns  on  his 


lx vi i  THE  RITUAL  OF  DEATH  AND  RESURRECTION  697 

breast  or  arm.  When  they  are  not  sleeping,  the  lads  must  sit  in  a 
crouching  posture  without  moving  a  muscle.  As  they  sit  in  a  row 
cross-legged,  with  their  hands  stretched  out,  the  chief  takes  his  trumpet, 
and  placing  the  mouth  of  it  on  the  hands  of  each  lad,  speaks  through 
it  in  strange  tones,  imitating  the  voice  of  the  spirits.  He  warns  the 
lads,  under  pain  of  death,  to  observe  the  rules  of  the  Kakian  society, 
and  never  to  reveal  what  has  passed  in  the  Kakian  house.  The  novices 
are  also  told  by  the  priests  to  behave  well  to  their  blood  relations, 
and  are  taught  the  traditions  and  secrets  of  the  tribe. 

Meantime  the  mothers  and  sisters  of  the  lads  have  gone  home 
to  .weep  and  mourn.  But  in  a  day  or  two  the  men  who  acted  as 
guardians  or  sponsors  to  the  novices  return  to  the  village  with  the 
glad  tidings  that  the  devil,  at  the  intercession  of  the  priests,  has 
restored  the  lads  to  life,  d  he  men  who  bring  this  news  come  in  a 
fainting  state  and  daubed  with  mud,  like  messengers  freshly  arrived 
from  the  nether  world.  Before  leaving  the  Kakian  house,  each  lad 
receives  from  the  priest  a  stick  adorned  at  both  ends  with  cock  s  or 
cassow  ary  s  feathers.  The  sticks  are  supposed  to  have  been  given 
to  the  lads  by  the  devil  at  the  time  when  he  restored  them  to  life, 
and  they  serve  as  a  token  that  the  youths  have  been  in  the  spirit 
land.  When  they  return  to  their  homes  they  totter  in  their  walk, 
and  enter  the  house  backward,  as  if  they  had  forgotten  how  to  walk 
properly  ;  or  they  enter  the  house  by  the  back  door.  If  a  plate  of 
food  is  given  to  them,  they  hold  it  upside  down.  They  remain  dumb, 
indicating  their  wants  by  signs  only.  All  this  is  to  show  that  they 
are  still  under  the  influence  of  the  devil  or  the  spirits.  Their  sponsors 
have  to  teach  them  all  the  common  acts  of  life,  as  if  they  were  new¬ 
born  children.  Further,  upon  leaving  the  Kakian  house  the  boys 
are  strictly  forbidden  to  eat  of  certain  fruits  until  the  next  celebration 
of  the  rites  has  taken  place.  And  for  twenty  or  thirty  days  their 
hair  may  not  be  combed  by  their  mothers  or  sisters.  At  the  end  of 
that  time  the  high  priest  takes  them  to  a  lonely  place  in  the  forest, 
and  cuts  off  a  lock  of  hair  from  the  crown  of  each  of  their  heads.  After 
these  initiatory  rites  the  lads  are  deemed  men,  and  may  marry ;  it 
would  be  a  scandal  if  they  married  before. 

In  the  region  of  the  Lower  Congo  a  simulation  of  death  and  resur¬ 
rection  is,  or  rather  used  to  be,  practised  by  the  members  of  a  guild 
or  secret  society  called  ndembo.  “  In  the  practice  of  Ndembo  the 
initiating  doctors  get  some  one  to  fall  down  in  a  pretended  fit,  and 
in  that  state  he  is  carried  away  to  an  enclosed  place  outside  the  town. 
This  is  called  f  dying  Ndembo.'  Others  follow  suit,  generally  boys 
and  girls,  but  often  young  men  and  women.  .  .  .  They  are  supposed 
to  have  died.  But  the  parents  and  friends  supply  food,  and  after  a 
period  varying,  according  to  custom,  from  three  months  to  three 
years,  it  is  arranged  that  the  doctor  shall  bring  them  to  life  again. 

.  .  .  When  the  doctor’s  fee  has  been  paid,  and  money  (goods)  saved 
for  a  feast,  the  Ndembo  people  are  brought  to  life.  At  first  they  pre¬ 
tend  to  know  no  one  and  nothing ;  they  do  not  even  know  how  to 


6g8  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-CUSTOM  ch. 

masticate  food,  and  friends  have  to  perform  that  office  for  them. 
They  want  everything  nice  that  any  one  uninitiated  may  have,  and 
beat  them  if  it  is  not  granted,  or  even  strangle  and  kill  people.  They 
do  not  get  into  trouble  for  this,  because  it  is  thought  that  they  do  not 
know  better.  Sometimes  they  carry  on  the  pretence  of  talking  gib¬ 
berish,  and  behaving  as  if  they  had  returned  from  the  spirit-world. 
After  this  they  are  known  by  another  name,  peculiar  to  those  who 
have  ‘  died  Ndembo.’  .  .  .  We  hear  of  the  custom  far  along  on  the 
upper  river,  as  well  as  in  the  cataract  region.” 

Among  some  of  the  Indian  tribes  of  North  America  there  exist 
certain  religious  associations  which  are  only  open  to  candidates  who 
have  gone  through  a  pretence  of  being  killed  and  brought  to  life  again. 
In  1766  or  1767  Captain  Jonathan  Carver  witnessed  the  admission  of 
a  candidate  to  an  association  called  “  the  friendly  society  of  the 
Spirit  ”  ( W akon-Kitchewah)  among  the  Naudowessies,  a  Siouan  or 
Dacotan  tribe  in  the  region  of  the  great  lakes.  The  candidate  knelt 
before  the  chief,  who  told  him  that  “  he  himself  was  now  agitated 
by  the  same  spirit  which  he  should  in  a  few  moments  communicate 
to  him  ;  that  it  would  strike  him  dead,  but  that  he  would  instantly 
be  restored  again  to  life  ;  to  this  he  added,  that  the  communication, 
however  terrifying,  was  a  necessary  introduction  to  the  advantages 
enjoyed  by  the  community  into  which  he  was  on  the  point  of  being 
admitted.  As  he  spoke  this,  he  appeared  to  be  greatly  agitated  ; 
till  at  last  his  emotions  became  so  violent,  that  his  countenance  was 
distorted,  and  his  whole  frame  convulsed.  At  this  juncture  he  threw 
something  that  appeared  both  in  shape  and  colour  like  a  small  bean, 
at  the  young  man,  which  seemed  to  enter  his  mouth,  and  he  instantly 
fell  as  motionless  as  if  he  had  been  shot.”  For  a  time  the  man  lay 
like  dead,  but  under  a  shower  of  blows  he  showed  signs  of  conscious¬ 
ness,  and  finally,  discharging  from  his  mouth  the  bean,  or  whatever 
it  was  that  the  chief  had  thrown  at  him,  he  came  to  life.  In  other 
tribes,  for  example,  the  Ojebways,  Winnebagoes,  and  Dacotas  or 
Sioux,  the  instrument  by  which  the  candidate  is  apparently  slain  is 
the  medicine-bag.  The  bag  is  made  of  the  skin  of  an  animal  (such 
as  the  otter,  wild  cat,  serpent,  bear,  raccoon,  wolf,  owl,  weasel),  of 
which  it  roughly  preserves  the  shape.  Each  member  of  the  society 
has  one  of  these  bags,  in  which  he  keeps  the  odds  and  ends  that  make 
up  his  “  medicine  ”  or  charms.  “  They  believe  that  from  the  mis¬ 
cellaneous  contents  in  the  belly  of  the  skin  bag  or  animal  there  issues 
a  spirit  or  breath,  which  has  the  power,  not  only  to  knock  down  and 
kill  a  man,  but  also  to  set  him  up  and  restore  him  to  life.”  The  mode 
of  killing  a  man  with  one  of  these  medicine-bags  is  to  thrust  it  at  him  ; 
he  falls  like  dead,  but  a  second  thrust  of  the  bag  restores  him  to  life. 

A  ceremony  witnessed  by  the  castaway  John  R.  Jewitt  during 
his  captivity  among  the  Indians  of  Nootka  Sound  doubtless  belongs 
to  this  class  of  customs.  The  Indian  king  or  chief  “  discharged  a 
pistol  close  to  his  son’s  ear,  who  immediately  fell  down  as  if  killed, 
upon  which  all  the  women  of  the  house  set  up  a  most  lamentable  cry, 


lxvii  THE  RITUAL  OF  DEATH  AND  RESURRECTION  699 

tearing  handfuls  of  hair  from  their  heads,  and  exclaiming  that  the 
prince  was  dead  ;  at  the  same  time  a  great  number  of  the  inhabitants 
rushed  into  the  house  armed  with  their  daggers,  muskets,  etc.,  enquir¬ 
ing  the  cause  of  their  outcry.  These  were  immediately  followed  by 
two  others  dressed  in  wolf  skins,  with  masks  over  their  faces  repre¬ 
senting  the  head  of  that  animal.  The  latter  came  in  on  their  hands 
and  feet  in  the  manner  of  a  beast,  and  taking  up  the  prince,  carried 
him  off  upon  their  backs,  retiring  in  the  same  manner  they  entered/’ 
In  another  place  Jewitt  mentions  that  the  young  prince — a  lad  of 
about  eleven  years  of  age— wore  a  mask  in  imitation  of  a  wolf’s  head. 
Now,  as  the  Indians  of  this  part  of  America  are  divided  into  totem 
clans,  of  which  the  Wolf  clan  is  one  of  the  principal,  and  as  the  members 
of  each  clan  are  in  the  habit  of  wearing  some  portion  of  the  totem 
animal  about  their  person,  it  is  probable  that  the  prince  belonged 
to  the  Wolf  clan,  and  that  the  ceremony  described  by  Jewitt  repre¬ 
sented  the  killing  of  the  lad  in  order  that  he  might  be  born  anew  as 
a  wolf,  much  in  the  same  way  that  the  Basque  hunter  supposed  himself 
to  have  been  killed  and  to  have  come  to  life  again  as  a  bear. 

This  conjectural  explanation  of  the  ceremony  has,  since  it  was  first 
put  forward,  been  to  some  extent  confirmed  by  the  researches  of  Dr. 
Franz  Boas  among  these  Indians  ;  though  it  would  seem  that  the  com¬ 
munity  to  which  the  chief’s  son  thus  obtained  admission  was  not  so 
much  a  totem  clan  as  a  secret  society  called  Tlokoala,  whose  members 
imitated  wolves.  Every  new  member  of  the  society  must  be  initiated 
by  the  wolves.  At  night  a  pack  of  wolves,  personated  by  Indians 
dressed  in  wolf-skins  and  wearing  wolf-masks,  make  their  appearance, 
seize  the  novice,  and  carry  him  into  the  woods.  When  the  wolves 
are  heard  outside  the  village,  coming  to  fetch  away  the  novice,  all 
the  members  of  the  society  blacken  their  faces  and  sing,  “  Among  all 
the  tribes  is  great  excitement,  because  I  am  Tlokoala.”  Next  day 
the  wolves  bring  back  the  novice  dead,  and  the  members  of  the  society 
have  to  revive  him.  The  wolves  are  supposed  to  have  put  a  magic 
stone  into  his  body,  which  must  be  removed  before  he  can  come  to 
life.  Till  this  is  done  the  pretended  corpse  is  left  lying  outside  the 
house.  Two  wizards  go  and  remove  the  stone,  which  appears  to  be 
quartz,  and  then  the  novice  is  resuscitated.  Among  the  Niska  Indians 
of  British  Columbia,  who  are  divided  into  four  principal  clans  with 
the  raven,  the  wolf,  the  eagle,  and  the  bear  for  their  respective  totems, 
the  novice  at  initiation  is  always  brought  back  by  an  artificial  totem 
animal.  Thus  when  a  man  was  about  to  be  initiated  into  a  secret 
society  called  Olala,  his  friends  drew  their  knives  and  pretended  to 
kill  him.  In  reality  they  let  him  slip  away,  while  they  cut  off  the 
head  of  a  dummy  which  had  been  adroitly  substituted  for  him.  Then 
they  laid  the  decapitated  dummy  down  and  covered  it  over,  and  the 
women  began  to  mourn  and  wail.  His  relations  gave  a  funeral  banquet 
and  solemnly  burnt  the  effigy.  In  short,  they  held  a  regular  funeral. 
For  a  whole  year  the  novice  remained  absent  and  was  seen  by  none 
but  members  of  the  secret  society.  But  at  the  end  of  that  time  he 


700  THE  EXTERNAL  SOUL  IN  FOLK-CUSTOM  ch. 

came  back  alive,  carried  by  an  artificial  animal  which  represented 
his  totem. 

In  these  ceremonies  the  essence  of  the  rite  appears  to  be  the  killing 
of  the  novice  in  his  character  of  a  man  and  his  restoration  to  life  in 
the  form  of  the  animal  which  is  thenceforward  to  be,  if  not  his  guardian 
spirit,  at  least  linked  to  him  in  a  peculiarly  intimate  relation.  It 
is  to  be  remembered  that  the  Indians  of  Guatemala,  whose  life  was 
bound  up  with  an  animal,  were  supposed  to  have  the  power  of  appear¬ 
ing  in  the  shape  of  the  particular  creature  with  which  they  were  thus 
sympathetically  united.  Hence  it  seems  not  unreasonable  to  con¬ 
jecture  that  in  like  manner  the  Indians  of  British  Columbia  may 
imagine  that  their  life  depends  on  the  life  of  some  one  of  that  species 
of  creature  to  which  they  assimilate  themselves  by  their  costume. 
At  least  if  that  is  not  an  article  of  belief  with  the  Columbian  Indians 
of  the  present  day,  it  may  very  well  have  been  so  with  their  ancestors 
in  the  past,  and  thus  may  have  helped  to  mould  the  rites  and  cere¬ 
monies  both  of  the  totem  clans  and  of  the  secret  societies.  For  though 
these  two  sorts  of  communities  differ  in  respect  of  the  mode  in  which 
membership  of  them  is  obtained — a  man  being  born  into  his  totem 
clan  but  admitted  into  a  secret  society  later  in  life — we  can  hardly 
doubt  that  they  are  near  akin  and  have  their  root  in  the  same  mode 
of  thought.  That  thought,  if  I  am  right,  is  the  possibility  of  estab¬ 
lishing  a  sympathetic  relation  with  an  animal,  a  spirit,  or  other  mighty 
being,  with  whom  a  man  deposits  for  safe-keeping  his  soul  or  some 
part  of  it,  and  from  whom  he  receives  in  return  a  gift  of  magical 
powers. 

Thus,  on  the  theory  here  suggested,  wherever  totemism  is  found, 
and  wherever  a  pretence  is  made  of  killing  and  bringing  to  life  again 
the  novice  at  initiation,  there  may  exist  or  have  existed  not  only  a 
belief  in  the  possibility  of  permanently  depositing  the  soul  in  some 
external  object — animal,  plant,  or  what  not — but  an  actual  intention 
of  so  doing.  If  the  question  is  put,  why  do  men  desire  to  deposit 
their  life  outside  their  bodies  ?  the  answer  can  only  be  that,  like  the 
giant  in  the  fairy  tale,  they  think  it  safer  to  do  so  than  to  carry  it 
about  with  them,  just  as  people  deposit  their  money  with  a  banker 
rather  than  carry  it  on  their  persons.  We  have  seen  that  at  critical 
periods  the  life  or  soul  is  sometimes  temporarily  stowed  away  in  a 
safe  place  till  the  danger  is  past.  But  institutions  like  totemism  are 
not  resorted  to  merely  on  special  occasions  of  danger  ;  they  are  systems 
into  which  every  one,  or  at  least  every  male,  is  obliged  to  be  initiated 
at  a  certain  period  of  life.  Now  the  period  of  life  at  which  initiation 
takes  place  is  regularly  puberty  ;  and  this  fact  suggests  that  the  special 
danger  which  totemism  and  systems  like  it  are  intended  to  obviate 
is  supposed  not  to  arise  till  sexual  maturity  has  been  attained,  in 
fact,  that  the  danger  apprehended  is  believed  to  attend  the  relation 
of  the  sexes  to  each  other.  It  would  be  easy  to  prove  by  a  long  array 
of  facts  that  the  sexual  relation  is  associated  in  the  primitive  mind 
with  many  serious  perils  ;  but  the  exact  nature  of  the  danger  appre- 


LXVIII 


THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH  701 

hended  is  still  obscure.  We  may  hope  that  a  more  exact  acquaintance 
with  savage  modes  of  thought  will  in  time  disclose  this  central  mystery 
of  primitive  society,  and  will  thereby  furnish  the  clue,  not  only  to 
totemism,  but  to  the  origin  of  the  marriage  system. 


CHAPTER  LXVIII 

THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH 

Thus  the  view  that  Balder’s  life  was  in  the  mistletoe  is  entirely  in 
harmony  with  primitive  modes  of  thought.  It  may  indeed  sound  like 
a  contradiction  that,  if  his  life  was  in  the  mistletoe,  he  should  neverthe¬ 
less  have  been  killed  by  a  blow  from  the  plant.  But  when  a  person’s 
life  is  conceived  as  embodied  in  a  particular  object,  with  the  existence 
of  which  his  own  existence  is  inseparably  bound  up,  and  the  destruction 
of  which  involves  his  own,  the  object  in  question  may  be  regarded 
and  spoken  of  indifferently  as  his  life  or  his  death,  as  happens  in  the 
fairy  tales.  Hence  if  a  man’s  death  is  in  an  object,  it  is  perfectly 
natural  that  he  should  be  killed  by  a  blow  from  it.  In  the  fairy  tales 
Koshchei  the  Deathless  is  killed  by  a  blow  from  the  egg  or  the  stone 
in  which  his  life  or  death  is  secreted  ;  the  ogres  burst  when  a  certain 
grain  of  sand — doubtless  containing  their  life  or  death — is  carried 
over  their  heads  ;  the  magician  dies  when  the  stone  in  which  his 
life  or  death  is  contained  is  put  under  his  pillow  ;  and  the  Tartar 
hero  is  warned  that  he  may  be  killed  by  the  golden  arrow  or  golden 
sword  in  which  his  soul  has  been  stowed  away. 

The  idea  that  the  life  of  the  oak  was  in  the  mistletoe  was  probably 
suggested,  as  I  have  said,  by  the  observation  that  in  winter  the 
mistletoe  growing  on  the  oak  remains  green  while  the  oak  itself  is 
leafless.  But  the  position  of  the  plant — growing  not  from  the  ground 
but  from  the  trunk  or  branches  of  the  tree — might  confirm  this  idea. 
Primitive  man  might  think  that,  like  himself,  the  oak-spirit  had 
sought  to  deposit  his  life  in  some  safe  place,  and  for  this  purpose 
had  pitched  on  the  mistletoe,  which,  being  in  a  sense  neither  on  earth 
nor  in  heaven,  might  be  supposed  to  be  fairly  out  of  harm’s  way. 
In  a  former  chapter  we  saw  that  primitive  man  seeks  to  preserve 
the  life  of  his  human  divinities  by  keeping  them  poised  between 
earth  and  heaven,  as  the  place  where  they  are  least  likely  to  be  assailed 
by  the  dangers  that  encompass  the  life  of  man  on  earth.  We  can 
therefore  understand  why  it  has  been  a  rule  both  of  ancient  and  of 
modern  folk-medicine  that  the  mistletoe  should  not  be  allowed  to 
touch  the  ground  ;  were  it  to  touch  the  ground,  its  healing  virtue 
would  be  gone.  This  may  be  a  survival  of  the  old  superstition 
that  the  plant  in  which  the  life  of  the  sacred  tree  was  concentrated 
should  not  be  exposed  to  the  risk  incurred  by  contact  with  the  earth. 
In  an  Indian  legend,  which  offers  a  parallel  to  the  Balder  myth,  Indra 


7  02 


THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH 


CH. 


swore  to  the  demon  Namuci  that  he  would  slay  him  neither  by  day 
nor  by  night,  neither  with  staff  nor  with  bow,  neither  with  the  palm 
of  the  hand  nor  with  the  fist,  neither  with  the  wet  nor  with  the  dry. 
But  he  killed  him  in  the  morning  twilight  by  sprinkling  over  him 
the  foam  of  the  sea.  The  foam  of  the  sea  is  just  such  an  object  as 
a  savage  might  choose  to  put  his  life  in,  because  it  occupies  that 
sort  of  intermediate  or  nondescript  position  between  earth  and  sky 
or  sea  and  sky  in  which  primitive  man  sees  safety.  It  is  therefore 
not  surprising  that  the  foam  of  the  river  should  be  the  totem  of  a 
clan  in  India. 

Again,  the  view  that  the  mistletoe  owes  its  mystic  character 
partly  to  its  not  growing  on  the  ground  is  confirmed  by  a  parallel 
superstition  about  the  mountain-ash  or  rowan-tree.  In  Jutland  a 
rowan  that  is  found  growing  out  of  the  top  of  another  tree  is  esteemed 
“  exceedingly  effective  against  witchcraft  :  since  it  does  not  grow 
on  the  ground  witches  have  no  power  over  it  ;  if  it  is  to  have  its  full 
effect  it  must  be  cut  on  Ascension  Day.”  Hence  it  is  placed  over 
doors  to  prevent  the  ingress  of  witches.  In  Sweden  and  Norway, 
also,  magical  properties  are  ascribed  to  a  “  flying-rowan  ”  (flogronn), 
that  is  to  a  rowan  which  is  found  growing  not  in  the  ordinary  fashion 
on  the  ground  but  on  another  tree,  or  on  a  roof,  or  in  a  cleft  of  the 
rock,  where  it  has  sprouted  from  seed  scattered  by  birds.  They  say 
that  a  man  who  is  out  in  the  dark  should  have  a  bit  of  “  flying-rowan  ” 
with  him  to  chew  ;  else  he  runs  a  risk  of  being  bewitched  and  of  being 
unable  to  stir  from  the  spot.  Just  as  in  Scandinavia  the  parasitic 
rowan  is  deemed  a  countercharm  to  sorcery,  so  in  Germany  the  parasitic 
mistletoe  is  still  commonly  considered  a  protection  against  witch¬ 
craft,  and  in  Sweden,  as  we  saw,  the  mistletoe  which  is  gathered  on 
Midsummer  Eve  is  attached  to  the  ceiling  of  the  house,  the  horse’s 
stall  or  the  cow’s  crib,  in  the  belief  that  this  renders  the  Troll  power¬ 
less  to  injure  man  or  beast. 

The  view  that  the  mistletoe  was  not  merely  the  instrument  of 
Balder’s  death,  but  that  it  contained  his  life,  is  countenanced  by 
the  analogy  of  a  Scottish  superstition.  Tradition  ran  that  the  fate 
of  the  Hays  of  Errol,  an  estate  in  Perthshire,  near  the  Firth  of  Tay, 
was  bound  up  with  the  mistletoe  that  grew  on  a  certain  great  oak. 
A  member  of  the  Hay  family  has  recorded  the  old  belief  as  follows  : 
“  Among  the  low  country  families  the  badges  are  now  almost  generally 
forgotten  ;  but  it  appears  by  an  ancient  MS.  and  the  tradition  of  a 
few  old  people  in  Perthshire,  that  the  badge  of  the  Hays  was  the 
mistletoe.  There  was  formerly  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Errol,  and 
not  far  from  the  Falcon  stone,  a  vast  oak  of  an  unknown  age,  and 
upon  which  grew  a  profusion  of  the  plant  :  many  charms  and  legends 
were  considered  to  be  connected  with  the  tree,  and  the  duration 
of  the  family  of  Hay  was  said  to  be  united  with  its  existence.  It 
was  believed  that  a  sprig  of  the  mistletoe  cut  by  a  Hay  on  Allhallow- 
mas  eve,  with  a  new  dirk,  and  after  surrounding  the  tree  three  times 
sunwise,  and  pronouncing  a  certain  spell,  was  a  sure  charm  against 


LXVIII 


THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH 


703 


all  glamour  or  witchery,  and  an  infallible  guard  in  the  day  of  battle 
A  spray  ga  hered  m  the  same  manner  was  placed  in  the  cradle  of 
m  ants  and  thought  to  defend  them  from  being  changed  for  elf- 

of  the  nib  h6  Hfalnesn  aln.ally’  *  WaS  affirmed’  that  when  the  root 

Erred  and  a  ,  v* §KlSS  Sh°uM  «r0W  in  the  hearth  of 

Errol  and  a  raven  should  sit  in  the  falcon’s  nest.’  The  two  most 

unlucky  deeds  which  could  be  done  by  one  of  the  name  of  Hay  was, 

wi  1  :VW  ll,a  fa  con>  and  to  cut  dowr>  a  limb  from  the  oak  of  Errol! 
hen  the  old  tree  was  destroyed  I  could  never  learn.  The  estate 

tl?e  f5' T?  S°i  d  °Ut  °l  t,he  famlly  of  Hay’  and  of  course  ^  is  said  that 
the  fatal  oak  was  cut  down  a  short  time  before.”  The  old  superstition 

Rhymer^  “  VerS6S  WhlCh  ^  traditionallT  ascribed  to  Thomas  the 

While  the  mistletoe  hats  on  Errol’s  aik, 

And  that  aik  stands  fast, 

The  Hays  shall  flourish,  and  their  good  grey  hawk 
Shall  nocht  flinch  before  the  blast. 


But  when  the  root  of  the  aik  decays, 

And  the  mistletoe  dwines  on  its  withered  breast. 

The  grass  shall  grow  on  Errol’s  hearthstane, 

And  the  corbie  roup  in  the  falcon’s  nest. 

— ■ 'if-.110*  a, new_ppinion  that  the  Golden  Bough  was  the  inktlpfnA 
1  ue,  Virgil  does  not  identify  but  only  compares  it  with  mistletoe. 
But  this  may  be  only  a  poetical  device  to  cast  a  mystic  glamour 
over  the  humble  plant.  Or,  more  probably,  his  description  was 
based  on  a  popular  superstition  that  at  certain  times  the  mistletoe 
blazed  out  into  a  supernatural  golden  glory.  The  poet  tells  how 
two  doves,  guiding  Aeneas  to  the  gloomy  vale  in  whose  depth  grew 
the  Golden  Bough,  alighted  upon  a  tree,  “  whence  shone  a  flickering 

gleam  of  gold.  As  in  the  woods  in  winter  cold  the  mistletoe _ a 

plant  not  native  to  its  tree— is  green  with  fresh  leaves  and  twines 
its  yellow  berries  about  the  boles  ;  such  seemed  upon  the  shadv 
holm-oak  the  leafy  gold,  so  rustled  in  the  gentle  breeze  the  golden 
leaf.  Here  Virgil  definitely  describes  the  Golden  Bough  as  growing 
on  a  holm-oak,  and  compares  it  with  the  mistletoe.  The  inference 
is__almost_  inevitable  that  the  Golden _  Bough  was  nottnng  but  the 
m^ktflfi_££snthrough  thehaze  of  poetry  or  of  popoHr  superstitio^T 
Now  grounds  have  been  shown  for  Believing  that  the  priest  of 
the  Arician  grove  the  King  of  the  Wood — personified  the  tree  on 
which  grew  the  Golden  Bough.  Hence  if  that  tree  was  the  oak, 
the  King  of  the  Wood  must  have  been  a  personification  of  the  oak- 
spirit. .  It  is,  therefore,  easy  to  understand  why,  before  he  could  be 
slain,  it  was  necessary  to  break  the  Golden  Bough.  As  an  oak-spirit 
his  life  or  death  was  in  the  mistletoe  on  the  oak,  and  so  long  as  the 
mistletoe  remained  intact,  he,  like  Balder,  could  not  die.  To  slay 
him,  therefore,  it  was  necessary  to  break  the  mistletoe,  and  probably, 
as  in  the  case  of  Balder,  to  throw  it  at  him.  And  to  complete  the 


704 


THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH 


CH. 

parallel,  it  is  only  necessary  to  suppose  that  the  King  of  the  Wood 
was  formerly  burned,  dead  or  alive,  afythe  midsummer  fire  festival 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  annually  celebrated  m  the  Arician  grove. 
The  perpetual  fire  which  burned  in  the  grove,  like  the  perpetual  fire 
which  burned  in  the  temple  of  Vesta  at  Rome  and  under  the  oak 
at  Romove,  was  probably  fed  with  the  sacred  oak-wood  ;  and  thus 
it  would  be  in  a  great  fire  of  oak  that  the  King  of  the  Wood  formerlyj 
met  his  end.  At  a  later  time,  as  I  have  suggested,  his  annual  tenure 
of  office  was  lengthened  or  shortened,  as  the  case  might  be,  by  the 
rule  which  allowed  him  to  live  so  long  as  he  could  prove  his  divine 
right  by  the  strong  hand.  But  he  only  escaped  the  fire  to  fall  by 
the  sword. 

Thus  it  seems  that  at  a  remote  age  in  the  heart  of  Italy,  beside 
the  sweet  Lake  of  Nemi,  the  same  fiery  tragedy  was  annually  enacted 
which  Italian  merchants  and  soldiers  were  afterwards  to  witness 
among  their  rude  kindred,  the  Celts  of  Gaul,  and  which,  if  the  Roman 
eagles  had  ever  swooped  on  Norway,  might  have  been  found  repeated 
with  little  difference  among  the  barbarous  Aryans  of  the  North.  The 
rite  was  probably  an  essential  feature  in  the  ancient  Aryan  worship 
of  the  oak. 

It  only  remains  to  ask,  Why  was  the  mistletoe  called  the  Golden 
Bough  ?  The  whitish-yellow  of  the  mistletoe  berries  is  hardly  enough 
to  account  for  the  name,  for  Virgil  says  that  the  bough  was  altogether 
golden,  stem  as  well  as  leaves.  (^Perhaps  the  name  may  be  derived 
from  the  rich  golden  yellow  which  a  bough  of  mistletoe  assumes 
when  it  has  been  cut  and  kept  for  some  months/ the  bright  tint  is 
not  confined  to  the  leaves,  but  spreads  to  the  stalks  as  well,  so  that 
the  whole  branch  appears  to  be  indeed  a  Golden  Bough.  Breton 
peasants  hang  up  great  bunches  of  mistletoe  in  front  of  their  cottages, 
and  in  the  month  of  June  these  bunches  are  conspicuous  for  the  bright 
golden  tinge  of  their  foliage.  In  some  parts  of  Brittany,  especially 
about  Morbihan,  branches  of  mistletoe  are  hung  over  the'  doors  of 
stables  and  byres  to  protect  the  horses  and  cattle,  probably  against 
witchcraft. 

The  yellow  colour  of  the  withered  bough  may  partly  explain  why 
the  mistletoe  has  been  sometimes  supposed  to  possess  the  property  of 
disclosing  treasures  in  the  earth  ;  for  on  the  principles  of  homoeopathic 
magic  there  is  a  natural  affinity  between  a  yellow  bough  and  yellow 
gold.  This  suggestion  is  confirmed  by  the  analogy  of  the  marvellous 
properties  popularly  ascribed  to  the  mythical  fern-seed,  which  is 
popularly  supposed  to  bloom  like  gold  or  fire  on  Midsummer  Eve. 
Thus  in  Bohemia  it  is  said  that  “  on  St.  John's  Day  fern-seed  blooms 
with  golden  blossoms  that  gleam  like  fire."  Now  it  is  a  property  of 
this  mythical  fern-seed  that  whoever  has  it,  or  will  ascend  a  mountain 
holding  it  in  his  hand  on  Midsummer  Eve,  will  discover  a  vein  of  gold 
or  will  see  the  treasures  of  the  earth  shining  with  a  bluish  flame.  In 
Russia  they  say  that  if  you  succeed  in  catching  the  wondrous  bloom  of 
the  fern  at  midnight  on  Midsummer  Eve  you  have  only  to  throw  it 


LX  VIII 


THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH 


7°5 

up  into  the  air  and  it  will  fall  like  a  star  on  the  very  spot  where  a 
treasure  lies  hidden.  In  Brittany  treasure-seekers  gather  fern-seed  at 
midnight  on  Midsummer  Eve,  and  keep  it  till  Palm  Sunday  of  the 
following  year ;  then  they  strew  the  seed  on  the  ground  where  they 
think  a  treasure  is  concealed.  Tyrolese  peasants  imagine  that  hidden 
treasures  can  be  seen  glowing  like  flame  on  Midsummer  Eve  and  that 
fern-seed  gathered  at  this  mystic  season,  with  the  usual  precautions, 
«uH  he lp  to  bring  the  buried  gold  to  the  surface.  In  the  Swiss  canton 
of  Freiburg  people  used  to  watch  beside  a  fem  on  St.  John’s  night  in 
the  hope  of  winning  a  treasure,  which  the  devil  himself  sometimes 
brought  to  them.  In  Bohemia  they  say  that  he  who  procures  the 

j  11  ’  "0m  0  ^  le  ^ern  this  season  has  thereby  the  key  to  all 
hidden  treasures  ;  and  that  if  maidens  will  spread  a  cloth  under  the 
fast-fading  bloom,  red  gold  will  drop  into  it.  And  in  the  Tyrol  and 
Bohemia  if  you  place  fern-seed  among  money,  the  money  will  never 
decrease,  however  much  of  it  you  spend.  Sometimes  the  fern-seed 
is  supposed  to  bloom  on  Christmas  night,  and’ whoever  catches  it  will 
become  very  rich.  In  Styria  they  say  that  by  gathering  fern-seed  on 
Christmas  night  you  can  force  the  devil  to  bring  you  a  bag  of  money 

Thus,  on  the  principle  of  like  by  like,  fern-seed  is  supposed  to 
discover  gold  because  it  is  itself  golden  ;  and  for  a  similar  reason  it 
enriches  its  possessor  with  an  unfailing  supply  of  gold.  But  while 
the  fern-seed  is  described  as  golden,  it  is  equally  described  as  glowing 
and  fiery.  Hence,  when  we  consider  that  two  great  days  for  gathering 
the  fabulous  seed  are  Midsummer  Eve  and  Christmas— that  is  the 
two  solstices  (for  Christmas  is  nothing  but  an  old  heathen  celebration 
of  the  winter  solstice)— we  are  led  to  regard  the  fiery  aspect  of  the 
fern-seed  as  primary,  and  its  golden  aspect  as  secondary  and  derivative. 
Fern -seed,  in  fact,  would  seem  to  be  an  emanation  of  the  sun’s  fire  at 
the  two  turning-points  of  its  course,  the  summer  and  winter  solstices 
This  view  is  confirmed  by  a  German  story  in  which  a  hunter  is  said  to 
have  procured  fern-seed  by  shooting  at  the  sun  on  Midsummer  Day 
at  noon  ;  three  drops  of  blood  fell  down,  which  he  caught  in  a  white 
cloth,  and  these  blood-drops  were  the  fern-seed.  Here  the  blood  is 
clearly  the  blood  of  the  sun,  from  which  the  fern-seed  is  thus  directly 
derived. .  Thus  it  may  be  taken  as  probable  that  fern-seed  is  golden, 
because  it  is  believed  to  be  an  emanation  of  the  sun’s  golden  fire. 

Now,  like  fern-sepd,  the  mistletoe  is  gathered  either  at  Midsummer  or 

at  Christmas  that  is,  either  at  the  summer  or  at  the  winter  solstice _ 

and,  like  fern-seed/lt  is  supposed  to  possess  the  power  of  revealing 
treasures  m  the  eafrhj  On  Midsummer  Eve  people  in  Sweden  make 
divining-rods  of  mistletoe,  or  of  four  different  kinds  of  wood  one  of  which 
must  be  mistletoe.  The  treasure-seeker  places  the  rod  on  the  ground 
after  sundown,  and  when  it  rests  directly  over  treasure,  the  rod  begins  to 
move  as  if  it  were  alive.  Now,  if  the  mistletoe  discovers  gold,  it  must 
be  in  its  character  of  the  Golden  Bough  ;  and  if  it  is  gathered  at  the 
solstices,  must  not  the  Golden  Bough,  like  the  golden  fern-seed,  be  an 
emanation  of  the  sun’s  fire  ?  The  question  cannot  be  answered  with  a 

2  z 


7o6  THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH  ch. 

simple  affirmative.  We  have  seen  that  the  old  Aryans  perhaps  kindled 
the  solstitial  and  other  ceremonial  fires  in  part  as  sun-charms,  that  is, 
with  the  intention  of  supplying  the  sun  with  fresh  fire  ;  and  as  these 
fires  were  usually  made  by  the  friction  or  combustion  of  oak-wood,  it 
may  have  appeared  to  the  ancient  Aryan  that  the  sun  was  periodically 
recruited  from  the  fire  which  resided  in  the  sacred  oak.  In  other 
words,  the  oak  may  have  seemed  to  him  the  original  storehouse  or 
reservoir  of  the  fire  which  was  from  time  to  time  drawn  out  to  feed 
the  sun.  /But  if  the  life  of  the  oak  was  conceived  to  be  in  the  mistletoe, 
the  mistletoe  must  on  that  view  have  contained  the  seed  or  germ  of  the 
fire  which  was  elicited  by  friction  from  the  wood  of  the  oak.  Thus, 
instead  of  saying  that  the  mistletoe  was  an  emanation  of  the  sun’s 
fire,  it  might  be  more  correct  to  say  that  the  sun’s  Jire  was  rgganled 
as  an  emanation  of  the  mistletoe.  No  wonder,  then,  that  the  mistletoe^ 
shone  with  a  golden  splendour,  and  was  called  the  Golden  Bought 
Probably,  however,  like  fern-seed,  it  was  thought  to  assume  its  golden 
aspect  only  at  those  stated  times,  especially  midsummer,  when  fire 
was  drawn  from  the  oak  to  light  up  the  sun.  At  Pulverbatch,  in 
Shropshire,  it  was  believed  within  living  memory  that  the  oak-tree 
blooms  on  Midsummer  Eve  and  the  blossom  withers  before  daylight. 
A  maiden  who  wishes  to  know  her  lot  in  marriage  should  spread  a 
white  cloth  under  the  tree  at  night,  and  in  the  morning  she  will  find 
a  little  dust,  which  is  all  that  remains  of  the  flower.  She  should  place 
the  pinch  of  dust  under  her  pillow,  and  then  her  future  husband  will 
appear  to  her  in  her  dreams.  This  fleeting  bloom  of  the  oak,  if  I  am 
right,  was  probably  the  mistletoe  in  its  character  of  the  Golden  Bough. 
The  conjecture  is  confirmed  by  the  observation  that  in  Wales  a  real 
sprig  of  mistletoe  gathered  on  Midsummer  Eve  is  similarly  placed 
under  the  pillow  to  induce  prophetic  dreams  ;  and  further  the  mode 
of  catching  the  imaginary  bloom  of  the  oak  in  a  white  cloth  is  exactly 
that  which  was  employed  by  the  Druids  to  catch  the  real  mistletoe 
when  it  dropped  from  the  bough  of  the  oak,  severed  by  the  golden 
sickle.  As  Shropshire  borders  on  Wales,  the  belief  that  the  oak  blooms 
on  Midsummer  Eve  may  be  Welsh  in  its  immediate  origin,  though 
probably  the  belief  is  a  fragment  of  the  primitive  Aryan  creed.  In 
some  parts  of  Italy,  as  we  saw,  peasants  still  go  out  on  Midsummer 
morning  to  search  the  oak-trees  for  the  “  oil  of  St.  John,”  which,  like 
the  mistletoe,  heals  all  wounds,  and  is,  perhaps,  the  mistletoe  itself 
in  its  glorified  aspect.  Thus  it  is  easy  to  understand  how  a  title  like 
the  Golden  Bough,  so  little  descriptive  of  its  usual  appearance  on 
the  tree,  should  have  been  applied  to  the  seemingly  insignificant 
parasite.  Further,  we  can  perhaps  see  why  in  antiquity  mistletoe 
was  believed  to  possess  the  remarkable  property  of  extinguishing 
fire,  and  why  in  Sweden  it  is  still  kept  in  houses  as  a  safeguard  against 
conflagration.  Its  fiery  nature_marksMLont.  on  homoeopathic  prin¬ 
ciples,  as  the  best  possible  cure  or  preventive  of  injury  by  fire. 

These  considerations  may  partially  explain  ~why~YirgiU  makes 
Aeneas  carry  a  glorified  bough  of  mistletoe  with  him  on  his  descent 


LXVIII 


THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH  7o7 

into  the  gloomy  subterranean  world.  The  poet  describes  how  at  the 
very  gates  of  hell  there  stretched  a  vast  and  gloomy  wood  and  how 
the  hero,  following  the  flight  of  two  doves  that  lured  him  on,  wandered 
into  the  depths  of  the  immemorial  forest  till  he  saw  afar  off  through 
the  shadows  of  the  trees  the  flickering  light  of  the  Golden  Bough 
illuminating  the  matted  boughs  overhead.  If  the  mistletoe,  as  a 
yellow  withered  bough  in  the  sad  autumn  woods,  was  conceived  to 
contain  the  seed  of  fire,  what  better  companion  could  a  forlorn  wanderer 
in  the  nether  shades  take  with  him  than  a  bough  that  would  be  a 
lamp  to  his  feet  as  well  as  a  rod  and  staff  to  his  hands  ?  Armed  with 
it  he  might  boldly  confront  the  dreadful  spectres  that  would  cross  his 
path  on  his  adventurous  journey.  Hence  when  Aeneas,  emerging 
from .  the  forest,  comes  to  the  banks  of  Styx,  winding  slow  with 
sluggish  stream  through  the  infernal  marsh,  and  the  surly  ferryman 
refuses  him  passage  in  his  boat,  he  has  but  to  draw  the  Golden  Bough 
from  his  bosom  and  hold  it  Up,  and  straightway  the  blusterer  quails 
at  the  sight  and  meekly  receives  the  hero  into  his  crazy  bark,  which 
sinks  deep  in  the  water  under  the  unusual  weight  of  the  living  man. 
Even  in  recent  times,  as  we  have  seen,  mistletoe  has  been  deemed  a 
protection  against  witches  and  trolls,  and  the  ancients  may  well  have 
credited  it  with  the  same  magical  virtue.  And  if  the  parasite  can,  as 
some  of  our  peasants  believe,  open  all  locks,  why  should  it  not  have 

served  as  an  "  open  Sesame  ”  in  the  hands  of  Aeneas  to  unlock  the 
gates  of  death  ? 

Now,  too,  we  can  conjecture  \yhy_yirbius  at  Nemi  came  to  be 
coniounded  with  the  sun.  If  Virbius  was,  as  I  have  tried  to  show, 
a  tree-spirit,  he  must  have  been  the  spirit  of  the  oak  on  which  grew 
the  Golden  Bough  ;  for  tradition  represented  him  as  the  first  of  the 
Kings  of  the  Wood.  As^an  oak-spirit  he  must  have  been  supposed 
periodically  to  rekindle  the  sun's  fire,  and  might'  therefore  easiljTbe 
confounded  with  the  sun  itself.  Similarly  we  can  explain  why  Balder, 
an  oak-spiilfU was  described  as  so  fair  of  face  and  so  shining  that 
a  light  went  forth  from  him,”  and  why  he  should  have  been  so  often 
taken  to  be  the  sun.  And  in  general  we  may  say  that  in  primitive 
society,  when  the  only  known  way  of  making  fire  is  by  tlpe  friction 
of  wood,  the  savage  must  necessarily  conceive  of  fire  as  a  property 
stored  away,  like  sap  or  juice,  in  trees,  from  which  he  has  laboriously 
to  extract  it.  The  Senal  Indians  of  California  "  profess  to  believe 
that  the  whole  world  was  once  a  globe  of  fire,  whence  that  element 
passed  up  into  the  trees,  and  now  comes  out  whenever  two  pieces 
of  wood  are  rubbed  together.”  Similarly  the  Maidu  Indians  of  Cali¬ 
fornia  hold  that  “  the  earth  was  primarily  a  globe  of  molten  matter, 
and  from  that  the  principle  of  fire  ascended  through  the  roots  into 
the  trunk  and  branches  of  trees,  whence  the  Indians  can  extract  it 
by  means  of  their  drill.”  In  Namoluk,  one  of  the  Caroline  Islands, 
they  say  that  the  art  of  making  fire  was  taught  men  by  the  gods. 
Olofaet,  the  cunning  master  of  flames,  gave  fire  to  the  bird  mwi  and 
bade  him  carry  it  to  earth  in  his  bill.  So  the  bird  flew  from  tree  to 


7o8  THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH  ch. 

tree  and  stored  away  the  slumbering  force  of  the  fire  in  the  wood, 
from  which  men  can  elicit  it  by  friction.  In  the  ancient  Vedic  hymns 
of  India  the  fire-god  Agni  “  is  spoken  of  as  born  in  wood,  as  the  embryo 
of  plants,  or  as  distributed  in  plants.  He  is  also  said  to  have  entered 
into  all  plants  or  to  strive  after  them.  When  he  is  called  the  embryo 
of  trees  or  of  trees  as  well  as  plants,  there  may  be  a  side-glance  at 
the  fire  produced  in  forests  by  the  friction  of  the  boughs  of  trees.” 

A  tree  which  has  been  struck  by  lightning  is  naturally  regarded 
by  the  savage  as  charged  with  a  double  or  triple  portion  of  fire  ;  for 
has  he  not  seen  the  mighty  flash  enter  into  the  trunk  with  his  own 
eyes  ?  Hence  perhaps  we  may  explain  some  of  the  many  super¬ 
stitious  beliefs  concerning  trees  that  have  been  struck  by  lightning. 
When  the  Thompson  Indians  of  British  Columbia  wished  to  set  fire 
to  the  houses  of  their  enemies,  they  shot  at  them  arrows  which  were 
either  made  from  a  tree  that  had  been  struck  by  lightning  or  had 
splinters  of  such  wood  attached  to  them.  Wendish  peasants  of 
Saxony  refuse  to  burn  in  their  stoves  the  wood  of  tiees  that  have 
been  struck  by  lightning  ;  they  say  that  with  such  fuel  the  house 
would  be  burnt  down.  In  like  manner  the  Thonga  of  South  Africa 
will  not  use  such  wood  as  fuel  nor  warm  themselves  at  a  fire  which 
has  been  kindled  with  it.  On  the  contrary,  when  lightning  sets  fire 
to  a  tree,  the  Winamwanga  of  Northern  Rhodesia  put  out  all  the 
fires  in  the  village  and  plaster  the  fireplaces  afresh,  while  the  head 
men  convey  the  lightning-kindled  fire  to  the  chief,  who  prays  over 
it.  The  chief  then  sends  out  the  new  fire  to  all  his  villages,  and  the 
villagers  reward  his  messengers  for  the  boon.  This  shows  that  they 
look  upon  fire  kindled  by  lightning  with  reverence,  and  the  reverence 
is  intelligible,  for  they  speak  of  thunder  and  lightning  as  God  himself 
coming  down  to  earth.  Similarly  the  Maidu  Indians  of  California 
believe  that  a  Great  Man  created  the  world  and  all  its  inhabitants, 
and  that  lightning  is  nothing  but  the  Great  Man  himself  descending 
swiftly  out  of  heaven  and  rending  the  trees  with  his  flaming  arm. 

It  is  a  plausible  theory  that  the  reverence  which  the  ancient  peoples 
of  Europe  paid  to  the  oak,  and  the  connexion  which  they  traced 
between  the  tree  and  their  sky-god,  were  derived  from  the  much 
greater  frequency  with  which  the  oak  appears  to  be  struck  by  lightning 
than  any  other  tree  of  our  European  forests.  This  peculiarity  of  the 
tree  has  seemingly  been  established  by  a  series  of  observations  in¬ 
stituted  within  recent  years  by  scientific  enquirers  who  have  no 
mythological  theory  to  maintain.  However  we  may  explain  it, 
whether  by  the  easier  passage  of  electricity  through  oakwood  than 
through  any  other  timber,  or  in  some  other  way,  the  fact  itself  may 
well  have  attracted  the  notice  of  our  rude  forefathers,  who  dwelt 
in  the  vast  forests  which  then  covered  a  large  part  of  Europe  ;  and 
they  might  naturally  account  for  it  in  their  simple  religious  way  by 
supposing  that  the  gre&t  skv-god.  whom  they  worshipped  and  whose 
awful  voice  they  heard  in  the  roll  of  thunder,  loy£ii_thn_mk_a]^ 
al]Jdi£_treesjoL the  wood  and  often  descended  into  it  from  the  mur  ^ 


LXVIII 


THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH 


r - - -  709 

cloud  in  a  flash  of  lightning,  leaving  a  token  of  his  presence  or  of  his 
passage  in  the  riven  and  blackened  trunk  and  the  blasted  foliage. 
Such  trees  would  thenceforth  be  encircled  by  a  nimbus  of  glory  as 
the  visible  seats  of  the  thundering  sky -god.  Certain  it  is  that,  like 
some  savages,  both  Greeks  and  Romans  identified  their  great  god 
of  the  sky  and  of  the  oak  with  the  lightning  flash  which  struck  the 
ground  ;  and  they  regularly  enclosed  such  a  stricken  spot  and  treated 
it  thereafter  ,as  sacred.  It  is  not  rash  to  suppose  that  the  ancestors 
of  thQ  Celts  and  Germans  in  the  forests  of  Central  Europe  paid  a  like 
respect  for  like  reasons  to  a  blasted  oak. 

This  explanation  of  the  Aryan  reverence  for  the  oak  and  of  the 
association  of  the  tree  with  the  great  god  of  the  thunder  and  the  sky, 
was  suggested  or  implied  long  ago  by  Jacob  Grimm,  and  has  been  in 
recent  years  powerfully  reinforced  by  Mr.  W.  Warde  Fowler.  It  appears 
to  be  simpler  and  more  probable  than  the  explanation  which  I  formerly 
adopted,  namely,  that  the  oak  was  worshipped  primarily  for  the 
many  benefits  which  our  rude  forefathers  derived  from  the  tree, 
particularly  for  the  fire  which  they  drew  by  friction  from  its  wood  ; 
and  that  the  connexion  of  the  oak  with  the  sky  was  an  after-thought 
based  on  the  belief  that  the  flash  of  lightning  was  nothing  but  the 
spark  which  the  sky-god  up  aloft  elicited  by  rubbing  two  pieces  of 
oak  wood  against  each  other,  just  as  his  savage  worshipper  kindled 
fire  in  the  forest  on  earth.  On  that  theory  the  god  of  the  thunder 
and  the  sky  was  derived  from  the  original  god  of  the  oak  ;  on  the 
present  theory,  which  I  now  prefer,  the  god  of  the  sky  and  the  thunder 
was  the  great  .original  deity  of  ourArvan  ancestors,  and  his  association 
with  the  oak  was  merely  an  inference  base(T  on  the  frequency  with 
whiciTThe  oak  was  seen  to  be  struck  by  lightning.  If  the  Aryans, 
as  some  think,  roamed  the  wide  steppes  of  Russia  or  Central  Asia 
with  their  flocks  and  herds  before  they  plunged  into  the  gloom  of  the 
European  forests,  they  may  have  worshipped  the  god  of  the  blue 
or  cloudy  firmament  and  the  flashing  thunderbolt  long  before  they 
thought  of  associating  him  with  the  blasted  oaks  in  their  new  home. 

Perhaps  the  new  theory  has  the  further  advantage  of  throwing 
light  on  the  special  sanctity  ascribed  to  mistletoe  which  grows  on  an 
oak.  The  mere  rarity  of  such  a  growth  on  an  oak  hardly  suffices 
to  explain  the  extent  and  the  persistence  of  the  superstition.  A 
hint  of  its  real  origin  is  possibly  furnished  by  the  statement  of  Pliny 
that  the  Druids  worshipped  the  plant  because  they  believed  it  to 
have  fallen  from  heaven  and  to  be  a  token  that  the  tree  on  which 
it  grew  was  chosen  by  the  god  himself.  Can  they  have  thought  that 
the  mistletoe  dropped  on  the  oak  in  a  flash  of  lightning  ?  The  con¬ 
jecture  is  confirmed  by  the  name  thunder-besom  which  is  applied  to 
mistletoe  in  the  Swiss  canton  of  Aargau,  for  the  epithet  clearly  implies 
a  close  connexion  between  the  parasite  and  the  thunder  ;  indeed 
7  thunder-besom  ”  is  a  popular  name  in  Germany  for  any  bushy  nest¬ 
like  excrescence  growing  on  a  branch,  because  such  a  parasitic  growth 
is  actually  believed  by  the  ignorant  to  be  a  product  of  lightning. 


7io 


THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH 


ch 


If  there  is  any  truth  in  this  conjecture,  the  real  reason  why  the 
Druids  worshipped  a  mistletoe-bearing  oak  above  all  other  trees  of 
H;he  forest  was  a  belief  that  every  such  oak  had  not  only  been  struck 
to7  lightning  but  bore  among  its  branches  a  visible  emanation  of  the 
celestial  fire  ;  so^jdjii_cnttin^h£_mistletoe  with  mystic  rites  they 
we_re  securing  for  themselves  all  the  magical  properties  of  a  thunder¬ 
bolt.  If  that  was  so,  we  must  apparently  conclude  that  the  mistletoe 
was  deemed  an  emanation  of  the  lightning  rather  than,  as  I  have 
thus  far  argued,  of  the  midsummer  sun.  Perhaps,  indeed,  we  might 
combine  the  two  seemingly  divergent  views  by  supposing  that  in  the 
old  Aryan  creed  the  mistletoe  descended  from  the  sun  on  Midsummer 
Day  in  a  flash  of  lightning.  But  such  a  combination  is  artificial  and 
unsupported,  so  far  as  I  know,  by  any  positive  evidence.  Whether 
on  mythical  principles  the  two  interpretations  can  really  be  reconciled 
with  each  other  or  not,  I  will  not  presume  to  say  ;  but  even  should 
they  piove  to  be  discrepant,  the  inconsistency  need  not  have  prevented 
our  rude  forefathers  from  embracing  both  of  them  at  the  same  time 
with  an  equal  fervour  of  conviction  ;  for  like  the  great  majority  of 
mankind  the  savage  is  above  being  hidebound  by  the  trammels  of  a 
pedantic  logic.  In  attempting  to  track  his  devious  thought  through 
the  jungle  of  crass  ignorance  and  blind  fear,  we  must  always  remember 
that  we  are  treading  enchanted  ground,  and  must  beware  of  taking 
for  solid  realities  the  cloudy  shapes  that  cross  our  path  or  hover  and 
gibbei  at  us  through  the  gloom.  We  can  never  completely  replace 
ourselves  at  the  standpoint  of  primitive  man,  see  things  with  his  eyes, 
and  feel  our  hearts  beat  with  the  emotions  that  stirred  his.  All  our 
theories  concerning  him  and  his  ways  must  therefore  fall  far  short  of 

certainty  ;  the  utmost  we  can  aspire  to  in  such  matters  is  a  reasonable 
degree  of  probability. 

To  conclude  these  enquiries  we  may  say  that  if  Balder  w^  indeed, 
as  I  have  conjectured,  a  personification  of  a  mistletoe-bearing  oak, 

1 doath  by  a  blow  of  the  mistletoe  might  on  the  new  theory  be  ex- 
pld-ine(i  as  a  death  by  a  stroke  of  lightning.  So  long  as  the  mistletoe, 
in  which  the  flame  of  the  lightning  smouldered,  was  suffered  to  remain 
among  the  boughs,  so  long  no  harm  could  befall  the  good  and  kindly 
god  of  the  oak,  who  kept  his  life  stowed  away  for  safety  between 
earth  and  heaven  in  the  mysterious  parasite;  but  when  once  that 
seat  of  his  life,  or  of  his  death,  was  tom  from  the  branch  and  hurled 
at  the  trunk,  the  tree  fell — the  god  died — smitten  by  a  thunderbolt. 

And  what  we  have  said  of  Balder  in  the  oak  forests  of  Scandinavia 
may  perhaps,  with  all  due  diffidence  in  a  question  so  obscure  and 
uncertain,  be  applied  to  the_priest  of  Diana,  the  King-  of  the  Wood, 
at  Aricia  in  the  oak  forests  of  Italy.  He  may  havp  ppr^nnafpd  iu_ 
flesh  and  blood  the  great  Italian  god  of  the  sky,  Jppifpr  who  had 
kindly,  come  down  from,  heaven  in  the  lightning  Hash  to  dwell  among- 
rn.cn  in  t h e  mistletoe  -the  thunder-besom — the  Golden  Bongh — gro w- 
ing  on  the  sacred  oak  in  the  dells  of  Nemi.  If  that  was  so,  we  need 
not  wonder  that  the  priest  guarded  with  drawn  sword  the  mystic 


LXIX 


FAREWELL  TO  NEMI 


7ii 


bough  which  contained  the  god’s  life  and  his  own.  The  goddess 
whom  he  served  and  married  was  herself,  if  I  am  right,  no  other 
than  the  Queen  of  Heaven,  the  true  wife  of  the  sky-god.  For  she, 
too,  loved  the  solitude  of  the  woods  and  the  lonely  hills,  and  sailing 
overhead  on  clear  nights  in  the  likeness  of  the  silver  moon  looked 
down  with  pleasure  on  her  own  fair  image  reflected  on  the  calm,  the 
burnished  surface  of  the  lake,  Diana’s  Mirror. 


CHAPTER  LXIX 

FAREWELL  TO  NEMI 
H. 

We  are  at  the  end  of  our  enquiry,  but  as  often  happens  in  the  search 
after  truth,  if  we  have  answered  one  question,  we  have  raised  many 
more  ;  if  we  have  followed  one  track  home,  we  have  had  to  pass  by 
others  that  opened  off  it  and  led,  or  seemed  to  lead,  to  far  other  goals 
than  the  sacred  grove  at  Nemi.  Some  of  these  paths  we  have  followed 
a  little  way  ;  others,  if  fortune  should  be  kind,  the  writer  and  the 
reader  may  one  day  pursue  together.  For  the  present  we  have 
journeyed  far  enough  together,  and  it  is  time  to  part.  Yet  before  we 
do  so,  we  may  well  ask  ourselves  whether  there  is  not  some  more 
general  conclusion,  some  lesson,  if  possible,  of  hope  and  encourage¬ 
ment,  to  be  drawn  from  the  melancholy  record  of  human  error  and 
folly  which  has  engaged  our  attention  in  this  book. 

If  then  we  consider,  on  the  one  hand,  the  essential  similarity  of 
man’s  chief  wants  everywhere  and  at  all  times,  and  on  the  other  hand, 
the  wide  difference  between  the  means  he  has  adopted  to  satisfy  them 
in  different  ages,  we  shall  perhaps  be  disposed  to  conclude  that  the 
movement  of  the  higher  thought,  so  far  as  we  can  trace  it,  has  on  the 
whole  been  from  magic  through  religion  to  science.  In  magic  man 
depends  on  his  own  strength  to  meet  the  difficulties  and  dangers  that 
beset  him  on  every  side.  He  believes  in  a  certain  established  order  of 
nature  on  which  he  can  surely  count,  and  which  he  can  manipulate  for 
his  own  ends.  When  he  discovers  his  mistake,  when  he  recognises 
sadly  that  both  the  order  of  nature  which  he  had  assumed  and  the 
control  which  he  had  believed  himself  to  exercise  over  it  were  purely 
imaginary,  he  ceases  to  rely  on  his  own  intelligence  and  his  own  unaided 
efforts,  and  throws  himself  humbly  on  the  mercy  of  certain  great 
invisible  beings  behind  the  veil  of  nature,  to  whom  he  now  ascribes  all 
those  far-reaching  powers  which  he  once  arrogated  to  himself.  Thus 
in  the  acuter  minds  magic  is  gradually  superseded  by  religion,  which 
explains  the  succession  of  natural  phenomena  as  regulated  by  the 
will,  the  passion,  or  the  caprice  of  spiritual  beings  like  man  in  kind, 
though  vastly  superior  to  him  in  power. 

But  as  time  goes  on  this  explanation  in  its  turn  proves  to  be  un¬ 
satisfactory.  For  it  assumes  that  the  succession  of  natural  events 


712 


FAREWELL  TO  NEMI  ch. 

is  not  determined  by  immutable  laws,  but  is  to  some  extent  variable 
and  irregular,  and  this  assumption  is  not  borne  out  by  closer  observa¬ 
tion.  On  the  contrary,  the  more  we  scrutinise  that  succession  the 
more  we  are  struck  by  the  rigid  uniformity,  the  punctual  precision  with 
which,  wherever  we  can  follow  them,  the  operations  of  nature  are 
carried  on.  Every  great  advance  in  knowledge  has  extended  the 
sphere  of  order  and  correspondingly  restricted  the  sphere  of  apparent 
disorder  m  the  world,  till  now  we  are  ready  to  anticipate  that  even  in 
regions  where  chance  and  confusion  appear  still  to  reign,  a  fuller  know¬ 
ledge  would  everywhere  reduce  the  seeming  chaos  to  cosmos.  Thus  the 
keener  minds,  still  pressing  forward  to  a  deeper  solution  of  the  mysteries 
of  the  universe,  come  to  reject  the  religious  theory  of  nature  as  inade¬ 
quate,  and  to  revert  in  a  measure  to  the  older  standpoint  of  magic  by 
postulating  explicitly,  what  in  magic  had  only  been  implicitly  assumed 
to  wit  an  inflexible  regularity  in  the  order  of  natural  events,  which 
if  carefully  observed,  enables  us  to  foresee  their  course  with  certainty 
and  to  act  accordingly.  In  short,  religion,  regarded  as  an  explanation 
of  nature,  is  displaced  by  science. 

But  while  science  has  this  much  in  common  with  magic  that  both 
rest  on  a  faith  m  order  as  the  underlying  principle  of  all  things,  readers 
of  this  work  will  hardly  need  to  be  reminded  that  the  order  presupposed 
,  ^  differs  widely  from  that  which  forms  the  basis  of  science, 

f  he  difference  flows  naturally  from  the  different  modes  in  which  the 
two  orders  have  been  reached.  For  whereas  the  order  on  which  magic 
^reckons  is  merely  an  extension,  by  false  analogy,  of  the  order  in  which 
ideas  present  themselves  to  our  minds,  the  order  laid  down  by  science 
is  derived  from  patient  and  exact  observation  of  the  phenomena 
themselves.  The  abundance,;  the  solidity,  and  the  splendour  of  the 
results  already  achieved  by  science  are  well  fitted  to  inspire  us  with  a 
cheerful  confidence  in  the  soundness  of  its  method.  Here  at  last,  after 
gropmg  about  in  the  dark  for  countless  ages,  man  has  hit  upon  a  clue  to 
the  labyrinth,  a  golden  key  that  opens  many  locks  in  the  treasury  of 
nature  It  is  probably  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  hope  of  progress 
— mora1  and  intellectual  as  well  as  material— in  the  future  is  bound  up 
with  the  fortunes  of  science,  and  that  every  obstacle  placed  in  the  way 
ot  scientific  discovery  is  a  wrong  to  humanity. 

Yet  the  history  of  thought  should  warn  us  against  concluding  that 
because  the  scientific  theory  of  the  world  is  the  best  that  has  yet  been 
formulated,  it  is  necessarily  complete  and  final.  We  must  remember 
t  at  at  bottom  the  generalisations  of  science  or,  in  common  parlance 
the  laws  of  nature  are  merely  hypotheses  devised  to  explain  that  ever- 
shifting  phantasmagoria  of  thought  which  we  dignify  with  the  high- 
sounding  names  of  the  world  and  the  universe.  In  the  last  anal™ 

nothing  but  theori~f  thougFr7^^ 
as  science  has  supplanted  its  predecessors,  so  it  may  hereafter  be  itself 
superseded  by  some  more  perfect  hypothesis,  perhaps  by  some  totally 
di  ferent  way  of  looking  at  the  phenomena — of  registering  the  shadows 
on  the  screen  of  which  we  in  this  generation  can  form  no  idea.  The 


LX  IX 


FAREWELL  TO  NEMI 


7L3 

—Va--ce  ^  is  anjnfinite  progression  towards_a_goal  that  for 

I  recedesy  We  need  not  murmur  at  the  endless  pursuit: 

Fcitti  non  foste  a  viver  come  bruti 

Ma  per  seguir  virtute  e  conoscenza. 

RrSVhinf  WiU  Cume  °f  that  plJrsuit'  though  we  may  not  enjoy  them. 

ghter  stars  will  rise  on  some  voyager  of  the  future— some  great 
Ulysses  of  the  realms  of  thought— -than  shine  on  us.  The  dreams  of 
magic  may  one  day  be  the  waking  realities  of  science.  But  a  dark 
shadow  lies  athwart  the  far  end  of  this  fair  prospect.  For  however  vast 
the  increase  of  knowledge  and  of  power  which  the  future  may  have  in 
store  tor  man,  he  can  scarcely  hope  to  stay  the  sweep  of  those  great 
forces  which  seem  to  be  making  silently  but  relentlessly  for  the  destruc¬ 
tion  of  all  this  starry  universe  in  which  our  earth  swims  as  a  speck  or 
mote,  is,  the  ages  to  come  man  mayibej^^^ 

fe^2m^£LhJhe  waywardjCoumes_pf  the  winds  and  clouds,  but  hardly' 
^nhisjpuny  Lands  have  strength  to  speed  afresh  “our  slackening 

dying  fire_^f,_the_s.um  Yet  the 
philosopher  wHohrembles  at  the  idea  of  such  distant  catastrophes  may 
console  himself  by  reflecting  that  these  gloomy  apprehensions,  like  the 
earth  and  the  sun  themselves,  are  only  parts  of  that  unsubstantial 
world  which  thought  has  conjured  up  out  of  the  void,  and  that  the 
phantoms  which  the  subtle  enchantress  has  evoked  to-day  she  may 
ban  to-morrow.  They  too,  like  so  much  that  to  common  eyes  seems 
solid,  may  melt  into  air,  into  thin  air. 

Without  dipping  so  far  into  the  future,  we  may  illustrate  the  course 
which  thought  has  hitherto  run  by  likening  it  to  a  web  woven  of  three 
different  threads— the_blackthread  of  magic,  the  red  thread  of  religion, 
and  the  whrte.jthreadjof .scignge,  if  under  science  we  may  include  those 
simple  truths,  drawn  from  observation  of  nature,  of  which  men  in  all 
ages  have  possessed  a  store.  Could  we  then  survey  the  web  of  thought 
rom  the  beginning,  we  should  probably  perceive  it  to  be  at  first  a 
chequer  .of  black  and  white,  a  patchwork  of  true  and  false  notions, 
hardly  tinged  as  yet  by  the  red  thread  of  religion.  But  carry  your 
eye  farther  along  the  fabric  and  you  will  remark  that,  while  the  black 
and  white  chequer  still  runs  through  it,  there  rests  on  the  middle 
portion  of  the  web,  where  religion  has  entered  most  deeply  into  its 
texture,  a  dark  crimson  stain,  which  shades  off  insensibly  into  a  lighter 
tint  as  the  white  thread  of  science  is  woven  more  and  more  into  the 
tissue.  To  a  web  thus  chequered  and  stained,  thus  shot  with  threads 
of  diverse  hues,  but  gradually  changing  colour  the  farther  it  is  unrolled, 
the  state  of  modern  thought,  with  all  its  divergent  aims  and  conflicting 
tendencies,  may  be  compared.  Will  the  great  movement  which  for 
centuries  has  been  slowly  altering  the  complexion  of  thought  be  con¬ 
tinued  in  the  near  future  ?  or  will  a  reaction  set  in  which  may  arrest 
progress  and  even  undo  much  that  has  been  done  ?  To  keep  up  our 
parable,  what  will  be  the  colour  of  the  web  which  the  Fates  are  now 
weaving  on  the  humming  loom  of  time  ?  will  it  be  white  or  red  ?  We 


714 


FAREWELL  TO  NEMI 


CH. LXIX 


cannot  tell.  A  faint  glimmering  light  illumines  the  backward  portion 
of  the  web.  Clouds  and  thick  darkness  hide  the  other  end. 

Our  long  voyage  of  discovery  is  over  and  our  bark  has  drooped 
her  weary  sails  in  port  at  last.  Once  more  we  take  the  road  to  Nemi. 
It  is  evening,  and  as  we  climb  the  long  slope  of  the  Appian  Way  up 
to  the  Alban  Hills,  we  look  back  and  see  the  sky  aflame  with  sunset, 
its  golden  glory  resting  like  the  aureole  of  a  dying  saint  over  Rome 
and  touching  with  a  crest  of  fire  the  dome  of  St.  Peter’s.  The  sight 
once  seen  can  never  be  forgotten,  but  we  turn  from  it  and  pursue 
our  way  darkling  along  the  mountain  side,  till  we  come  to  Nemi  and 
look  down  on  the  lake  in  its  deep  hollow,  now  fast  disappearing  in 
the  evening  shadows.  The  place  has  changed  but  little  since  Diana 
received  the  homage  of  her  worshippers  in  the  sacred  grove.  The 
temple  of  the  sylvan  goddess,  indeed,  has  vanished  and  the  King  of 
the  Wood  no  longer  stands  sentinel  over  the  Golden  Bough.  But 
Nemi’s  woods  are  still  green,  and  as  the  sunset  fades  above  them  in 
the  west,  there  comes  to  us,  borne  on  the  swell  of  the  wind,  the  sound 
of  the  church  bells  of  Aricia  ringing  the  Angelus.  Ave  Maria !  Sweet 
and  solemn  they  chime  out  from  the  distant  town  and  die  lingeringly 
away  across  the  wide  Campagnan  marshes.  Le  roi  est  mort ,  vive  le  roi ! 
Ave  Maria  ! 


INDEX 


Abbas  the  Great,  Shah  of  Persia,  289 
Abbot  of  Unreason,  586 
Abchases  of  the  Caucasus,  534 
Abduction  of  souls  by  demons,  186 
Absence  and  recall  of  the  soul,  180 
Abstinence,  136,  138 

Abydos,  366 ;  specially  associated  with 
Osiris,  367 

Abeokuta,  the  Alake  of,  295 
Abipones  of  Paraguay,  254 
Abonsam,  an  evil  spirit,  555 
Abruzzi,  the  Carnival  in  the,  303 
Abscesses,  cure  for,  539 
Abyssinia,  rain-making  in,  66 ;  rain¬ 
making  priests  on  the  borders  of,  107 
Acagchemem  tribe  of  California,  499 
Acaill,  Book  of,  273 
Acosta,  J.  de,  587 
Acts,  tabooed,  194-202 
Adam  of  Bremen,  160 
Adon,  a  Semitic  title,  325 
Adonis,  and  Aphrodite  (Venus),  7,  8,  328  ; 
the  myth  of,  324-7  ;  in  Syria,  327-9  ; 
in  Cyprus,  329-35  ;  ritual  of,  335-41  ; 
the  gardens  of,  341-7  ;  in  relation  to 
the  pig,  471 

Adonis,  the  river,  328,  336 
Adoption,  pretence  of  birth  at,  14 
Adultery  of  wife  thought  to  spoil  the  luck 
of  absent  husband,  23,  24 
Aegira,  priestess  of  Earth  at,  94 
Aegis,  Athena  and  the,  477 
Aeneas,  and  the  Golden  Bough,  3,  163,  703, 
706,  707  ;  his  vision  of  the  glories  of 
Rome,  149 

Aeolus,  King  of  the  Winds,  81 
Aesculapius,  5,  in,  301 
Afghanistan,  ceremony  at  the  reception  of 
strangers  in,  196 

Africa,  magicians,  especially  rain-makers, 
as  chiefs  and  kings  in,  84-6  ;  human 
gods  in,  98  ;  rules  of  life  or  taboos  ob¬ 
served  by  kings  in,  169-72  ;  reluctance 
of  people  to  tell  their  own  names  in, 
247  ;  seclusion  of  girls  at  puberty  in, 
595  I  dread  and  seclusion  of  menstruous 
women  in,  604  ;  birth-trees  in,  681  L 


Africa,  British  Central,  heart  of  lion  eaten 
to  make  eater  brave  in,  495 

- ,  East,  seclusion  and  purification  of 

man-slayers  in,  214 ;  infanticide  in, 
293  ;  propitiation  of  dead  lions  in,  522 
— — ,  North,  charms  to  render  bridegroom 
impotent  in,  241  ;  Midsummer  fires  in, 
631 

,  South,  rat’s  hair  as  a  charm  in,  31  ; 
continence  in  war  in,  21 1  ;  seclusion  of 
man-slayers  in,  214 ;  disposal  of  cut 
hair  and  nails  in,  235  ;  magic  use  of 
spittle  in,  237  ;  personal  names  tabooed 
in,  247 ;  rites  of  initiation  in,  497 ; 
seclusion  of  girls  at  puberty  in,  595  ; 
dread  of  menstruous  women  in,  604  ; 
story  of  the  external  soul  in,  677 

,  West,  magical  functions  of  chiefs  in, 
85  ;  reverence  for  silk-cotton  trees  in, 
112  ;  kings  forced  to  accept  office  in, 
176  ;  fetish  kings  in,  177  ;  traps  set  for 
souls  in,  187 ;  ‘purification  after  a 
journey  in,  197  ;  custom  as  to  blood 
shed  on  the  ground,  229  ;  rain-charms, 
234  ;  negroes  of,  236  ;  human  sacrifices 
in>  433>  57o  ;  propitiation  of  dead 
leopard  in,  523  ;  the  external  soul  in, 
684  ;  ritual  of  death  and  resurrection 
in,  697 

Afterbirth,  contagious  magic  of,  39-41 
Agar  Dinka,  the,  270 
Agaric,  superstitions  as  to,  618 
Agdestis,  a  man-monster,  349 
Age  of  magic,  55,  56 
Agni,  Indian  fire-god,  708 
Agricultural  year,  expulsion  of  demons 
timed  to  coincide  with  seasons  of  the, 
575  . 

Agrionia,  festival  at  Orchomenus,  291 
Agu,  Mount,  in  Togo,  wind- fetish  on,  81 ; 

fetish  priest  on,  169 
Ague,  cure  for,  545,  546 
Aht  or  Nootka  Indians,  599 
Ainos,  481,  496,  515,  528,  530,  532  ;  of 
Japan,  252,  505,  506,  660  ;  of  Saghalien, 
20,  509 

Akikuyu  of  British  East  Africa,  145,  604 


INDEX 


716 

Aladdin  and  the  Wonderful  Lamp,  Roman 
version  of,  671 
Alake,  the,  of  Abeokuta,  295 
Alaska,  respect  of  hunters  for  dead  sables 
and  bears  in,  525  ;  expulsion  of  evils  in, 
551  ;  seclusion  of  girls  at  puberty  in, 
600 

Alba  Longa,  148  ;  kings  of,  149 
Alban  dynasty,  149 ;  hills,  148 ;  lake, 
149  ;  mountain,  149,  150,  167 
Albania,  milk-stones  in,  34  ;  mock  lamen¬ 
tations  for  locusts  and  beetles  in,  531  ; 
expulsion  of  Kore  on  Easter  Eve  in,  560  ; 
the  Yule  log  in,  638 
Albanians  of  the  Caucasus,  251,  571 
Albigenses  worshipped  each  other,  101 
Alchemy  leads  up  to  chemistry,  92 
Aleuts  of  Alaska,  221 
Alexandria,  festival  of  Adonis  at,  335 
Alexandrian  calendar,  374  ;  year,  373 
Alfai,  rain-making  priest,  107 
Alfoors,  of  the  island  of  Buru,  250  ;  of 
Central  Celebes,  18 1, 690  ;  of  Halmahera, 
548  ;  of  Minahassa,  94,  95,  186,  482, 
492  ;  of  Poso,  248 
Algeria,  Midsummer  fires  in,  631 
Algidus,  Mount,  150,  164 
Algonquins,  144 

All-healer,  name  applied  to  mistletoe, 
659-61 

All  Saints’  Day,  634,  636 

All  Souls,  feast  of,  360 

Allan,  John  Hay,  on  the  Hays  of  Errol,  702 

Allatu,  Babylonian  goddess,  326,  327 

All-Hallows  (All  Saints’  Day),  173 

Almond,  causes  virgin  to  conceive,  347  ; 

the  father  of  all  things,  347 
Alpheus,  the  sacred,  no 
Alqamar,  tribe  of  noftiads,  64 
Alsace,  May-trees  in,  12 1  ;  the  Little  May 
Rose  in,  125  ;  stuffed  goat  or  fox  at 
threshing  in,  457  ;  cats  burnt  in  Easter 
bonfires  in,  656 

Altmark,  the  May  Bride  at  Whitsuntide 
in  the,  135  ;  Easter  bonfires  in  the,  615, 
616 

Alvarado,  Pedro  de,  Spanish  general,  687 
Amaxosa  Caff  res,  52  2 
Amazon,  Indians  at  the  mouth  of  the,  581 
Amboyna,  rice  in  bloom  treated  like  a 
pregnant  woman,  115  ;  ceremony  to 
fertilise  clove- trees  in,  137  ;  fear  to  lose 
the  shadow  at  noon  in,  19 1  ;  sick  people 
sprinkled  with  pungent  spices  in,  196  ; 
superstition  regarding  hair  in,  680 
America,  power  of  medicine  men  in  North, 
87  ;  continence  in  Central,  138  ;  the 
Corn  Mother  in,  412  ;  personification  of 
maize  in  North,  419  ;  first-fruit  cere¬ 
monies  in,  486,  487 

American  Indians,  29,  63,  82,  87,  hi,  136, 
138,  214,  244,  246,  252,  253,  256,  264, 
522.  See  also  North  American  Indians 
Amethysts  as  charms,  34,  85 


Ammon,  the  god,  142,  477,  50c 
Amoy,  spirits  who  draw  away  the  souls  of 
children  at,  186 

Amphictyon,  king  of  Athens,  155 
Amulets,  109,  242,  243,  679,  680 
Amulius  Silvius,  149 
Anabis,  human  god  at,  96 
Anaitis,  Persian  goddess,  331 
Anatomie  of  Abuses,  123 
Ancestor,  wooden  image  of,  679 
Ancestors,  prayers  to,  71  ;  sacrifices  to, 
72  ;  souls  of,  in  trees,  115  ;  names  of, 
bestowed  on  their  reincarnations,  256 
Ancus  Marcius,  Roman  king,  158 
Andaman  Islanders,  192 
Anderida,  forest  of,  109 
Andes,  the  Peruvian,  79  ;  the  Colombian, 
104 

Anemone,  the  scarlet,  336 
Angamis,  Eastern,  of  Manipur,  64 
Angola,  the  Matiamvo  of,  271 
Angoni,  the,  73,  214 
Angoniland,  rain-making  in,  63 
Angoy,  king  of,  273 
Anhouri,  Egyptian  god,  265 
Animal,  killing  the  divine,  499-518  ;  and 
man,  sympathetic  relation  between,  700 
Animals,  homoeopathic  magic  of,  31  ; 
association  of  ideas  common  to  the,  54  ; 
rain-making  by  means  of,  72  ;  injured 
through  their  shadows,  190  ;  propitiation 
of  the  spirits  of  slain,  217,  220  ;  torn  to 
pieces  and  devoured  in  religious  rites, 
390,  391  ;  so-called  unclean,  originally 
sacred,  472  ;  belief  in  the  descent  of 
men  from,  473  ;  resurrection  of,  516, 
528,  529  ;  wild,  propitiation  of,  518-32  ; 
two  forms  of  the  worship  of,  532  ;  pro¬ 
cessions  with  sacred,  535  ;  transference 
of  evil  to,  540-42  ;  as  scapegoats,  540, 
565,  568,  570,  576  ;  burnt  at  festivals, 
655,  656  ;  perhaps  deemed  embodiments 
of  witches,  657,  658  ;  external  soul  in, 
683-91 

Animism,  the  Buddhist,  not  a  philosophical 
theory,  112  ;  passing  into  polytheism, 
11 7 

Anjea,  mythical  being,  39 
Anna  Kuari,  an  Oraon  goddess,  434 
Annam,  ceremonies  observed  when  a  whale 
is  washed  ashore  in,  223 
Anointing  stones,  in  order  to  avert  bullets 
from  absent  warriors,  26  ;  in  a  rain- 
charm,  76 

Anointment,  of  weapon  which  caused 
wound,  41  ;  of  priest  at  installation,  174 
Anthropomorphism  of  the  spirits  of  nature, 

423 

Antigonus,  King,  97 
Antioch,  festival  of  Adonis  at,  336,  346 
Antrim,  harvest  customs  in,  404 
Ants,  bites  of,  used  in  purificatory  cere¬ 
monies,  195,  601  ;  for  lethargic  patients, 
496 


INDEX 


717 


Anubis,  the  jackal-headed  god,  366,  367, 
374 

Anula  tribe  of  Northern  Australia,  64,  72, 
693 

Apaches,  the,  76,  21 1 
Apalai  Indians,  195 
Ape,  a  Batak  totem,  691 
Aphrodite,  4  ;  and  Adonis,  7,  327,  335  ; 
the  mourning,  of  the  Lebanon,  329 ; 
sanctuary  of,  330 ;  and  Cinyras  and 
Pygmalion,  332  ;  her  blood  dyes  white 
roses  red,  336 

Apis,  sacred  Egyptian  bull,  335,  365,  476, 
501 

Apollo,  prophetess  of,  95  ;  image  of,  in 
sacred  cave  at  Hylae,  95  ;  and  Artemis, 
120  ;  at  Delphi,  265  ;  his  musical  con¬ 
test  with  Marsyas,  354  ;  identified  with 
the  Celtic  Grannus,  61 1 
Apollo  Diradiotes,  inspired  priestess  at 
temple  of,  94 

Apologies  offered  to  trees,  113,  115,  116  ; 
by  savages  to  the  animals  they  kill,  520, 

523 

Apoyaos,  head-hunters,  433 
Apple-tree,  barren  women  roll  under,  to 
obtain  offspring,  120  ;  straw  man  placed 
on  oldest,  467  ;  torches  thrown  at,  610  ; 
as  life-index  of  boy,  682 
Arab  charms,  31,  242  ;  name  for  the  scarlet 
anemone,  336 

Arabia,  belief  as  to  shadows  in  ancient, 
190  ;  camel  as  scapegoat  in,  540 
Arabian  Nights,  story  of  the  external  soul 
in  the,  674 

Arabs,  of  Moab,  32,  378  ;  of  North  Africa, 
70 

Araucanians  of  South  America,  245 
Archigallus,  high  priest  of  Attis,  349,  353 
Arctic  regions,  ceremonies  at  the  re¬ 
appearance  of  the  sun  in  the,  551 
Arden,  forest  of,  no 

Ardennes,  effigies  of  Carnival  in  the,  305  ; 
exorcising  rats  in  the,  53 1  ;  bonfires  on 
the  first  Sunday  in  Lent,  609,  656 ; 
Lenten  fires  and  customs  in  the  French, 
610 

Aricia,  1,  2  ;  many  Manii  at,  6,  491  ;  its 
distance  from  the  sanctuary,  106  ;  the 
priest  of,  582,  592,  593,  703 
Arician  grove,  5,  6,  301,  477*9,  49I>  582, 
704 

Arizona,  aridity  of,  76 
Armenia,  rain-making  in,  70  ;  cut  hair, 
nails,  and  extracted  teeth  preserved  in, 
236  ;  sacred  prostitution  of  girls  before 
marriage  in,  331 

Arrows,  in  homoeopathic  magic,  29  ;  in 
contagious  magic,  41  ;  fire-tipped,  shot 
at  sun  during  an  eclipse,  78  ;  shot  as  a 
rain-charm,  99 

Arsacid  house,  divinity  of  Parthian  kings 
of  the,  104 

Art,  sylvan  deities  in  classical,  117 


Artemis,  120,  140,  141  ;  and  Hippolytus, 
4-7  ;  and  Apollo,  120  ;  of  Ephesus,  141, 
349  ;  at  Perga,  330  ;  the  Hanged,  355 
Aru  Islands,  custom  of  not  sleeping  after 
a  death  in  the,  182  ;  dog’s  flesh  eaten  to 
make  eater  brave,  496 
Arunta  of  Central  Australia,  17,  603 
Arval  Brothers,  224,  578 
Aryan  god  of  thunder,  638 
Aryans,  magical  powers  ascribed  to  kings, 
89  ;  in  Europe,  no,  159,  161,  163,  656, 
665  ;  descent  of  kingship  through 
women,  155  ;  of  ancient  India,  490 ; 
their  use  of  the  sacred  oak-wood,  666  ; 
stories  of  the  external  soul,  668  ;  rever¬ 
ence  for  the  oak,  709 
Ascension  Day,  312,  702 
Ascetic  idealism  of  the  East,  139 
Ash-tree  in  popular  cures,  546,  682 
Ash  Wednesday,  302,  304,  305,  461,  614 
Ashantees,  497 

Ashes,  in  magic,  30-32,  72,  76  ;  of  human 
victims  scattered  on  fields,  378-80,  433, 
436-8,  442,  443  ;  of  bonfires,  use  of,  61 1, 
615,  621,  635,  645,  646  ;  of  Midsummer 
fires,  626,  629,  631,  632  ;  of  the  Yule  log, 
637  ;  of  the  need-fire,  640 
Asia  Minor,  pontiffs  in,  9  ;  human  scape¬ 
goats  in,  579 

Asongtata,  annual  ceremony  performed  by 
the  Garos  of  Assam,  568 
Asopus,  the  river,  143 
Aspalis,  a  form  of  Artemis,  355 
Ass,  in  cure  for  scorpion’s  bite,  544 
Assam,  the  hill  tribes  of,  taboos  observed 
by  the  headman  and  his  wife,  173,  and 
by  warriors,  212  ;  parents  named  after 
their  children  in,  248  ;  head-hunting  in, 
441  ;  the  Asongtata  ceremony  in,  568 
Assumption  of  the  Virgin,  festival  of,  360 
Astarte,  a  great  Babylonian  goddess,  32 7, 
335,  346 

Athamas,  king  of  Alus,  290-92 
Athena  and  the  aegis,  477 
Athenian  sacrifice  of  the  bouphonia,  466 
Athenians,  decree  divine  honours  to 
Demetrius  Poliorcetes  and  his  father 
Antigonus,  9 7  ;  prayed  to  Zeus  for  rain, 
159  ;  their  tribute  of  youths  and 
maidens  to  Minos,  280 ;  sacrifice  to 
Dionysus  for  the  fruits  of  the  land,  386  ; 
their  use  of  human  scapegoats,  579 
Athens,  king  and  queen  at,  9  ;  titular  king 
at,  106  ;  marriage  of  Dionysus  at,  142  ; 
female  kinship  at,  155  ;  sacred  spots 
struck  by  lightning  at,  159  ;  the  Com¬ 
memoration  of  the  Dead  at,  340 ; 
Dionysus  of  the  Black  Goatskin  at,  390  ; 
annual  sacrifice  of  a  goat  on  the  Acropolis 
of,  477  ;  fever  transferred  to  pillar  at, 

545 

Atonement,  Jewish  Day  of,  569 
Attica,  summer  festival  of  Adonis  in,  336  ; 
Flowery  Dionysus  in,  387 ;  time  of 


7 18 


INDEX 


threshing  in,  466  ;  killing  an  ox  formerly 
a  capital  crime  in,  466 
Attis,  and  Cybele,  4,  5,  8  ;  myth  and  ritual 
of,  347-52  ;  as  a  god  of  vegetation,  352, 
353  ;  human  representatives  of,  353-6  ; 
his  relation  to  Lityerses,  440  ;  killed  by 
a  boar,  471 
Augustine,  359,  382 
Augustus  as  a  ruler,  46 
Aun  or  On,  king  of  Sweden,  278,  290 
Aurelia  Aemilia,  a  sacred  harlot,  331 
Australia,  magical  ceremonies  in,  17 ; 
charms  in,  32  ;  contagious  magic  in,  38, 
39,  42,  44,  45  ;  magic  practised  but 
religion  nearly  unknown  in  aboriginal, 
55  ;  rain-making  in,  64,  65,  72,  76 ; 
detaining  the  sun  or  hastening  its  descent 
in,  80  ;  dust  columns  thought  to  be 
spirits  in,  82  ;  government  of  old  men  in 
aboriginal,  83  ;  ceremony  observed  at 
approaching  the  camp  of  another  tribe, 
197  ;  totemism  in,  533  ;  annual  ex¬ 
pulsion  of  ghosts  in,  550  ;  dread  and 
seclusion  of  women  at  menstruation  in, 
603  ;  initiation  of  young  men  in,  692 

- ,  Central,  magical  ceremonies  for  the 

supply  of  food  in,  17  ;  charm  to  promote 
the  growth  of  beards  in,  32  ;  contagious 
magic  of  wounds  in,  42  ;  headmen  of 
totem  clans  public  magicians  in,  83  ; 
concealment  of  personal  names  in,  245  ; 
avoidance  of  the  names  of  the  dead  in, 
252  ;  magical  rites  for  the  revival  of 
nature  in,  323  ;  expelling  the  devil  in, 
548 

- - ,  Northern,  homoeopathic  magic  of 

flesh  diet  in,  496 

- ,  South-eastern,  contagious  magic  of 

footprints  in,  44,  and  of  bodily  im¬ 
pressions,  45  ;  sex  totems  in,  687-9 

- ,  Western,  belief  as  to  the  placenta  in,  39 

Australian  aborigines  (blacks),  38,  39,  55, 
80,  179,  190,  205,  207,  229,  234,  244,  251, 
253,  254,  349,  533,  539,  55i 
Austria,  charm  to  make  fruit  trees  bear  in, 
28  ;  belief  in  the  sensitiveness  of  trees, 
113  ;  harvest  customs  in,  405  ;  children 
warned  against  the  Corn-cock  in,  451  ; 
mythical  calf  in  the  corn  in,  459  ;  Mid¬ 
summer  fires  in,  625  ;  the  mistletoe  in, 
663 

Autumn-hen,  last  sheaf  called,  451 
Auvergne,  Lenten  fires  in,  61 1 
Auxerre,  harvest  customs  in,  401,  459 
Auxesia  and  Damia,  7 
Awa-nkonde,  the,  596 
“  Awasungu,  house  of  the,”  596 
Axe,  that  slew  ox,  condemned,  466 
Axo-mama  (Potato-mother),  413 
Aymara  Indians,  73,  565 
Azadirachia  Indica,  72 
Aztecs,  488,  587,  681 

Ba-Pedi  of  South  Africa,  209,  211,  220 


Ba-Ronga  of  South  Africa,  677 
Ba-Thonga  of  South  Africa,  211,  220 
Baal,  prophets  of,  66 
Baba,  name  given  to  last  sheaf,  404 
Babar  Archipelago,  ceremony  to  obtain  a 
child  for  barren  woman  in  the,  14 ; 
saturnalia  at  marriage  of  Sun  and 
Earth,  136-7 ;  fatigue  transferred  to 
stones  in  the,  540 

Babylon,  theocratic  despotism  of  ancient, 
48  ;  sanctuary  of  Bel  at,  142  ;  mortality 
of  the  high  gods  of,  265  ;  festival  of 
Zagmuk  at,  281  ;  festival  of  Sacaea  at, 
282  ;  sanctified  harlotry  at,  330 
Babylonia,  divinity  of  the  early  kings,  104  ; 

worship  of  Adonis  in,  325 
Bacchanals  of  Thrace,  ivy  eaten  by,  95  ; 
tore  Pentheus  in  pieces,  378,  392  ;  wore 
horns,  390 
Bacchic  frenzy,  291 

Bacchus  or  Dionysus,  386.  See  Dionysus 
Badagas  of  the  Neilgherry  Hills,  482,  541, 
542 

Badonsachen,  king  of  Burma,  99 
Baduwis  of  Java,  225 
Baffin  Land,  expulsion  of  Sedna  in,  552 
Bag,  souls  of  persons  deposited  in  a,  186, 
675,  679  ;  soul  of  dying  chief  caught  in 
a,  294,  295 

Baganda  of  Central  Africa,  40,  98,  137, 
145,  523,  539,  604 
Bagba,  a  wind- fetish,  81,  170 
Bageshu  of  East  Africa,  214 
Bagobos  of  Minandao,  180,  33s,  433 
Bahaus.  See  Kayans 
Bahima,  of  Central  Africa,  257 ;  of  Uganda, 
539 

Bailly,  J.  S.,  French  astronomer,  337 
Balder,  the  myth  of,  607-9  I  and  the 
mistletoe,  608,  658-67,  701,  702,  710 
Balder’ s  Balefires,  625,  664 
Bali,  island  of,  rice  personified  as  husband 
and  wife  in,  418  ;  expulsion  of  devils  in, 
557 

Ball-players,  homoeopathic  charms  em¬ 
ployed  by,  29 

Balls,  gold  and  silver,  to  imitate  the  sun 
and  moon,  12 1 

Balong  of  the  Cameroons,  685 
Bangala  of  the  Upper  Congo,  247 
Banjars  in  West  Africa,  86 
Banks’  Islands,  magical  stones  in  the,  33  ; 
making  sunshine  in  the,  78-9  ;  ghosts  in 
stones  in  the,  190  ;  ceremony  for  getting 
rid  of  fatigue  in  the,  540 
Banting  in  Sarawak,  rules  observed  during 
absence  of  warriors  at,  25 
Bantu  tribes,  209,  215 
Banyoro,  the,  85,  565 
Barea  of  East  Africa,  107 
Barenton,  the  fountain  of,  76,  77 
Bari  of  the  Upper  Nile,  85 
Barley,  oldest  cereal  cultivated  by  the 
Aryans,  399 


INDEX 


Barley-cow,  457,  458  ;  -mother,  399  ; 

-sow,  460  ;  -wolf,  448,  449 
Baronga,  the,  of  South  Africa,  67,  71 
Barren  women.  See  under  Women 
Bashilange,  reception  of  subject  chiefs  by 
head  chief  among  the,  198 
Basque  hunter  transformed  into  bear,  692, 
699 

Bastard,  name  given  to  last  sheaf,  406 
Bastian,  Adolf,  533 
Basutos,  38,  192,  214 
Bataks  of  Sumatra,  14,  40,  82,  184,  198, 
541,  570,  690,  691 
Batavia,  rain-making  in,  72 
Batchelor,  Rev.  J.,  506,  515,  516 
Bathing  as  a  rain-charm,  70 
Bats,  the  lives  of  men  in,  687,  688 
Bavaria,  charms  in,  28  ;  magic  in,  29,  40, 
42,  43  ;  greasing  weapon  instead  of 
wound  in,  42  ;  green  bushes  placed  at 
doors  of  newly  married  pairs  in,  119  ; 
the  May-pole  in,  124  ;  the  Walber  in, 
126  ;  saying  as  to  crossed  legs  in,  240  ; 
Whitsuntide  mummers  in  Lower,  297  ; 
carrying  out  Death  in,  307  ;  contests 
between  Summer  and  Winter  in,  316  ; 
the  corn-spirit  in,  402  ;  harvest  customs 
in,  405,  426-8,  454,  456,  457,  461  ;  cure 
for  fever  in,  544  ;  expulsion  of  witches 
in,  561  ;  Easter  fires  in,  616 ;  Mid¬ 
summer  fires  in,  623,  653 
Bean,  King  of  the,  586 
Bean-cock,  451  ;  -goat,  454 
Bear,  taboos  concerning,  221  ;  custom 
observed  after  killing  a,  222  ;  killing 
the  sacred,  505 

Beards,  magic  to  promote  growth  of,  32 
Beasts,  sacred,  held  responsible  for  the 
course  of  nature  in  ancient  Egypt,  87 
Beating  a  man’s  garment  instead  of  the 

I  man,  44  ;  with  rods  in  rain-making,  66  ; 
frogs,  as  a  rain-charm,  73 
Beauce  and  Perche,  40 
Bechuanas,  the,  of  South  Africa,  31,  73, 
197,  474,  484 

Bed-clothes,  contagious  magic  of  bodily 
impressions  on,  45 

Bede,  on  the  succession  of  Pictish  kings,  156 
Bedouins  attack  whirlwinds,  83 

I  Beeches  of  Latium,  150 

Beech-tree,  in  sacred  grove  of  Diana,  8  ; 

burnt  in  Lenten  bonfire,  612 
Beena  marriage,  152 

Beer,  continence  observed  at  brewing,  219 
Beetle,  in  magic,  31  ;  superstitious  pre¬ 
cautions  against  beetles,  531  ;  external 
soul  in  a,  674 

Belgium,  Lenten  fires  in,  609  ;  Midsummer 
fires  in,  630 

Bella  Coola  Indians,  600 
Bells,  used  in  exorcism,  195,  568  ;  to  con¬ 
jure  spirits,  199  ;  worn  as  amulets,  226  ; 
rung  as  a  protection  against  witches, 
560,  561 


719 

Beltane  fires,  617-22,  653  ;  cakes,  618-21  ; 
carline,  618 

Benares,  Hindoo  gentleman  worshipped  as 
a  god  at,  100 

Bengal,  marriage  ceremony  at  the  digging 
of  wells,  144  ;  rule  of  succession  of  kings 
of,  2 77  ;  ceremony  over  a  Karma-tree 
in,  342  ;  human  sacrifices  in,  434  ; 
seclusion  of  girls  at  puberty  in,  602  ; 
stories  of  the  external  soul  in,  670 
Benin,  king  of,  worshipped  as  a  god,  99, 
200  ;  human  sacrifices  in,  433 
Bera  Pennu,  Earth  goddess,  434 
Berawans  of  Sarawak,  15 
Berbers  of  North  Africa,  631 
Berlin,  treatment  of  navel-string  in,  40 
Besisis  of  the  Malay  Peninsula,  191 
Besoms,  burning,  flung  into  the  air  to 
make  corn  grow,  647 
Bethlehem,  the  Star  of,  347 
Betsileo  of  Madagascar,  229 
Bhars  of  India,  565 
Bhotiyas  of  Juhar,  569 
Biajas  of  Borneo,  the,  566 
Bibili,  off  New  Guinea,  the  natives  reputed 
to  make  wind,  80 

Bidasari  and  the  golden  fish,  Malay  story 
of,  676 

Bilaspur  or  Bilaspore,  twirling  spindles  for¬ 
bidden  in,  20  ;  temporary  rajah  in,  287 
Bilqula.  See  Bella  Coola 
Binbinga  tribe  of  Northern  Australia,  693 
Birch-trees,  121,  128,  627 
Bird,  soul  conceived  as  a,  18 1 
Birds,  cause  headache  through  clipped  hair, 
234,  237  ;  absent  warriors  called,  247  ; 
tongues  of,  eaten,  496  ;  as  scapegoats, 
541,  545  ;  external  souls  in,  670,  672, 
675-7 

Birth,  pretence  of,  14,  15,  197,  406,  421  ; 
a  man’s  fortune  determined  by  the  day 
and  hour  of  his,  37  ;  new,  351,  697 
Birth- trees,  in  Africa,  681  ;  in  Europe,  682 
Bitch,  last  sheaf  called  the,  449 
Bithynia,  song  of  reapers  in,  425 
Black  colour  in  rain-making  ceremonies, 
67  ;  animals  in  rain-charms,  72,  161 
Blackfoot  Indians,  21,  22,  524 
Blindness,  charm  to  cause,  30 
Blood,  sympathetic  connection  between  a 
wounded  person  and  his  shed,  43  ; 
human,  in  rain-making  ceremonies,  65  ; 
as  a  means  of  inspiration,  94  ;  smeared 
on  woodwork  of  house,  1 17  ;  put  on  door¬ 
posts,  175  ;  of  childbirth,  209,  229 ; 
smeared  on  person  as  a  purification,  221 ; 
tabooed,  227-30  ;  royal,  not  to  be  shed 
on  the  ground,  228  ;  unwillingness  to 
shed,  228  ;  received  on  bodies  of  kins- 
.  folk,  229  ;  drops  of,  effaced,  229  ;  of 
chief  sacred,  230  ;  fetish  priests  allowed 
to  drink  fresh,  238  ;  Day  of,  in  the 
festival  of  Attis,  349,  353  5  bath  of  bull’s, 
in  the  rites  of  Attis,  351  ;  remission  of 


7  20 


INDEX 


sins  through  the  shedding  of,  356  ; 
sprinkled  on  seed  and  scattered  on  field, 
432,  434,  438  ;  of  sacrificial  horse,  478  ; 
of  men  drunk  to  acquire  their  qualities, 
497,  498  ;  as  a  means  of  communion 
with  a  deity,  535  ;  of  children  used  to 
knead  a  paste,  553;  girls  at  puberty  for¬ 
bidden  to  see,  600;  menstruous,  603,  604 
Blood-brotherhood,  113;  -covenant,  202 
Blu-u  Kayans  of  Borneo,  195 
Boa-constrictor,  Caffres’  dread  of,  222 
Boar,  in  magic,  31  ;  and  Adonis,  325,  471  ; 
Attis  killed  by  a,  347,  471 ;  corn-spirit  as, 
460;  the  Yule,  461,  462;  Christmas,  462 
Boas,  Dr.  Franz,  699 
Boba,  name  given  to  the  last  sheaf,  405 
Bodio,  fetish  king,  86 
Boeotians,  the,  143,  371 
Bogota,  rigorous  training  of  the  heir  to  the 
throne  of,  595 

Bohemia,  Midsummer  tree  burned  in,  122  ; 
throwing  Death  into  the  water  in,  125  ; 
May  King  and  Queen  in,  130-32  ;  Whit¬ 
suntide  mummers  in,  298,  299  ;  carrying 
out  Death  in,  309,  310 ;  bringing  in 
Summer  in,  311  ;  the  last  sheaf  in,  404  ; 
harvest  customs  in,  429,  456,  457  ;  cure 
for  fever  in,  544  ;  expulsion  of  witches 
in,  561  ;  bonfires  in,  621,  626  ;  charm  to 
make  corn  grow  high  in,  647  ;  fern-seed 
on  St.  John’s  Day  in,  704,  705 
Boils,  473 

Bolivia,  seclusion  of  girls  at  puberty  in,  601 
Bombay,  belief  as  to  absence  of  sleeper’s 
soul  in,  183 

Bones,  of  dead  in  magic,  30,  71  ;  human, 
buried  as  a  rain-charm,  7 2  ;  departing 
souls  bottled  up  in  hollow,  180  ;  used  as 
charms,  201,  495  ;  cakes  baked  in  the 
shape  of,  489  ;  of  animals,  treatment  of, 
525-9  ;  burnt  in  bonfires,  616 
Bonfires,  Midsummer,  122,  622,  629,  645  ; 
leaping  over,  318,  610 ;  supposed  to 
protect  against  conflagration,  610  ;  lit 
by  persons  last  married,  610  ;  a  protec¬ 
tion  against  sickness,  witchcraft,  and 
sorcery,  610,  620,  621  ;  fertilising  in¬ 
fluence  of,  645,  646 ;  protect  fields 
against  hail  and  homesteads  against 
thunder  and  lightning,  649 
Boni,  Commendatore  G.,  163 
Bontoc,  the  natives  of,  433 
Bormus  or  Borimus,  425,  442 
Borneo,  the  Dyaks  of,  14  ;  rules  observed 
by  camphor-hunters  in,  21  ;  telepathy 
in  war  in,  25  ;  hooks  to  catch  souls  in, 
180  ;  rice  used  to  prevent  soul  from 
wandering,  18 1  ;  precautions  against 
strangers  in,  195  ;  use  of  puppets  as 
substitutes  for  living  persons,  492  ;  sick¬ 
ness  expelled  in  a  ship  from,  564  ;  ex¬ 
pulsion  of  evils  in,  566  ;  seclusion  of  girls 
at  puberty  in,  597  ;  birth  custom  in, 
679  ;  tree  as  life-index  in,  682 


Bororos  of  Brazil,  181,  484 
Bosnian  Turks,  15 

Bough,  the  Golden.  See  Golden  Bough 
Bouphonia,  Athenian  sacrifice,  466 
Boys,  at  initiation,  692,  696 
Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Siva,  the  Hindoo 
trinity,  52 

Brahmans,  33,  67,  79,  100,  22 7,  245,  285, 
288,  343,  490 

Brains  of  enemies  eaten,  498 
Branches,  used  in  rain-charm,  63,  64  ;  in 
exorcism,  197 ;  fatigue  and  sickness 
transferred  to,  540,  564 
Brand,  John,  636,  637 
Brandy,  North  American  Indian  theory  of, 
496 

Bray,  Mrs.,  446 

Brazil,  Indians  of,  88,  181,  495,  523,  581  ; 

seclusion  of  girls  at  puberty  in,  601 
Bread,  leavened,  Flamen  Dialis  forbidden 
to  touch,  174  ;  fast  from,  in  mourning 
for  Attis,  350  ;  communion,  481  ;  eaten 
sacramentally,  488,  498 
Bread-fruit,  33 

Breath,  of  chief  sacred,  205,  231  ;  caught 
by  his  successor,  294 

Brethren  and  Sisters  of  the  Free  Spirit, 
101 

Breton  superstitions  as  to  tides,  35  ; 
peasants’  way  of  getting  rain,  76  ;  stories 
of  the  external  soul,  674  ;  peasants  and 
the  mistletoe,  704 

Brewing,  continence  observed  at,  219 
Bribri  Indians,  the,  208,  605 
Bride,  the  Whitsuntide,  132, 135  ;  the  May, 
135  :  races  for  a,  156 ;  fishing-net 
thrown  over,  242  ;  of  the  Nile,  370  ; 
name  given  to  last  sheaf,  408 
Bride  and  bridegroom,  the  Whitsuntide, 

133  ;  the  Midsummer,  133;  all  knots  on 
their  garments  unloosed,  241 

Bridegroom,  the  Whitsuntide,  133  ;  of 
May,  133,  320 

Bridget  in  Scotland  and  the  Isle  of  Man, 

134 

Brigit,  a  Celtic  goddess,  135 
Brimo  and  Brimos  in  the  mysteries  of 
Eleusis,  143 

British  Columbia.  See  Columbia,  British 
Brittany,  belief  as  to  death  at  ebb-tide  in, 
35  ;  the  Mother-sheaf  in  Upper,  401  ; 
Midsummer  fires  in,  628  ;  mistletoe 
as  a  protection  against  witchcraft  in, 
704;  fern-seed  on  Midsummer  Eve  in, 

705 

Brooke,  Rajah,  of  Sarawak,  89 
Brotherhood  of  the  Green  Wolf,  628 
Brothers,  childless  persons  named  after 
their  younger,  248  ;  ancient  Egyptian 
story  of  the  Two,  674 

- and  sisters,  marriage  of,  332 

Brothers-in-law,  their  names  not  to  be 
pronounced,  250,  251 
Brown,  Dr.  George,  84 


INDEX 


721 


Buddha,  images  of,  drenched  as  a  rain- 
charm,  77  ;  the  Footprint  of,  235 
Buddhas,  living,  102 
Buddhism,  112  ;  and  Christianity,  361 
Buffalo,  sacrificed  for  human  victim,  436  ; 

a  Batak  totem,  691 
Buffalo-bull,  last  sheaf  called,  457 
Buffaloes,  propitiation  of  dead,  523  ;  the 
resurrection  of,  529  ;  revered  by  the 
Todas,  534  ;  as  scapegoats,  565 
Buginese  of  Celebes,  33 
Building,  continence  during,  220 
Bukaua  of  New  Guinea,  597,  694 
Bulgaria,  15  ;  charms  in,  30,  31  ;  peasants 
threaten  fruit  trees  to  make  them  bear, 

1 14  5  superstitions  in,  240  ;  harvest 
customs  in,  405  ;  cure  for  fever  in,  54s  ; 
need-fire  in,  640 

Bull,  in  relation  to  Dionysus,  389,  390  ; 
corn-spirit  as,  457,  465  ;  at  threshing, 
458,  459 

Bull’s  blood,  bath  of,  in  rites  of  Attis,  351 
Bull-roarers,  692-5 

Bullets,  magical  treatment  of,  19  5  magical 
modes  of  averting,  26 
Bullocks  as  scapegoats,  541 
Bulls,  sacred,  of  Ancient  Egypt,  476 
Bunyoro,  king  of,  199,  270 
Burghers  or  Badagas.  See  Badagas 
Burglars,  charms  employed  by,  30 
Burial  customs,  35,  175,  185,  190 
Burma,  priestly  king  in,  226,  227  ;  king’s 
name  tabooed  in,  257  ;  custom  of  thresh- 
ing  in,  418  ;  expulsion  of  demons  in,  549 
Burne,  Miss  C.  S.,  446 
iBuru,  East  Indian  island,  girl  sacrificed  to 
crocodile  in,  145  ;  eating  the  soul  of  the 
rice  in,  482  ;  dog’s  flesh  eaten  in,  496 
Burying  the  Carnival,  301-7 
Bush  negroes  of  Surinam,  166,  473 
Bushmen  of  South  Africa,  495,  604 
Busiris,  backbone  of  Osiris  at,  367  ;  ritual 
of  Osiris  at,  375  ;  “  the  house  of  Osiris,” 
443 

3usiris,  king  of  Egypt,  443 
3utter,  time  for  making,  35 
Buzzard,  killing  the  sacred,  499 
3yblus,  Adonis  at,  327  ;  Osiris  and  Isis  at, 

364 

iacongo,  king  of,  199 
,Vactus,  the  sacred,  23 
ladiz,  death  at  low  tide  at,  35 
aesar,  Julius,  46,  653 
(affres,  the,  222,  235,  247-9,  522  ;  of 
Sofala,  33  ;  of  Natal  and  Zululand,  483 
ailleach  (Old  Wife),  name  given  to  last 
corn  cut,  403,  409 

airo,  ceremony  of  cutting  the  dams  at,  370 
ajaboneros  Indians,  the,  138 
alabar,  expulsion  of  demons  at  Old,  492, 
567  ;  soul  of  chief  in  sacred  grove  at, 

1  681  ;  belief  of  negroes  regarding  external 
1  souls,  686 


Calabashes,  souls  shut  up  in,  188 
Calabria,  Easter  custom  in,  345  ;  annual 
expulsion  of  witches  in,  560 
Calendar,  the  ancient  Greek,  279  ;  regula¬ 
tion  of  the  early,  an  affair  of  religion, 
280  ;  the  Egyptian,  368  ;  the  Alex¬ 
andrian,  373  ;  of  Esne,  373  ;  the 
Mohammedan,  632 

Calf,  killed  at  harvest,  458  ;  mythical,  in 
the  corn,  459 

Calicut,  rule  of  succession  observed  by  the 
kings  of,  275-7,  296 

California,  the  shaman  in,  88  ;  killing  the 
sacredbuzzardin, 499;  Indiansof, 599, 707 
Caligula  and  the  priest  of  Nemi,  3 
Cambodia,  homoeopathic  magic  used  by 
hunters  in,  18  ;  human  incarnation  of 
god  in,  95  ;  kings  of,  108,  167,  224,  266, 
284,  289  ;  superstitions  regarding  the 
head  in,  230 ;  annual  expulsion  of 
demons  in,  559 ;  palace  purged  of 
demons,  563 ;  seclusion  of  girls  at 
puberty,  602  ;  ritual  at  cutting  a  para¬ 
sitic  orchid  in,  660,  661 
Cambodian  story  of  the  external  soul,  668 
Camel,  plague  transferred  to,  540 
Cameroons,  the  external  soul  in  the,  681 ; 
theory  of,  685 

Camomile,  burnt  in  Midsummer  fire,  631 
Camp  shifted  after  a  death,  252 
Campbell,  Major-General  John,  436,  437 

- ,  Rev.  J.  G.,  403 

Camphor,  21,  24 
Canadian  Indians,  525,  526 
Candlemas,  134,  461 

Candles,  3;  magical,  30;  of  human  tallow,  56 
Cannibal  feast,  legendary,  at  the  Boeotian 
Orchomenus,  292 
Cannibalism,  233,  391,  497 
Caprification,  580 

Car  Nicobar,  expulsion  of  devils  in,  567 
Caramantran,  death  of,  304 
Caribs,  the,  2 7,  495,  690 
Carinthia,  Green  George  in,  126  ;  ceremony 
at  the  installation  of  a  prince  of,  287 ; 
custom  at  threshing  in,  429 
Carlin  or  Carline,  “  the  Old  Woman,”  in 
Scotland,  403 

Carnival,  dances  at  the,  28  ;  burying  the, 
298,  301-7  ;  the  burial  and  resurrection 
of  the,  315  ;  at  Rome  in  the  rites  of 
Attis,  350  ;  in  relation  to  the  Saturnalia, 
586  ;  effigy  burnt  at  end  of,  614 
Carolina,  Indians  of,  519 
Caroline  Islands,  40,  218 ;  traditionary 
origin  of  fire  in  the,  707 
Carpathus,  laying  out  of  corpses  in,  243 
Carrier  Indians  of  North-West  America, 

18,  219,  606 

“Carrying  out  Death,”  125,  302,  307-16, 
577,  613,  614 

Carthage,  Christians  worshipping  each 
other  at,  101  ;  the  effeminate  priests  of 
the  Great  Mother  at,  356 


3A 


INDEX 


7  22 

Carthaginian  sacrifice  of  children  to  Moloch, 
281 

Carver,  Captain  Jonathan,  698 
Castration,  347,  350 

Cat,  in  homoeopathic  magic,  32  ;  in  rain- 
charm,  72  ;  corn-spirit  as,  453  ;  killed 
at  harvest,  453  ;  a  representative  of  the 
devil,  656  ;  story  of  a  clan  whose  souls 
were  all  in  one,  677  ;  a  Batak  totem, 
691.  See  also  Cats 

Cat’s  cradle  as  a  charm,  20,  79  ;  forbidden 
to  boys  among  the  Esquimaux,  20 
Catat,  Dr.,  193 

Caterpillars,  precautions  against,  531 

Catholic  Church,  335,  345 

Catholic  custom  of  dedicating  candles,  3  ; 

as  to  partaking  of  the  Eucharist,  488 
Catlin,  George,  88 

Cats,  burnt  in  bonfires,  610,  656  ;  perhaps 
burnt  as  witches,  657 
Cattle,  magical  stones  for  increase  of,  33  ; 
influence  of  tree-spirits  on,  119  ;  crowned, 
126 ;  protected  against  wolves  by 
charms,  242  ;  last  sheaf  given  to,  400, 
407,  408,  412  ;  Yule  Boar  given  to  the, 
462  ;  driven  through,  round,  or  between 
bonfires,  615,  620,  621,  624,  626-8,  640, 
641  ;  protected  against  sorcery  by  sprigs 
of  mullein,  629  ;  lighted  brands  carried 
round,  647 

Cattle  disease,  Midsummer  fires  a  protec¬ 
tion  against,  627 ;  plague,  need-fire 
kindled  as  a  remedy  for,  641 
Caucasus,  rain-making  in  the,  70  ;  sacra¬ 
ments  of  pastoral  tribes  in  the,  534 
Cayor  in  Senegal,  the  king  of,  172 
Cazembes  of  Angola,  the,  203 
Cecrops,  king  of  Athens,  155 
Cedar,  sacred,  95 

Cedar- tree,  girl  sacrificed  to  a,  112 
Celebes,  rain-charms  in,  70  ;  hooking  souls 
in,  180  ;  customs  at  childbirth  in,  180  ; 
ceremonies  for  recovering  souls  in,  186  ; 
propitiation  of  souls  of  slain  enemies  in, 
212  ;  planting  the  rice  in,  416  ;  customs 
as  to  eating  the  new  rice  in,  482  ;  the 
external  soul  in,  679 

Celtic  sacrifices,  653,  657  ;  tales  of  the 
external  soul,  673 

Celts,  their  worship  of  the  oak,  no,  160  ; 
annual  sacrifice  to  Artemis,  141  ;  fire- 
festivals  of  the,  632 

Ceram,  island  of,  sickness  expelled  in  a  ship 
from,  563  ;  seclusion  of  girls  at  puberty 
in,  597  ;  the  Kakian  association  in,  696 
Ceres,  the,  in  France,  401 
Cetchwayo,  king  of  Zululand,  257 
Ceylon,  ogres  in,  669  ;  king  of,  and  his 
external  soul,  669,  670 
Chaka,  the  Zulu  despot,  86 
Chams  of  Cochinchina,  29,  220 
Charms,  to  ensure  long  life,  35  ;  to  prevent 
the  sun  from  going  down,  79  ;  to  facili¬ 
tate  childbirth,  238 


Chasas  of  Orissa,  473 

Chastity  observed  for  sake  of  absent 
persons,  23,  24  ;  as  a  virtue  not  under¬ 
stood  by  savages,  139..  See  also  Con¬ 
tinence 

Chatti,  German  tribe,  232  . 

Cheese,  the  Beltane,  620 
Chent-Ament,  title  of  Osiris,  375 
Cheremiss  of  Caucasus,  the,  262,  560 
Cherokees,  the,  29,  40,  372,  520 
Chibchas,  the,  104 

Chicomecohuatl,  Mexican  goddess,  589 
Chiefs,  supernatural  power  of,  in  Melanesia, 
84 ;  as  magicians,  84 ;  punished  for 
drought  and  dearth,  86  ;  tabooed,  202  ; 
sacred,  205  ;  foods  tabooed  to,  238 ; 
names  of,  tabooed,  257-9 
Chilcotin  Indians,  78 

Child,  name  given  to  last  sheaf,  406  ;  born 
on  harvest  field,  pretence  of,  406 
Childbed,  woman  in,  thought  to  control  the 
wind,  80  ;  souls  of  women  dying  in,  live 
in  trees,  115  ;  taboos  on  women  in,  208 
Childbirth,  precautions  taken  with  mother 
at,  180,  181  ;  women  tabooed  at,  207, 
208  ;  knots  untied  at,  238  ;  homoeo¬ 
pathic  magic  to  facilitate,  239 
Children,  taboos  observed  by,  21,  22 ; 
buried  to  the  neck  as  a  rain-charm,  75  > 
parents  named  after  their,  248  ;  sacri¬ 
ficed,  281,  293,  380,  431  ;  blood  of,  used 
to  knead  a  paste,  553 
Chilote  Indians,  23 7 

China,  emperors  of,  9  ;  charms  in,  35 ; 
geomancy  in,  36  ;  modes  of  compelling 
the  rain-god  to  give  rain  in,  74  ;  trees 
planted  on  graves  in,  115  ;  convulsions 
attributed  to  the  action  of  demons  in, 
186  ;  custom  as  to  shadows  at  funerals 
in,  190;  ceremony  at  the  beginning  of 
spring  in,  468  ;  popular  superstitions  in, 
498  ;  human  scapegoats  in,  566 ;  ex¬ 
pulsion  of  evils  in,  567 
Chinese  empire,  incarnate  human  gods  in 
the,  103 

Chinigchinich,  Californian  god,  499,  500 
Chinna  Kimedy,  in  India,  436 
Chinook  Indians,  256,  599 
Chins,  the,  551 
Chippeway  Indians,  605 
Chiquites  Indians  of  Paraguay,  526 
Chiriguanos  of  South  America,  601 
Chitome  or  Chitombe,  a  pontiff  of  Congo, 
170,  266,  296 
Chittagong,  239 
Choctaws,  the,  215 

Cholera,  demon  of,  549,  551,  563  ;  sent 
away  in  animal  scapegoats,  565 
Christ,  his  Nativity,  358  ;  his  crucifixion, 
359  ;  his  resurrection,  359,  360 
Christian  festivals  displace  heathen  festi¬ 
vals,  360 

Christianity,  its  conflict  with  the  Mithraic 
religion,  358  ;  and  Buddhism,  361 


INDEX 


Christians,  pretenders  to  divinity  among 

IOI 

Christmas,  festival  of,  borrowed  from  the 
Mithraic  religion,  358  ;  heathen  origin 
of,  359 

Christmas  Boar,  462  ;  candles,  637 
Church  bells,  a  protection  against  witch¬ 
craft,  560 

Ciminian  forest,  the,  no 
Cingalese  cure  by  means  of  devil-dancers 
542 

Cinyras,  father  of  Adonis,  327,  328,  332 
Circassia,  custom  as  to  pear-trees  in,  119 
Circe,  the  land  of,  150 
Circumcision,  229,  694 
Claudius,  the  Emperor,  3,  348 
Clayton,  Rev.  A.  C.,  542 

Clothes,  magic  sympathy  between  a  person 
and  his,  43,  44 
Clotilde,  Queen,  232 

Clove  trees  treated  like  pregnant  women, 

115 

Cloves,  ceremony  to  make  them  grow 
137 

Clucking-hen  at  threshing,  451 
Clyack  sheaf,  408,  425 
Coast  Murring  tribe  of  New  South  Wales, 
693 

Cobra,  ceremony  after  killing  a,  222 
Coca-mother,  among  the  Peruvians,  413 
Coco-nuts  sacred  in  Northern  India,  119 
Cock,  corn-spirit  as,  450  ;  name  given  to 
last  sheaf,  451 

Cockatoos,  magical  multiplication  of,  17 
Coel  Coeth,  Hallowe’en  bonfire,  635 
Coins,  from  the  eyes  of  corpses,  31 
portraits  of  kings  not  stamped  on, 
193 

Columbia,  British,  use  of  magical  images 
to  procure  fish  in,  18  ;  taboos  imposed 
on  parents  of  twins  in,  66  \  belief  regarding 
a  physician  and  his  patient’s  soul,  189  ; 
Indians’  dislike  of  telling  their  own 
names,  246  ;  seclusion  of  girls  at  puberty 
in,  600  ;  rites  of  initiation  in,  699 
Combs,  when  not  to  be  used,  24,  174,  215, 
216 

Commagny,  the  priory  of,  77 
Communion  with  deity  by  eating  new 
fruits,  487 

Communion  bread,  481 
Compitalia,  festival  of  the,  491 
Conception  in  women  caused  by  trees,  119 
Congo,  recall  of  stray  souls  among  the 
tribes,  184  ;  conjuring  spirits  before 
drinking  in  the,  199  ;  royal  persons  for¬ 
bidden  to  touch  the  ground,  594  ;  rites 
of  initiation  on  the  Lower,  697 
Connaught,  taboos  observed  by  the  ancient 
kings  of,  173 

“  Consort,  the  divine,”  142 
Constantine,  the  Emperor,  331 
Consumption,  cure  for,  545 
Contact  or  contagion  in  magic,  law  of,  1 1 


723 

Continence,  required  during  search  for 
sacred  cactus,  23  ;  practised  before 
fertility  .ceremonies,  136  ;  practised  in 
older  to  make  crops  grow,  138  ;  enjoined 
on  people  during  rounds  of  sacred 
pontiff,  170  ;  of  priests,  170  ;  on  eve  of 
period  of  taboo,  173  ;  during  war,  210, 

2Ij’^^fter  victory>  212;  by  hunters 
and  fishers,  217  ;  by  workers  in  salt- 
pans,  2r9  ;  at  brewing,  219  ;  at  house¬ 
building,  220  ;  at  making  and  repairing 
dams,  220  ;  by  lion-killers  and  bear- 
killers,  221,  222;  at  festival  of  first- 
fruits,  486 

Cords,  knotted,  in  magic,  241 
Corea,  kings  responsible  for  rain  and  crops, 
87  ;  offerings  to  souls  of  the  dead  in 
trees  in,  115  ;  king  not  to  be  touched, 
224  ;  means  of  inspiring  courage  in,  496  ; 

use  of  torches  to  ensure  good  crops  in, 
647 

Corinthians  make  images  of  Dionysus  out 
of  a  pine-tree,  387 

Cormac  Mac  Art,  king  of  Ireland,  273 
Corn,  spirit  of  the,  embodied  in  human 
beings,  4*9  !  double  personification  of,  as 
mother  and  daughter,  420 
Corn-baby,  459;  -bull,  458;  -cat,  453; 
-cock,  451;  -cow,  457;  -foal,  460; 
-goat,  454  ;  -pug,  449  ;  -sow,  448,  460  ; 
-steer,  457  ;  -wolf,  450 

god,  Adonis  as  a,  338  ;  Attis  as  a, 
353  ;  Osiris  as  a,  376 
--mother,  143,  399,  412 
■  -reapers,  songs  of  the,  424 
--spirit,  Adonis  as  a,  338  ;  represented 


by  human  victims,  339  ;  represented  as 
a  dead  old  man,  372  ;  killing  the,  425- 
431  5  slain  in  his  human  representatives, 
438-47  ;  how  representative  was  chosen, 
439  5  as  an  animal,  447-64 
Corn-medicine  festival,  419,  420 
Cornwall,  temporary  king  in,  287 
Cos,  sanctuary  of  Aesculapius  in,  m  ; 

harvest-home  in,  396 
Costa  Rica,  605 

Cottonwood  trees,  the  shades  or  spirits  of, 
hi,  112 

Courland,  custom  at  sowing  in,  461 
Cow,  ceremony  of  rebirth  from  a  golden, 
197  ;  sacred  to  Isis,  373  ;  corn-spirit  as, 
457  ;  as  scapegoat,  565,  571  ;  witches 
steal  milk  from,  648  ;  mistletoe  given  to 
663 

Creator,  the  grave  of  the,  264 
Creek  Indians,  211,  484,  605 
Cretan  festival  of  Dionysus,  389,  390 
Crete,  milk-stones  in,  34 
Crevaux,  J.,  195 

Criminals  shorn  to  make  them  confess,  680 
Cripple  Goat,  last  sheaf  called,  455 
Crocodile,  girl  sacrificed  to  a,  145 
Crocodiles,  Malay  charm  to  catch,  19  ; 
spared  by  savages  out  of  respect,  518 


INDEX 


724 

Cronus,  his  sacrifice  of  his  son,  293 
Crops,  charms  to  promote  the  growth  of 
the,  28,  288,  610,  613,  614,  624,  645  ; 
intercourse  of  the  sexes  to  promote  the 
growth  of  the,  136 ;  human  victims 
sacrificed  for  the,  355.  431  '>  super¬ 
stitious  devices  to  get  rid  of  vermin  in 
the,  530  ;  supposed  to  be  spoiled  by 
menstruous  women,  604,  606 
“  Cross  of  the  Horse,”  first  sheaf  called, 
460 

Cross-road,  fever  deposited  at,  544  ;  offer¬ 
ings  at,  557  ;  ceremonies  at,  561  ;  Mid¬ 
summer  fires  lighted  at,  625 
« Crying  the  Mare  ”  in  Hertfordshire, 

459 

“  Crying  the  neck  ”  in  Devonshire,  445 
Crystals,  magic  of,  38,  76,  85 
Cumanus,  the  inquisitor,  681 
Cumont,  Professor  Franz,  584 
Cup-and-ball  as  a  charm,  80 
Cybele,  Mother  of  the  Gods,  347  ;  worship 
of,  348 

Cynaetha,  festival  of  Dionysus  at,  390 
Cyprus,  sacred  prostitution  in,  330 
Cytisorus,  son  of  Phrixus,  290,  291 
Cyzicus,  council  chamber  at,  225 

Dacotas,  529 

Daedala,  festival  of  the,  143 
Dahomey,  the  king  of,  172,  i99>  257 
Dairi,  the,  or  Mikado  of  Japan,  168,  169 
Dairies,  sacred,  of  the  Todas,  175 
Dalai  Lama  of  Lhasa,  103 
Dalmatia,  belief  as  to  the  souls  of  trees  in, 
112 

Damia  and  Auxesia,  7 
Dams,  continence  at  making,  220 ;  in 
Egypt,  369*  37o 
Danae,  the  story  of,  602 
Dances,  of  women  while  men  are  away 
fighting,  26,  27  ;  to  make  hemp  grow, 
28  ;  for  rain,  64  ;  round  sacred  trees, 
1 18  ;  round  the  May-pole,  122,  124,  126  ; 
round  bonfires,  122,  610-12,  614,  620, 
621,  625,  628-30  ;  to  fertilise  gardens, 
137  ;  of  king,  200  ;  of  successful  head¬ 
hunters,  212  ;  to  propitiate  souls  of  slain 
foes,  212  ;  of  victory,  213  ;  of  harvesters, 
401,  427,  460  ;  at  festival  of  first-fruits, 
486  ;  at  burial  of  the  wren,  537 ;  masked, 
542 

Danger  Island,  snares  for  souls  in,  187 
Danish  magic  of  footprints,  44 
Danzig,  disposal  of  cut  hair  at,  235  ;  last 
sheaf  at  harvest  at,  400 
Daramulun,  a  mythical  being,  692,  693 
Darfur,  Sultan  of,  200  ;  people  of,  believe 
the  liver  to  be  the  seat  of  the  soul,  497 
Date-palm,  artificial  fertilisation  of  the,  582 
Day  of  Blood,  in  rites  of  Attis,  350  ;  of 
Atonement,  569 

De  Barros,  Portuguese  historian,  2 77 
Dead,  the,  homoeopathic  magic  of,  30  ; 


spirits  of,  47  ;  making  rain  by  means  of, 
71  ;  trees  animated  by  the  souls  of,  115  5 
sacrifices  to,  175  5  taboos  on  persons 
who  have  handled,  205  ;  names  of, 
tabooed,  251-6  ;  appear  to  the  living  in 
dreams,  256 ;  festival  of,  373>  633  ; 
•worship  of,  414  ;  ghosts  of,  55 1 
Dead  Sunday,  302 

Death,  pretence  of,  16  ;  “  carrying  out,” 
125,302,307-16,577,613,614;  at  ebb  tide, 
167,  168  ;  mourners  forbidden  to  sleep  in 
a  house  after  a,  182  ;  custom  of  covering 
up  mirrors  after  a,  192 ;  from  imagination, 
204;  ritual  of,  and  resurrection,  691-711 
Deir  el  Bahari,  paintings  at,  142 
Deities  duplicated  through  dialectical 
differences  in  their  names,  164,  165  ;  of 
vegetation  as  animals,  464-79 
Deity,  savage  conception  of,  92 
Demeter,  married  to  Zeus  at  Eleusis,  142  ; 
and  Persephone,  393-8,  420 ;  etymology 
of  her  name,  399 ;  in  relation  to  the  pig, 
469  ;  horse-headed,  of  Phigalia,  471  ; 
Black,  471 

Demetrius  Poliorcetes,  deified,  97 
Demons,  of  trees,  116  ;  abduction  of  souls 
by,  186  ;  and  ghosts  averse  to  iron,  226  ; 
deceived  by  effigies,  492  ;  of  disease 
exorcised,  542  ;  omnipresence  of,  546  J 
of  cholera,  549,  551  5  men  disguised  as, 
562  ;  conjured  into  images,  568 
Dene  Indians,  the,  208 
Denmark,  Whitsuntide  customs  in,  133  ; 

Yule  Boar  in,  461;  Midsummer  fires  in,  625 
Departmental  kings  of  nature,  106-9 
Depilation,  681 

Deputy,  expedient  of  dying  by,  278,  289 
Devil-dancers,  542 
Devils.  See  Demons 
Devonshire,  harvest  customs  in,  445 
Dharme,  the  Sun-god,  145 
DI,  Aryan  root  meaning  “  bright,”  164 
Diana,  1,  3,  8  ;  theTauric,  2,  3,  6  ;  goddess 
of  childbirth,  3,  141  ;  goddess  of  fertility, 
139-42,  163  ;  and  Dianus,  161-7 
“  Diana’s  Mirror,”  1,  711 
Dianus  and  Diana,  161-7 
Dieri  of  Central  Australia,  the,  64,  65,  115, 
548,  603 

Dinkas,  the,  269,  565 
Diodorus  Siculus,  365 
Dione,  wife  of  Zeus  at  Dodona,  151  ;  the 
old  consort  of  Zeus,  165 
Dionysus,  142,  265,  378  ;  god  of  the  vine, 

386  ;  god  of  trees,  387  ;  the  Flowery, 

387  ;  god  of  agriculture  and  the  com, 
387 ;  and  the  winnowing  fan,  388  ; 
horned,  390  ;  live  animals  rent  in  the 
rites  of,  390,  391  ;  as  a  goat,  390,  464  ; 
human  sacrifices  in  his  rites,  392  ;  torn 
in  pieces  at  Thebes,  392  ;  as  a  bull,  464, 
465  ;  relations  to  Pans,  Satyrs,  and 
Silenuses,  464  ;  his  resurrection  perhaps 
enacted  in  his  rites,  468 


INDEX 


725 


Disease,  demons  of,  expelled,  196,  542  ; 
transferred  to  other  people  and  to 
effigies,  539 ;  sent  away  in  little  ships,  563 
Divination,  256,  634,  635 
Divine  animal,  killing  the,  499  ;  as  scape¬ 
goat,  570,  576 
“  Divine  Consort,  the,”  142 
Divine  Husbandman,  in  China,  468 
Divining  rods,  705 

Divinities,  human,  bound  by  many  rules,  262 
Divinity  of  kings,  162  ;  growth  of  the 
conception  of  the,  162,  163 
Divorce  of  spiritual  from  temporal  power, 
175-8 

Dobrizhoffer,  Father  M.,  254,  255 
Dodona,  oracular  spring  at,  147  ;  Zeus  and 
Dione  at,  151  ;  oracular  oak  at,  159 
Dodwell,  E.,  397 

Dog,  black,  sacrificed  for  rain,  73  ;  used  to 
stop  rain,  75  ;  prohibition  to  touch  or 
name,  174;  corn-spirit  as,  448;  of  the 
harvest,  449 
Dogs  crowned,  3 

Dollar-bird  associated  with  rain,  72 
Donar  or  Thunar,  German  thunder- god,  160 
Doors  opened  to  facilitate  childbirth,  239  ; 

to  facilitate  death,  243 
Dos  Santos,  J-,  97 
Dosuma,  king  of,  593 

Doves,  external  soul  in,  670  ;  Aeneas  led 
to  the  Golden  Bough  by,  703 
Dragon,  rain-god  represented  as,  74  ;  or 
serpent  of  water,  146  ;  at  Midsummer, 
effigy  of,  655 

Dramas,  magical,  140,  324  ;  sacred,  374 
Dreams,  absence  of  soul  in,  18 1  ;  belief  of 
savages  in  the  reality  of,  18 1  ;  festival 
of,  553 

Drenching  people  with  water  as  a  rain- 
charm,  69,  70,  341,  342 
“  Drink,  Black,”  an  emetic,  486 
Drinking  and  eating,  taboos  on,  198,  199  ; 
modes  of  drinking  for  tabooed  persons, 
199,  208,  211,  219 

Drought,  supposed  to  be  caused  by  the 
unburied  dead,  72  ;  chiefs  and  kings 
punished  for,  86  ;  supposed  to  be  caused 
by  a  concealed  miscarriage,  209 
Druidical  festivals,  so-called,  617 
Druids,  no,  249,  653,  654,  657,  659;  of 
Ireland,  621  ;  and  the  mistletoe,  709,  710 
Duchesne,  Mgr.,  360 

Dugong  fishing,  taboos  in  connection  with, 
217 

Dulyn,  the  tarn  of,  on  Snowdon,  76 
Dunkirk,  the  Follies  of,  654 
Durian- tree,  the,  1x3 
Dusuns  of  Borneo,  the,  225,  566 
Dyaks,  of  Boi'neo,  14,  16,  25,  182,  248,  249, 
413,  496,  518  ;  of  Landak,  682  ;  of 
Pinoeh,  679  ;  of  Sarawak,  498  ;  Sea, 
239,  531  5  of  Tajan,  682 

Eagle,  the  bird  of  Jove,  149 


Eagle-hunters,  21,  22 
Eagle-owl  worshipped  by  the  Ainos,  515 
Earth,  inspired  priestess  of,  94  ;  marriage 
of  the  Sun  and,  145  ;  image  of,  praying 
to  Zeus  for  rain,  159  ;  Lithuanian 
prayers  to  the,  480  ;  the  priest  of,  594 
Earth  demons,  492  ;  goddess,  396,  434-7 
Earthworms  eaten  by  dancing  girl,  497 
East,  ascetic  idealism  of  the,  139 
East  Indian  Islands,  magic  in  the,  18,  21  ; 
epilepsy  transferred  to  leaves  in  the,  539  ; 
demons  of  sickness  expelled  in  little 
ships,  564 

East  Indies,  pregnant  women  forbidden  to 
tie  knots,  238  ;  reluctance  of  persons  to 
tell  their  own  names,  246  ;  bringing 
back  the  Soul  of  the  Rice,  372  ;  the  Rice- 
mother  in  the,  413 

Easter,  resemblance  of  the  festival  of,  to 
the  rites  of  Adonis,  345  ;  assimilated  to 
the  spring  festival  of  Attis,  359  ;  con¬ 
troversy  as  to  the  origin  of,  361 
Easter  Eve,  ceremonies  on,  400,  560 ; 
Saturday,  new  fire  on,  614  ;  Sunday, 
ceremony  observed  by  gypsies  on,  568  ; 
Monday,  festival  on,  126  ;  candle,  614  ; 
fires,  614 

Eating,  out  of  sacred  vessels,  169  ;  together, 
202  ;  and  drinking,  taboos  on,  198  ; 
eating  the  god,  479-94,  498  ;  the  soul  of 
the  rice,  482 
Ebb  tide,  death  at,  35 
Eclipse,  ceremonies  at  an,  78 
Ecuador,  human  sacrifices  in,  431 
Edge  well  Tree,  the,  682 
Effigies,  468,  491,  492,  539,  568,  609,  612- 
614,  622,  624,  625,  630,  648,  650,  655, 
658  ;  of  Carnival,  302  ;  of  Death,  307, 
311  ;  of  Judas,  615  ;  of  Kupalo,  Kost¬ 
roma,  and  Yarilo,  318  ;  of  Osiris,  376, 
382  ;  of  Shrove  Tuesday,  305 
Efugaos,  the,  of  the  Philippines,  498 
Egbas,  the,  of  West  Africa,  273 
Egeria,  water-nymph,  4,  8,  147,  15 1,  152, 
164 

Egerius  Baebius  or  Laevius,  5 
Egg-shells,  the  breaking  of,  201 
Egypt,  the  Nativity  of  the  Sun  at  the 
winter  solstice  in,  358  ;  in  early  June, 
369  ;  the  gods  flee  into,  391  ;  the  corn- 
spirit  in,  443 

- ,  ancient,  theocratic  despotism  of,  48  ; 

magicians  in,  52,  261  ;  confusion  of 
magic  and  religion  in,  53  ;  ceremonies 
for  the  regulation  of  the  sun,  78  ;  kings 
blamed  for  the  failure  of  the  crops  in,  87  ; 
sacred  beast  responsible  for  the  course  of 
nature  in,  87  ;  human  gods  in,  96,  265  ; 
kings  of,  104,  142,  174,  238,  333,  378  ; 
queen  of,  142  ;  personal  names  in,  245  ; 
reapers’  lamentations  and  invocations  to 
Isis  in,  338,  371,  424,  443,  444  5  sacrifice 
of  red-haired  men  in,  378,  379  ,  human 
sacrifices  in,  443  ;  religious  attitude  to 


INDEX 


726 

pigs  in,  472  ;  rams  sacred  in,  500  ;  bulls 
as  scapegoats  in,  571  ;  story  of  the 
external  soul  in,  674 
Egypt,  Lower,  Sais  in,  373 

- ,  Upper,  temporary  kings  in,  286 

Egyptian  calendar,  368  ;  festivals,  368, 
369  ;  religion,  370  ;  types  of  sacrament, 
532-5 

Elders,  council  of,  in  savage  communities, 
47 

Elephant  hunters,  23,  594 
Elephants,  ceremonies  observed  at  the 
slaughter  of,  522,  524  ;  lives  of  persons 
bound  up  with  those  of,  685 
Eleusine  grain,  483 

Eleusinian  mysteries,  142,  393-5,  397,  398  ; 
priests,  259 

Eleusis,  rites  of  Demeter  at,  376,  397 ; 

Demeter  at,  393  ;  Rarian  plain  at,  394 
Elfin  race  averse  to  iron,  226% 

Elipandus  of  Toledo,  101 
Elis,  Dionysus  hailed  as  a  bull  by  the 
women  of,  390 
Elisha,  .the  prophet,  334 
Elk  clan  of  the  Omaha  Indians,  474 
Embalming  as  a  means  of  prolonging  the 
life  of  the  soul,  265 

Emblica  officinalis  sacred  in  Northern 
India,  119 
Emin  Pasha,  196 

Empedocles,  his  claim  to  divinity,  96 
Emu-wrens,  689 
Encounter  Bay  tribe,  603 
Endymion,  4,  156 

England,  belief  as  to  death  at  ebb  tide  in, 
35  ;  anointing  the  weapon  instead  of  the 
wound  in,  42  ;  May-trees  and  May- 
bushes  in,  12 1  ;  village  May-poles  in, 
123  ;  Jack-in-the-Green  in,  129  ;  un¬ 
doing  locks  and  bolts  at  a  death  in,  243  ; 
Harvest  Queen  in,  405  ;  harvest  customs 
in,  406,  459,  460  ;  killing  the  wren  in, 
536  ;  the  Yule  log  in,  637  ;  the  mistletoe 
in,  662,  663  ;  birth-trees  in,  682  ;  cure 
for  rupture  or  rickets  in,  682 
Epilepsy  transferred  to  leaves,  539 
Epiphany,  359,  462,  561 
Ergamenes,  king  of  Meroe,  266 
Erman,  Professor,  3 77 
Escouvion  or  Scouvion,  in  Belgium,  610 
Esne,  festal  calendar  of,  373 
Esquimaux,  20,  82,  179,  244,  317,  529  ;  of 
Alaska,  551,  679  ;  of  Baffin  Land,  552  ; 
of  Bering  Strait,  193,  220,  221,  22 7,  526, 
606  ;  of  Iglulik,  7 9 

Esthonia,  Shrove  Tuesday  customs  in,  315  ; 
harvest  customs  in,  456,  460  ;  Christmas 
Boar  in,  462  ;  Midsummer  fires  in,  628 
Esthonians,  81,  225,  228,  307,  481,  530 
Ethiopia,  kings  of,  200,  273 
Eubuleus,  legendary  swine-herd,  469,  470 
Eucharist,  488 
Eudoxus  of  Cnidus,  474 
Eunuch  priests,  349,  352 


Europe,  dancing  or  leaping  high  to  make 
crops  grow  in,  28  ;  the  Hand  of  Glory  in, 
30  ;  belief  as  to  death  at  ebb  tide  in,  35  ; 
treatment  of  the  navel-string  and  after¬ 
birth  in,  40  ;  contagious  magic  in,  44  ; 
confusion  of  magic  and  religion  in,  53, 
54  ;  belief  in  magic  in  modern,  56  ; 
rain-making  ceremonies  in,  69  ;  the  May- 
pole  or  May- tree  in,  119,  120  ;  mid¬ 
summer  festival  in  modern,  153  ;  fear  of 
having  one’s  likeness  taken  in,  194 ; 
belief  as  to  consummation  of  marriage 
being  impeded  by  locks  and  knots,  240  ; 
the  Corn-mother  in  Northern,  399-412  ; 
comparison  between  the  Lityerses  story 
and  harvest  customs  in,  426-31  ;  “  hunt¬ 
ing  the  wren  ”  in,  536  ;  transference  of 
evil  in,  543-6  ;  annual  expulsion  of 
demons  among  the  heathen  of,  559  ; 
annual  expulsion  of  witches  in  Central, 
560  ;  expulsion  of  embodied  evils  in, 
568  ;  the  mistletoe  in,  661  ;  super¬ 
stitions  as  to  menstruous  women  in,  606  ; 
fire-festivals  of,  609-41  ;  Midsummer 
fires  in,  622  ;  need-fire  in,  638 
Evil,  transference  of,  538-46  ;  to  animals, 
540-42  ;  to  men,  542-3  ;  in  Europe,  543-6 
Evils,  expulsion  of,  public,  546  ;  occasional, 
547  ;  periodic,  551  ;  embodied,  562  ; 
occasional,  in  a  material  vehicle,  563  ; 
periodic,  in  a  material  vehicle,  568 
Ewe-speaking  peoples  of  the  Slave  Coast, 
the,  1 12,  198  ;  taboos  observed  by  their 
kings,  172 
Exogamy,  152 
Eyeos,  the,  172,  273 
Ezekiel,  the  prophet,  327 

Face,  of  sleeper  not  to  be  painted  or  dis¬ 
figured,  183  ;  taboos  on  showing  the, 
199  ;  of  human  scapegoat  painted  half 
white,  half  black,  573 
Faces,  veiled  to  avert  evil  influences,  200 ; 

blackened,  213,  462 
Faditras  among  the  Malagasy,  541 
Fairies,  averse  to  iron,  226 
Falling  sickness  transferred  to  fowls,  545  ; 

mistletoe  a  remedy  for,  662 
Fan  tribe,  the,  85 

Fans  of  the  Gaboon,  684;  of  West  Africa,  495 
Fans  in  homoeopathic  magic,  26 
Fasting  obligatory,  23,  26  ;  of  Catholics, 
488  ;  of  girls  at  puberty,  600,  601 
Father,  called  after  his  child,  247  ;  and 
mother,  names  not  to  be  mentioned, 
250  ;  of  a  god,  333,  334 
Father-in-law,  his  name  not  to  be  men¬ 
tioned,  249-51 
Father  May,  126,  12 7 
Fatigue  transferred  to  leaves,  540 
Fauns,  rustic  Italian  gods,  464 
F'azoql,  kings  of,  266 
Feast  of  all  Souls,  633  ;  of  yams,  200 
Feet  of  enemies  eaten,  498 


INDEX 


Felkin,  Dr.  R.  W.,  534 
Feloupes  of  Senegambia,  74 
Female  kinship  or  mother-kin  defined,  152  ; 
indifference  to  paternity  of  kings  under, 
154  J  at  Athens,  155  ;  among  the 
Aryans,  155 
Fern-seed,  704,  705 

Fernando  Po,  taboos  observed  by  the  kings 
of,  172,  238 

Fertilisation,  artificial,  114,  378,  580,  582  ; 

of  barren  women,  581 
Fertility,  Diana  as  a  goddess  of,  8  ;  of 
women,  magical  images  designed  to 
'  ensure  the,  14 

Fetish  kings  in  West  Africa,  1 77 
Feuillet,  Madame  Octave,  306 
Fever,  cures  for,  343-5 
Fig,  artificial  fertilisation  of  the,  378  ; 
human  scapegoat  beaten  with  branches 
of  the  wild,  579 

Fig-tree,  the  sacred,  136 ;  artificial  fertilisa¬ 
tion  of  the,  580,  582 

Fiji  Islands,  the,  conception  of  the  soul  in, 
179  5  notion  of  the  absence  of  the  soul 
in  dreams  in,  182  ;  catching  away  souls 
in,  187  ;  supposed  effect  of  using  chief’s 
dishes  or  clothes  in,  202  ;  custom  at 
cutting  a  chiefs  hair  in,  233  ;  birth- 
trees  in,  682  ;  drama  of  death  and 
resurrection  in,  695 

Finland,  cattle  protected  by  the  woodland 
spirits  in,  141 

Finnish- Ugrian  peoples,  sacred  groves  of 
the,  hi 

Finnish  wizards  and  witches,  81 
Finns,  521 

Fire,  the  god  of,  23  ;  kept  burning  for  the 
sake  of  absent  warriors,  26  ;  supposed 
to  be  subject  to  Catholic  priests,  53  ; 
used  to  stop  rain,  64  ;  as  a  charm  to 
rekindle  the  sun,  78  ;  and  Water,  kings 
of,  108,  176,  266  ;  kindled  by  friction, 
161,  534,  617,  618,  620,  627,  639,  644, 
707  ;  purification  by,  197,  198,  213,  648  ; 

“  new,”  485,  614  ;  sacred,  486,  534  ; 

“  living,”  638  ;  “  wild,”  638  ;  made  by 
means  of  a  wheel,  639  ;  of  heaven,  644  ; 
extinguished  by  mistletoe,  659,  662,  706  ; 
primitive  ideas  as  to  the  origin  of,  707. 
See  also  Bonfires,  Fires,  Need-fire 
Fire-festivals  of  Europe,  the,  609  ;  inter¬ 
pretation  of,  641  ;  solar  theory  of,  642, 
643  ;  purificatory  theory  of,  642,  647  ; 
at  the  solstices,  643  ;  a  protection  against 
witchcraft,  648  ;  their  relation  to 
Druidism,  654 

Fires,  perpetual,  3,  161,  163,  665,  704  ;  the 
Lenten,  609  ;  Easter,  614  ;  Beltane,  617, 
Midsummer,  622  ;  Hallowe’en,  632,  635  ; 
Midwinter,  636  ;  extinguished  before 
lighting  the  need-fire,  639  ;  burning  of 
effigies  in  the,  650  ;  burning  of  men  and 
women  in  the,  652  ;  the  solstitial, 
perhaps  sun-charms,  706 


727 

First-fruits,  170,  177,  396,  431,  467,  479, 
482,  487 

Fish,  magical  image  to  procure,  18  ;  sacred, 
473  ;  treated  with  respect  by  fishing 
tribes,  527  ;  external  soul  in  a  golden, 
676 

Fishers  tabooed,  216 
Fishing,  homoeopathic  magic  in,  18 
Flamen  Dialis,  the,  15 1,  235,  244  ;  rules 
of  life  prescribed  for,  174 
Flaminica,  the,  151  ;  rules  observed  by,  174 
Flanders,  Midsummer  fires  in,  630,  646  ; 
the  Yule  log  in,  637 

Flax,  homoeopathic  magic  at  sowing,  28  ; 
prayers  of  old  Prussians  for  the  growth 
of,  288  ;  giddiness  transferred  to,  545  ; 
leaping  over  bonfires  to  make  it  grow 
tall,  613,  624,  626 
Flax-mother,  399 
Flight  of  the  king,  at  Rome,  157 
Flowers,  goddess  of,  588 
Flute,  magical,  made  from  human  leg-bone, 
30  ;  skill  of  Marsyas  on  the,  354 
Folk-customs,  the  external  soul  in,  678-701 
Folk-tales,  the  external  soul  in,»  667-78 
Food,  homoeopathic  magic  for  ^supply  of, 

1 7  ;  eaten  dry,  21,  29^68-r"tabooed,  21, 
22, 238  ;  taboos  on*!e^trrg1oo3  over,  200" 
Fools,  Bishop  of,  586 
Footprints,  contagious  magic  of,  44,  45 
Foreskins  used  in  rain-making,  65 
Fowler,  W.  Warde,  709 
Foxes,  burnt  in  Midsummer  fires,  656,  657  ; 

witches  turn  into,  657 
Framin  in  West  Africa,  dance  of  women  at, 
26 

France,  contagious  magic  in,  44  ;  peasants 
ascribe  magical  powers  to  priests,  53,  54  ; 
images  of  saints  dipped  in  water  as  a 
rain-charm  in,  77  ;  kings  of,  touch  for 
scrofula,  90  ;  custom  of  the  Harvest- 
May  in,  1 1 8  ;  May  customs  in,  12 1  ;  the 
May-pole  in,  124  ;  harvest  customs  in, 
341,  448-50,  453,  455,  457-9  ;  the  Corn- 
mother  in,  401  ;  the  dough  man  in,  480  ; 
hunting  the  wren  in,  537  ;  the  King  of 
the  Bean  in,  586  ;  expulsion  of  witches 
in,  561  ;  Lenten  fires  in,  610  ;  Mid¬ 
summer  fires  in,  628-30,  645  ;  the  Yule 
log  in,  637  ;  wicker-work  giants  burnt 
in,  655  I  mistletoe  in,  662  ;  birth- trees 
in,  682 

Franche-Comte,  dances  in,  to  make  hemp 
grow,  28  ;  the  goat  at  threshing  in,  456 
Frey,  the  Scandinavian  god  of  fertility,  143 
Fricktal,  Switzerland,  the  Whitsuntide 
Lout  in,  128  ;  the  Whitsuntide  Basket 
in,  129 

Friction,  fire  kindled  by.  See  under  Fire 
Friesland,  East,  the  clucking  hen  at 
threshing  in,  451 

Frigg,  the  Norse  goddess,  and  Balder,  607 
Frog  in  magic,  31,  73>  *3*  ;  maladies  trans¬ 
ferred  to  frogs,  544 


INDEX 


728 

Frog-flayer,  the,  in  Whitsuntide  pageant, 
130 

Frosinone  in  Latium,  burning  an  effigy  of 
the  Carnival  at,  302 

Fruit-trees,  fertilised  by  fruitful  women, 

28  ;  homoeopathic  magic  in  relation  to, 

29  ;  threatened  to  make  them  bear  fruit, 
1 13  ;  worshippers  of  Osiris  forbidden  to 
injure,  380  ;  wrapt  in  straw  as  a  pre¬ 
caution  against  evil  spirits,  561  ;  fires 
lit  under,  632  ;  fumigated  with  smoke 
of  need-fire,  641  ;  fertilised  by  burning 
torches,  647 

Fuegian  charm  to  make  the  wind  drop,  80 
Fumigation,  with  laurel,  95  ;  of  flocks, 

478  ;  with  juniper  and  rue,  560  ;  of  fruit- 
trees  and  nets,  641  ;  of  crops,  645 

Funeral  customs,  185,  190,  227,  542  ;  rites, 
367,  375 

Gaboon,  theory  of  the  external  soul  in  the, 
684 

Gabriel,  the  archangel,  13,  241 
Galela,  dread  of  menstruous  women  in,  604 
Galelareese  of  Halmahera,  19,  29-31 
Galicia,  harvest  customs  in,  451 
Gallas,  98,  1 18  ;  kings  of  the,  10 
Galli,  the  emasculated  priests  of  Attis,  348 
Ganesa,  the  image  of,  482 
Gardens  of  Adonis,  341-7 
Garos  of  Assam,  72,  568 
Gascon  peasants,  their  belief  in  the  magical 
power  of  priests,  54 
Gatschet,  A.  S.,  255 

Gaul,  ancient,  human  sacrifices  in,  653  ; 

the  mistletoe  in,  659 
Gauri,  harvest  goddess,  420 
Gayos  of  Sumatra,  141 
Gazelle  Peninsula,  251  ;  the  Ingniet 
society  in  the,  680 
Geomancy  in  China,  36 
Germany,  contagious  magic  in,  39,  42,  45  ; 
worship  of  women  in  ancient,  97  ;  tree- 
worship  in,  no  ;  Harvest  May  in,  118  ; 
use  of  May  trees  in,  119  ;  Midsummer 
trees  in,  122  ;  races  at  Whitsuntide  in, 
124  ;  worship  of  the  oak  in,  160  ;  belief 
as  to  the  escape  of  the  soul  in,  182  ; 
superstition  as  to  cut  hair  in,  234  ;  the 
Corn-mother  in,  399  ;  the  Old  Woman 
in,  400  ;  names  given  to  the  last  sheaf  in, 
401  ;  harvest  customs,  402,  408,  427, 
449,  451,  453,  454,  458-60;  the  Corn- 
spirit  in,  448  ;  the  harvest  cock  in,  451, 

479  J  pigs’  bones  in  connection  writh 
sowing  in,  461  ;  Lenten  fires  in,  612  ; 
Easter  fires  in,  614  ;  Midsummer  fires  in, 
623  ;  the  Yule  log  in,  637  ;  need-fire  in, 
641  ;  mistletoe  in,  662,  702  ;  oak-wood 
for  cottage  fires  at  Midsummer  in,  665  ; 
stories  of  the  external  soul  in,  672  ;  birth- 
trees  in,  682 

Gerontocracy  in  Australia,  83 
Getae,  human  god  among  the,  9 7 


Ghansyam  Deo,  a  deity  of  the  Gonds,  571 
Ghosts,  84,  185,  190,  207,  216,  226,  253, 
49i,  55i  5  of  the  slain,  212-15,  227  ;  of 
animals,  dread  of,  223,  520-24,  526 
Giant  who  had  no  heart  in  his  body,  stories 
of  the,  668,  673  ;  mythical,  supposed  to 
kill  and  resuscitate  lads  at  initiation,  695 
Giants,  wicker-work,  654,  655 
Giddiness,  cure  for,  545 
Gilyaks  of  the  Amoor,  510-14,  517,  530 
Gingiro,  king  of,  270 
Gippsland  blacks,  248 
Girl,  annually  sacrificed  to  cedar  tree,  112  ; 
sacrificed  to  a  crocodile,  145  ;  sacrificed 
for  the  crops,  432  ;  and  boy,  need-fire 
kindled  by,  640 

Girls,  married  to  nets,  144  ;  used  in  rain¬ 
making,  210  ;  seclusion  of,  at  puberty, 
595-6o7 

Glory,  the  Hand  of,  30 
Gnabaia,  an  Australian  spirit,  693 
Goajiros  of  Colombia,  252 
Goat,  blood  of,  sucked  by  priest  as  means 
of  inspiration,  94  ;  sacrificed,  356,  391, 
436  ;  in  relation  to  Dionysus,  390,  464  ; 
corn-spirit  as,  454  ;  last  sheaf  in  form  of 
a,  454 ;  killed  on  harvest-field,  455  ; 
effigy  of  a,  456  ;  sacred  animal  of  a 
Bushman  tribe,  474 ;  relation  of,  to 
Athena,  477  ;  evils  transferred  to,  540  ; 
as  scapegoat,  565 

God,  savage  ideas  of,  92  ;  the  killing  and 
resurrection  of  a,  301,  538 ;  the  Dying 
and  Reviving,  386  ;  killed  in  animal  form, 
391  ;  the  animal  enemy  of,  originally 
identical  with  the  god,  391,  469,  475  ; 
eating  the,  479-94,  498  ;  dying,  as  scape¬ 
goat,  539,  576  ;  killing  of  the,  in  Mexico, 
587-92.  See  also  Gods 
God-man,  a  source  of  danger,  202 
Goddesses,  of  fertility  served  by  eunuch 
priests,  349  ;  personated  by  women,  589 
Gods,  appeal  to  the  pity  of,  as  a  rain- 
charm,  75  ;  incarnate  human,  91-106, 
162  ;  conception  of,  slowly  evolved,  91  ; 
and  goddesses,  dramatic  weddings  of, 
140  ;  the  marriage  of  the,  142-5  ;  created 
by  men  in  their  own  likeness,  260  ;  their 
names  tabooed,  260-62  ;  mortality  of 
the,  264-5  ;  death  and  resurrection  of, 
385-6,  388  ;  distinguished  from  spirits, 
411 

Gold  Coast,  negroes  of  the,  118  ;  expulsion 
of  demons  on  the,  550,  554,  555 
Golden  Bough,  3,  593,  701-n 

- Fleece,  ram  with,  290 

Goldi,  bear- festivals  of  the,  514 
Goliath,  straw  man  stabbed  at  Whitsun¬ 
tide,  133 

Gonds  of  India,  the,  433,  571 
Good  Friday,  ceremony  in  Greek  churches 
on,  345  ;  expulsion  of  witches  on,  560 
Gorillas,  lives  of  persons  bound  up  with 
those  of,  685 


INDEX 


729 


Gossips  of  St.  John,  344 
Gouri,  Indian  goddess  of  fertility,  343 
Gout,  remedy  for,  196 ;  transferred  to 
trees,  546 

Gran  Chaco,  Indians  of,  182,  601 
Granada,  youthful  rulers  secluded  in,  595 
Grandmother,  name  given  to  last  sheaf,  401 
Grannas-mias,  torches,  61 1 
Grannus,  a  Celtic  deity,  61 1 
Grass  king,  the,  130,  299 
Grass  knotted  as  a  charm,  242 
Grasshoppers,  in  homoeopathic  magic,  37  ; 
sacrifice  of,  541 

Grave,  soul  fetched  from,  185  ;  of  Zeus, 
265  ;  of  Dionysus,  265,  389  ;  of  Osiris, 
365,  378  ;  dance  at  initiation  in  a,  693 
Grave-clothes,  homoeopathic  magic  of,  in 
China,  35  ;  no  buttons  in,  243 
Graves,  rain-charms  at,  67,  71  ;  trees 
planted  on,  115 

Greasing  the  weapon  instead  of  wound,  41 
Great  Mother,  last  sheaf  called,  401 
Grebo  people  of  Sierra  Leone,  174 
Greece,  priestly  kings  in,  9  ;  ceremony 
performed  by  persons  supposed  to  have 
been  dead,  15  ;  homoeopathic  magic  in, 
16,  34  ;  sacrifice  of  pregnant  victims  to 
ensure  fertility  in,  28  ;  contagious  magic 
in,  44  ;  rain-making  in,  69,  77  ;  sanctity 
of  kings  and  chiefs  in  Homeric,  89 ; 
forests  of,  no;  tree  worship  in,  in; 
custom  as  to  foundations  of  new  build¬ 
ings  in,  19 1  ;  custom  as  to  man-slayers 
in,  216  ;  names  of  the  priests  of  the 
Eleusinian  mysteries  not  to  be  mentioned 
in,  259  ;  the  eight  years’  cycle  in,  279  ; 
human  sacrifices  in,  290  ;  mode  of  rid¬ 
ding  the  fields  of  mice  in,  530  ;  scape¬ 
goats  in,  541,  578  ;  Midsummer  fires  in, 
631  ;  stories  of  the  external  soul  in,  670 
Greek  belief  that  the  sun  rode  in  a  chariot, 
79  ;  calendar,  279  ;  charms,  31,  32  ; 
Church,  ceremonies  on  Good  Friday  in 
the,  345  ;  divinities  who  died  and  rose 
again,  386  ;  maxim  not  to  look  at  one’s 
reflection  in  water,  192  ;  maxim  not  to 
wear  rings,  243  ;  mythology,  Adonis  in, 
325,  327  ;  ritual  of  expiatory  sacrifices, 
473  ;  sanctuaries,  iron  not  to  be  brought 
into,  224  ;  superstitions  as  to  certain 
woollen  garments  and  stones,  32 
Green  Corn  Dance,  486 

- George,  126,  128 

- Wolf,  Brotherhood  of  the,  628,  664 

Greenland,  woman  in  child-bed  thought  to 
control  the  wind  in,  80  ;  belief  in  the 
mortality  of  the  gods  in,  264 
Grey,  Sir  George,  689 
Grimm,  Jacob,  709 

Grove,  Arician,  5,  163,  301  ;  Balder’s,  608  ; 

soul  of  chief  in  a  sacred,  681 
Groves,  sacred,  no,  in  ;  to  Diana,  140 
Guanches  of  Teneriffe,  75 
Guarani  Indians,  29,  601 


Guatemala,  the  Indians  of,  687 
Guayaquil,  Indians  of,  431 
Guaycurus,  the,  82 
Guayquiries  of  the  Orinoco,  605 
Guiana,  Indians  of,  181,  601 
Guinea,  priestly  kings  in,  169  ;  belief  of 
negroes  in  dreams,  182  ;  human  sacri¬ 
fices  in,  433  ;  annual  sacrifice  of  oxen  at 
Great  Bassam,  467  ;  expulsion  of  the 
devil  in,  554 ;  seclusion  of  girls  at 
puberty  in,  597 

Gunputty,  elephant-headed  god,  100 
Gypsies;  Green  George  among  the,  126  ; 
annual  ceremony  performed  by  the,  568 

Hag  (wrack),  name  given  to  the  last  com 
cut  in  Wales,  403,  404 
Haida  Indians,  27,  35 
Hair,  used  in  magic,  13,  233-5  ;  charms,  28, 
29,  32  ;  tabooed,  231  ;  disposal  of  cut, 
233  ;  external  soul  in,  670  ;  strength 
bound  up  with,  680  ;  of  criminals, 
wizards,  and  witches  shorn,  681 
Hair-cutting,  ceremonies  at,  233 
Halfdan  the  Black,  Norwegian  king,  379 
Hallowe’en,  609  ;  fires,  632-6  ;  divinations 
at,  634  ;  witches,  fairies,  and  hobgoblins 
let  loose  at,  634  ;  and  Beltane,  the  two 
chief  fire  festivals  of  the  British  Celts,  656 
Halmahera,  driving  away  devils  in,  548 
Hand  of  Glory,  30 

Hands,  tabooed,  204-6,  208,  210,  212,  214, 
233  ;  not  to  be  clasped,  240  ;  of  enemies 
eaten,  498 

Hannibal,  his  retirement  from  Italy,  348 
Hanover,  harvest  customs  in,  400,  401, 
454  ;  Easter  bonfires  in,  615 
Hare,  corn-spirit  as,  452 
Hares  not  eaten  lest  they  make  the  eaters 
timid,  495  ;  witches  changed  into,  657 
Haroekoe,  East  Indian  island,  fishermen’s 
magic  in,  18 

Harpocrates,  the  younger  Horus,  364 
Harran,  mourning  for  Tammuz  in,  338  ; 
legend  of  Tammuz  in,  442;  human 
sacrifices  in,  444 

Harvest,  rain- charm  at,  341  ;  custom  of 
the  Arabs  of  Moab  at,  372,  378  ;  ex¬ 
pulsion  of  devils  after,  557,  575 
Harvest  child,  406  ;  cock,  451  ;  customs, 
400-10  ;  goat,  454  ;  hen,  451  ;  May,  118, 
124  ;  mother,  401 

Harz  Mountains,  42  ;  Carnival  in  the,  307 
Hawaii,  capture  of  souls  by  sorcerers  in, 
188  ;  festival  of  Macahity  in,  282,  283 
Hawk,  Isis  in  the  form  of  a,  364 
Hawks  revered  by  the  Ainos,  516 
Hawthorn  at  doors  on  May  Day,  12 1 
Hays  of  Errol,  702 

Head,  prohibition  to  touch  the,  207,  230, 
231  ;  regarded  as  sacred,  230  ;  tabooed, 
230-31  ;  supposed  to  be  the  residence  of 
spirits,  230  ;  of  horse  in  Roman  sacrifice, 
478.  See  also  Heads 


730 


INDEX 


Head-hunters,  433 

Headache,  caused  by  clipped  hair,  234, 
237  ;  transferred  to  animal,  540 
Heads,  of  lac  gatherers  not  to  be  cleansed, 
21  ;  of  man-slayers  shaved,  215  ;  of 
dead  kings  removed  and  kept,  295.  See 
also  Head 

Heart,  of  Dionysus,  388,  389  ;  of  jackal  not 
eaten  lest  it  make  the  eater  timid,  495  ; 
of  lion  or  leopard  eaten,  495  ;  of  water- 
ouzel  eaten  to  acquire  wisdom  and 
eloquence,  496  ;  of  wolf  and  of  bear 
eaten  to  acquire  courage,  496 
Hearts,  of  men  and  animals  offered  to  the 
sun,  7 9,  589  ;  of  dead  kings  eaten  by 
their  successors,  295  ;  of  men  sacrificed, 
43i  I  of  men  eaten  to  acquire  their 
qualities,  497 

Heaven,  between,  and  earth,  592-607  ;  fire 
of,  644  ;  Queen  of,  71 1 
Hebrew  prophets,  their  ethical  religion, 

51 

Heitsi-eibib,  Hottentot  god  or  hero,  264 
Helen  of  the  Tree,  356 
Heliogabalus,  sun-god  at  Emesa,  330 
Helle  and  Phrixus,  children  of  King  Atha- 
mas,  290 

Hemp,  promoting  the  growth  of,  28,  624 
Hen,  sacrificed  by  woodman  after  felling 
tree,  112  ;  heart  of,  not  eaten,  495 
Hera,  adoption  of  Hercules  by,  14  ;  and 
Zeus,  their  marriage,  143 
Hercules,  14,  425,  443 
Hercynian  forest,  109 
Herdsmen  dread  witches  and  wolves,  649 
Hermotimus  of  Clazomenae,  185 
Hermutrude,  legendary  queen  of  Scotland, 
155 

Hialto,  how  he  became  brave,  496 
Hidatsa  Indians,  in,  690 
Highlands  of  Scotland,  the,  magic  to  catch 
fish  in,  18  ;  St.  Bride’s  Day  in,  134  ; 
iron  as  a  charm  against  fairies  in,  226  ; 
saying  about  combing  hair  at  night  in, 
234  ;  knots  untied  at  marriage  in,  241  ; 
beating  the  cow’s  hide  in,  538  ;  Beltane 
fires  in,  617-20  ;  Hallowe’en  fires  in,  635  ; 
need-fire  in,  641  ;  story  of  the  external 
soul  in,  673 

Hilaria,  festival  of  joy,  350 

Hindoo  charm,  30  ;  marriage,  34  ;  trinity, 

52  ;  superstition,  114 

Hindoo  Koosh,  sacred  cedar  of  the,  95  ; 

expulsion  of  demons  in  the,  557,  575 
Hindoos,  15,  101,  180,  343,  602,  669  ;  of 
Southern  India,  482 

Hippasus,  torn  to  pieces  by  Bacchanals, 
292 

Hippodamia  and  Pelops,  156 
Hippolytus,  4,  5,  301,  477 
Hippopotamus,  ceremony  after  killing  a, 

523 

Hogmanay,  Highland  custom  on,  538  ; 
song  in  the  Isle  of  Man,  634 


Holiness,  and  pollution  not  differentiated 
by  savages,  222  ;  conceived  as  a  danger¬ 
ous  virus,  474  ;  as  a  dangerous  physical 
substance  which  needs  to  be  insulated, 
594 

Holland,  “  killing  the  Hare  ”  in,  452  ; 

Easter  fires  in,  617  ;  the  mistletoe  in,  662 
Honduras,  Indians  of,  687 
Honey- wine,  continence  at  brewing,  219 
Hooks  used  in  magic,  27  ;  to  catch  souls, 
180,  185 

Horns,  blown  to  ban  witches,  561  ;  to 
expel  demons,  568 

Horse,  prohibition  to  see  a,  172  ;  prohibi¬ 
tion  to  ride,  174  ;  last  sheaf  given  to, 
408,  460  ;  corn-spirit  as  a,  459  ;  “  fatigue 
of  the,”  460  ;  “  Cross  of  the,”  460  ; 

Virbius  and  the,  476  ;  sacrificed  to  Mars, 
478,  578  ;  red,  sacrificed  as  a  purification 
of  the  land,  570 
Horse-headed  Demeter,  471 
Horses,  Hippolytus  killed  by,  5,  301  ; 
excluded  from  Arician  grove,  5,  477 ; 
sacrificed  to  the  sun,  79  ;  driven  through 
the  need-fire,  639,  640 
Horus,  his  eye  injured  by  Typhon,  475  ; 
the  younger,  son  of  Isis  and  the  dead 
Osiris,  364,  367 

Hos,  of  North-eastern  India,  556  ;  of  Togo- 
land,  232,  239,  241,  555 
Hother,  the  blind  god,  and  Balder,  608 
Hottentots,  45,  80,  221,  265 
House,  taboos  observed  after  building  a 
new,  1 17  ;  ceremony  on  entering  a  new, 
186  ;  taboos  on  quitting  the,  200 
House-building,  30  ;  continence  observed 
at,  220 

Housebreakers,  charms  employed  by,  30 
Howitt,  A.  W.,  44,  234 
Hudson  Bay  Territory,  605 
Huichol  Indians  of  Mexico,  23,  32 
Huitzilopochtli,  or  Vitzilipuztli,  a  great 
Mexican  god,  488  j 

Human  sacrifices.  See  under  Sacrifices 
Hungary,  Whitsuntide  Queen  in,  13 1  ; 
continence  at  sowing  in,  138  ;  harvest 
cock  in,  451  ;  custom  at  threshing  in, 
458  ;  women  fertilised  by  being  struck 
with  certain  sticks  in,  581  ;  Midsummer 
fires  in,  627,  644 

Hunters,  employ  homoeopathic  magic  to 
ensure  a  catch,  18  ;  taboos  observed  by 
and  for,  19,  20,  23  ;  employ  contagious 
magic  of  footprints,  45  ;  tabooed,  216  ; 
chastity  of,  217  ;  propitiation  of  wild 
animals  by,  518-32  ;  luck  of,  spoiled  by 
menstruous  women,  605-6 
Hurons,  144,  179,  52 7,  550 
Husband,  taboos  observed  in  his  absence, 
21-25  ;  his  name  not  to  be  pronounced, 
248,  249  ;  and  wife,  name  given  to  two 
fire-sticks,  484 

Huzuls  of  the  Carpathians,  20,  234,  541, 
638 


INDEX 


Hyaenas,  supposed  power  over  men’s 
shadows,  190 

Hymn  to  Demeter,  Homeric,  393 
Hymns  to  Demetrius  Poliorcetes,  97  ;  to 
Tammuz,  326 
Hyrrockin,  a  giantess,  608 

Ibadan,  king  of,  295 
Ibans  of  Sarawak,  531 
Ibn  Batutala,  145 
Ibos  of  the  lower  Niger,  685 
Iddah,  divinity  claimed  by  king  of,  99 
Ignorrotes,  the,  115 
Ijebu  tribe,  281 
Ilocanes  of  Luzon,  the,  113 
Images,  magical,  13,  14  ;  dipped  in  water 
as  a  rain- charm,  77  ;  of  Osiris  made  of 
vegetable  mould,  374-7  ;  vicarious  use 
of,  492  ;  of  gods,  suggested  origin  of, 
501  ;  demons  conjured  into,  563,  568  ; 
colossal,  filled  with  human  victims  and 
burnt,  654 

Imagination,  death  from,  204 
Immortality,  Egyptian  hope  of,  centred  in 
Osiris,  367,  376,  382  ;  hope  of,  associated 
with  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,  398 
Impregnation  of  women  by  the  sun,  603 
Inca,  fast  of  the  future,  595 
Incarnation,  of  gods  in  human  form,  91  ; 
examples  of  temporary,  93  ;  of  divine 
spirit  in  Shilluk  kings,  267,  268 
Incas  of  Peru,  40,  104,  236,  553 
Incense,  inhaled  to  produce  inspiration,  95  ; 
used  in  exorcism,  195  ;  burnt  at  the 
rites  of  Adonis,  337  ;  burnt  in  honour  of 
the  Queen  of  Heaven,  337  ;  burnt  as  a 
protection  against  witches,  561 
Incest,  141,  332 

India,  ascendency  of  sorcerers  over  gods 
in  modern,  52  ;  rain-charm  in,  71 ;  in¬ 
carnate  human  gods  in,  93,  100  ;  cere¬ 
mony  of  rebirth  in,  197  ;  story  of  the 
transference  of  human  souls  in,  184  ; 
images  of  Siva  and  Parvati  married  in, 
319-20  ;  human  sacrifices  in,  433  ;  use 
of  animals  as  scapegoats  in,  565  ;  girls 
secluded  at  puberty  in,  602  ;  torture  of 
suspected  witches  in,  681 

- ,  ancient,  ceremony  performed  by 

persons  supposed  to  have  been  dead  in, 
15  ;  magical  nature  of  ritual  in,  53  ; 
magical  power  of  kings  in,  89 ;  maxim  not 
to  look  at  one’s  reflection  in  water  in,  192 

- ,  Central  Provinces  of,  rain-charms  in, 

73;  sacred  trees  in,  119 ;  peacock 
worshipped  among  the  Bhils  of,  474  ; 
expulsion  of  disease  in,  565 

- ,  North-eastern,  harvest  home  festival 

in,  556 

- ,  Northern,  the  Emblica  officinalis 

sacred  in,  119  ;  coco-nuts  sacred  in,  119  ; 
eyes  of  owl  eaten  in,  497 

- ,  South-eastern,  precautions  against 

demon  of  smallpox  in,  549 


731 

India,  Southern,  inspired  priest  in,  94  ; 
husband’s  name  tabooed  in,  249  ;  kings 
formerly  killed  after  a  twelve  years’ 
reign  in,  274  ;  ceremonies  at  eating  the 
new  rice  in,  482  ;  expulsion  of  demon  in, 
563 

Indian  ceremonies  analogous  to  the  rites  of 
Adonis,  336  ;  legend  parallel  to  Balder 
myth,  701 

-  Archipelago,  the,  head-hunting  in, 

44 1  i  expulsion  of  diseases  in,  566 ; 
birth-custom  in,  679 

Indonesian  ideas  of  the  rice  soul,  414 ; 
treatment  of  the  growing  rice  as  a  breed¬ 
ing  woman,  414 

Indra,  great  Indian  god,  67,  701 
Industrial  progress  essential  to  intellectual 
progress,  48  ;  evolution  from  uniformity 
to  diversity  of  function,  106 
Infanticide,  293 

Infants,  exposed  to  attacks  of  demons, 
226,  245  ;  tabooed,  231 
Infidelity  of  wife  thought  to  injure  absent 
husband,  23,  25 

Ingiald,  son  of  King  Aunund,  496 
Ingniet  or  Ingiet,  a  secret  society,  680 
Initiation,  rites  of,  692,  693 
Innovations,  the  savage  distrust  of,  225 
Ino  and  Melicertes,  290,  291 
Inquisition,  the,  101,  102 
Insects,  homoeopathic  magic  of,  31 ; 
charms  to  protect  the  fields  against,  530, 
531 

Inspiration,  93  ;  two  modes  of  producing 
temporary,  94  ;  prophetic,  334  ;  savage 
theory  of,  356 

Intellectual  progress  dependent  on  eco¬ 
nomic  progress,  48  . 

Invulnerability,  conferred  by  decoction  of 
a  parasitic  orchid,  660  ;  of  Balder,  667  ; 
attained  through  blood  brotherhood  with 
animal,  684 

Invulnerable  warlock  or  giant,  stories  of 
the,  668 

Ireland,  woman  burnt  as  a  witch  in,  56  ; 
magical  powers  of  kings  in,  89  ;  belief 
as  to  green  boughs  on  May  Day  in,  119  ; 
May  Day  in,  121  ;  May  Queen  in,  131  ; 
taboos  observed  by  kings  in  ancient, 
173  ;  cut  hair  preserved  against  the  day 
of  judgment  in,  236  ;  old  kings  of,  might 
not  have  any  blemish,  273  ;  harvest 
customs  in,  404  ;  hunting  the  wren  in, 
537  ;  Beltane  fires  in,  621  ;  Hallowe’en 
in,  634  ;  Midsummer  fires  in,  646  ;  story 
of  the  external  soul  in,  673 
Iron,  tabooed,  221,  224  ;  used  as  a  charm 
against  spirits,  225,  481  ;  mistletoe 
gathered  without  the  use  of,  660 
Iron-Beard,  Dr.,  a  Whitsuntide  mummer, 
297,  300,  307 
Iroquois,  the,  112,  553 
Ishtar,  great  Babylonian  goddess,  325, 
330 


73  2 


INDEX 


Isis,  how  she  discovered  the  name  of  Ra, 
260  ;  sister  and  wife  of  Osiris,  363,  382  ; 
her  many  names,  382  ;  a  corn-goddess, 
382  ;  her  discovery  of  wheat  and  barley, 
382  ;  identified  with  Demeter,  383  ; 
popularity  of  her  worship  in  the  Roman 
Empire,  383  ;  resemblance  to  the  Virgin 
Mary,  383  ;  dirge  of,  424 
Islay,  the  island  of,  403 
Isle  de  France,  the  May-tree  and  Father 
May  in,  126  ;  harvest  customs  in,  427, 
430  ;  Midsummer  giant  burnt  in,  655 
Isle  of  Man,  the,  81  ;  St.  Bridget  in,  135  ; 
hunting  the  wren  in,  536  ;  Midsummer 
fires  in,  630,  645  ;  old  New  Year’s  Day 
in,  633  ;  Hogmanay  song  in,  634 ; 
Hallowe’en  in,  636 
Israelites,  210,  472 
Issapoo,  negroes  of,  501 
Italones,  the,  498 

Italy,  disposal  of  loose  hair  by  women  in, 
236  ;  “  killing  the  Hare  ”  at  harvest  in, 
453 ;  resemblance  between  the  Carnival 
of  modem  and  the  Saturnalia  of  ancient, 
586  ;  Midsummer  fires  in,  631  ;  the 
mistletoe  in,  659  ;  birth-trees  in,  682 
- ,  ancient,  spinning  on  highroads  for¬ 
bidden  to  women,  20;  forests  of,  no; 
tree- worship  in,  m  ;  oaks  sacred  to 
Jupiter  in,  160 

Itonamas  of  South  America,  180 
Ivy,  eaten  by  Bacchanals,  95  ;  prohibition 
to  touch  or  name,  174  ;  sacred  to  Attis, 
352  ;  sacred  to  Osiris,  381  ;  associated 
with  Dionysus,  387 

Ja-Luo  tribes  of  Kavirondo,  215 
Jablonski,  P.  E.,  384 
Jabme-Aimo,  abode  of  the  dead,  529 
Jack-in-the-Green,  129,  299 
Jackal’s  heart  not  eaten  lest  it  make  the 
eater  timid,  495 
Jagas,  a  tribe  of  Angola,  293 
Jambi  in  Sumatra,  temporary  kings  in,  287 
Jana,  another  form  of  Diana,  164-5 
Janus,  164,  165,  167  ;  as  a  god  of  doors, 
166  ;  explanation  of  the  two-headed,  166 
Japan,  black  dog  sacrificed  for  rain  in  the 
mountains  of,  73  ;  rain-making  by  means 
of  a  stone  in,  76  ;  ceremony  to  make 
trees  bear  fruit  in,  114  ;  the  Mikado  of, 
168  ;  bear  festival  of  the  Aino  in,  505  ; 
the  mistletoe  in,  660 

Jar,  the  evils  of  a  whole  year  shut  up  in  a,  567 
Jars,  wind  kept  by  priests  in,  170 
Jaundice,  15,  16 

Java,  30;  rain -charms  in,  66,  68,  72; 
sexual  intercourse  to  promote  the  growth 
of  rice  in,  136  ;  custom  when  child  is 
first  set  on  the  ground,  181  ;  remedy  for 
gout  or  rheumatism  in,  196  ;  supersti¬ 
tions  as  to  the  head  in,  230  ;  ceremony 
at  rice-harvest  in,  418  ;  earthworms 
eaten  by  dancing  girls  in,  496 


Jawbones,  magical  use  of,  18,  78  ;  of  slain 
animals  propitiated  by  hunters,  526 
Jaws  of  corpse  tied  up  to  prevent  the 
escape  of  the  soul,  180 
Jay,  blue,  as  scapegoat,  545 
Jeoud,  sacrificed  by  his  father,  293 
Jerome  on  the  worship  of  Adonis,  346 
- of  Prague,  118 

Jerusalem,  the  Temple  at,  225  ;  mourning 
forTammuzat,  326;  religious  music  at,  334 
Jewish  hunters,  228 
Jewitt,  John  R.,  698 

Jews,  attitude  of,  to  the  pig,  472  ;  their 
ablutions,  473  ;  use  of  scapegoats,  569, 
572 

Jinn,  145,  540 

Jinnee  of  the  sea,  virgins  married  to  a,  146 
Judah,  idolatrous  kings  of,  79 
Judas,  effigies  of,  burnt,  615,  616 
Jukos,  the,  of  Nigeria,  270 
Julian,  the  Emperor,  109,  336,  346 
Juniper  berries,  houses  fumigated  with,  560 
Juno,  150,  151,  164,  165  ;  Moneta,  150 
Jupiter,  Roman  kings  in  the  character  of, 
148,  152  ;  as  god  of  the  oak,  the  rain, 
and  the  thunder,  160  ;  and  Juno,  doubles 
of  Janus  (Dianus)  and  Diana,  164  ;  and 
Dionysus,  388 

-  Capitoline,  148,  150  ;  Elicius,  149  ; 

Latian,  150  ;  Liber,  temple  of,  225 
Jutland,  superstitions  about  a  parasitic 
rowan  in,  702 

Juturna,  a  water  nymph,  165 

Kabyle  story  of  the  external  soul,  674 
Kachins  of  Burma,  219 
Kadiak,  island  off  Alaska,  208 
Kai,  tribe  in  New  Guinea,  498,  581,  694 
Kakian  association  in  Ceram,  696 
Kalamba,  a  Congo  chief,  198 
Kali,  Indian  goddess,  94 
Kalmucks,  the,  534  ;  story  of  the  external 
soul  among  the,  675 
Kamilaroi,  the,  498 
Kamtchatkans,  the,  78,  520,  529 
Kangaroo,  eaten  to  make  eater  swift¬ 
footed,  496 
Kansas  Indians,  496 

Kapus  or  Reddis  in  Madras  Presidency,  73 
Kara- Kirghiz,  the,  120 
Karens  of  Burma,  183,  185,  230,  415 
Karma-tree,  ceremony  over  a,  342 
Karo-Bataks  of  Sumatra,  40,  185,  233 
Karok  Indians  of  California,  528 
Karpathos,  island  of,  545 
Katajalina,  an  Australian  spirit,  693 
Kavirondo,  tribes  of,  purification  of  man- 
slayers  among  the,  215 
Kayans  of  Borneo,  82, 117,211,221,  414,  496 
Kei  Islands,  the,  magical  telepathy  in,  24, 
26  ;  treatment  of  the  navel-string  in,  40  ; 
expulsion  of  demons  in,  548  ;  birth 
custom  in,  679 

Kekchi  Indians  of  Guatemala,  138 


INDEX 


733 


Keramin  tribe  of  New  South  Wales,  76 
Keremet,  a  god  of  the  Wotyaks,  144 
Kettles  used  to  mimic  thunder,  77 
Key  of  the  field,  430 
Keys,  bunch  of,  as  a  charm,  226 
Khalij,  old  canal  at  Cairo,  370 
Khan,  ceremony  at  visiting  a  Tartar,  198  ; 
the  Great,  228 

Khon-ma,  Tibetan  goddess,  492 
Khonds,  the,  256,  434,  557 
Khor-Adar  Dinka,  the,  270 
Kibanga,  king  of,  270 
Kickapoo  Indians,  214 
Kid,  surname  of  Dionysus,  390 
Kidneys  tabooed  to  Malagasy  soldiers,  22 
Killer,  of  the  Elephant,  official  who  throttles 
sick  kings,  271  ;  of  the  Rye-woman,  428 
Killing  the  spirit  of  the  wind,  82  ;  the 
divine  king,  264-83  ;  the  tree-spirit,  296- 
323  ;  the  divine  animal,  499-518  ;  a  god, 
533.  538,  587-92 

Kimbunda,  the,  of  West  Africa,  498 
King,  the  killing  of  the  divine,  264-83  ; 
his  life  sympathetically  bound  up  with 
the  prosperity  of  the  country,  267,  268, 
592  ;  sacrifice  of  his  son,  289-93  ;  re¬ 
sponsible  for  weather  and  crops,  292. 
See  also  Kings 

King  and  Queen,  at  Athens,  9  ;  at  Whit¬ 
suntide,  132,  299 ;  of  May,  132,  299, 
320 

King,  the  Grass,  130,  299  ;  the  Leaf,  130  ; 

the  Roman,  as  Jupiter,  148 
King  of  the  Bean,  586  ;  of  the  Calf,  458  ; 
of  Fire,  108,  176,  266  ;  of  Rain,  70  ;  of 
Rain  and  Storm,  107  ;  of  Sacred  Rites 
at  Rome,  9,  106,  152,  157  ;  of  Water, 
108,  176,  266  ;  of  the  Wood  at  Nemi,  1, 
3,  8,  106,  140,  147,  163,  164,  167,  269, 
296,  300,  301,  586,  593,  703,  7io;  of  the 
Years  at  Lhassa,  573,  574 
King  Hop  in  Siam,  284,  285 
King’s  evil,  90,  204 

-  Race  at  Whitsuntide,  129 

Kings,  priestly,  9,  169,  203  ;  Teutonic,  9  ; 
magicians  as,  83-91  ;  touch  for  scrofula, 
90  ;  divinity  of,  91  ;  as  gods  in  India, 
100  ;  temples  built  in  honour  of,  104  ; 
sacrifices  to,  104  ;  of  nature,  106-9  >  of 
rain,  108  ;  of  fire  and  water,  108  ; 
Roman,  147-9,  151,  152  ;  supernatural 
powers  attributed  to,  149,  168  ;  pater¬ 
nity  of,  154;  their  lives  regulated  by 
strict  rules,  168,  194  ;  taboos  observed 
by,  1 71  ;  beaten  before  coronation,  176  ; 
portraits  of,  not  on  coins,  193  ;  guarded 
against  the  magic  of  strangers,  198  ;  not 
to  be  seen  eating  and  drinking,  198  ;  for¬ 
bidden  to  leave  their  palaces,  200 ; 
tabooed,  202  ;  foods  tabooed  to,  238  ; 
names  of,  tabooed,  257-9  ;  killed  when 
strength  fails,  265  ;  attacks  on,  per¬ 
mitted,  267,  275  ;  worshipped  after 
death,  268  ;  killed  at  the  end  of  a  fixed 


term,  274  ;  dying  by  deputy,  278  ; 
temporary,  283-9  ;  torn  in  pieces,  tradi¬ 
tions  of,  378  ;  trace  of  the  custom  of 
slaying  them  annually,  440 
Kingship,  evolution  of  the  sacred,  105  ; 
descent  of  the,  in  the  female  line,  152, 
154,  155  ;  burdens  and  restrictions 

attaching  to  the  early,  168,  175  ;  tenure 
of  the,  279-81 

Kingsley,  Miss,  on  soul-traps,  188 
Kinship  of  men  with  crocodiles,  519 
Kiowa  Indians,  253 
Kirghiz,  the,  156,  249,  602 
Kirn,  last  corn  cut,  406,  407 
Kiwai,  natives  of,  379 
Klamath  Indians  of  Oregon,  255 
Knife  as  charm  against  spirits,  226  ;  not 
to  be  left  edge  upwards,  227 
Knives,  not  used  at  meals  after  a  funeral, 
22 7  ;  of  special  pattern  used  in  reaping 
rice,  414 

Knots,  tying  up  the  wind  in,  81  ;  pro¬ 
hibition  to  wear,  174  ;  untied  at  child¬ 
birth,  238,  240  ;  thought  to  prevent  the 
consummation  of  marriage,  240  ;  thought 
to  cause  sickness  and  disease,  241  ;  used 
to  cure  disease,  win  a  lover,  or  stop  a 
runaway,  242  ;  magical  virtue  of,  242-3  ; 
tied  in  branches  of  trees  as  remedies,  545 
Koniags  of  Alaska,  600 
Koran,  on  magical  knots,  241 
Kore,  Maiden,  title  of  Persephone,  420 
Kore,  expelled  on  Easter  Eve  in  Albania, 
560 

Koryaks,  the,  156,  521,  523 
Koschei  the  Deathless,  story  of,  671 
Kostroma,  funeral  of,  in  Russia,  318 
Kostrubonko,  death  and  resurrection  of, 
3I7 

Koui  hunters  in  Laos,  529 
Krishna,  Hindoo  god,  101 
Kublai  Khan,  228 
Kuhn,  Adalbert,  644 
Kukulu,  priestly  king,  169 
Kumis  of  South-eastern  India,  549 
Kunama,  the,  107 

Kupalo,  mythical  being,  317-18,  627,  652 
Kurmis  of  India,  565 
Kurnai  of  Victoria,  190,  689 
Kuruvikkarans  of  Southern  India,  94 
Kwakiutl  Indians,  66,  527,  678 

Labyrinth,  the  Cretan,  280 
Lac,  taboos  observed  in  gathering,  21 
Lada,  mythical  being  in  Russia,  318 
Ladder,  for  the  use  of  a  tree-spirit,  116  ;  to 
facilitate  the  descent  of  the  sun,  136 
Lafitau,  J.  F.,  256 
Lagos,  in  West  Africa,  295,  433 
Lagrange,  Father,  338 
Lake-dwellers  of  Europe,  399 
Lakor,  island  of,  566 
Laluba,  the,  of  the  Upper  Nile,  85 
Lama  of  Tibet,  the  Grand,  102-3 


734 


INDEX 


Lamb,  blood  of,  tasted  by  priestess  to 
procure  inspiration,  94 ;  as  expiatory 
victim,  224  ;  thrown  into  lake  as  an 
offering,  390  ;  killed  sacramentally,  534 
Laments  for  Tammuz,  326  ;  for  Osiris,  366 
Lamps,  dedication  of,  3  ;  to  light  ghosts  to 
their  old  homes,  374 
Landen,  the  battlefield  of,  340 
Language,  special,  99  ;  change  of,  caused 
by  taboo,  254,  255,  257 
Lanquineros,  the,  138 
Laos,  in  Siam,  taboos  observed  at,  21,  23, 
219,  594 

Lapis  manalis  used  in  rain-making  cere¬ 
mony  at  Rome,  78 
Lappland,  tying  up  the  wind  in,  81 
Lapps,  the,  221,  238,  243,  256,  521,  529,  606 
Latin  League,  the,  150,  167 
Latinus,  King,  149 

Latium,  ancient,  the  woods  of,  150  ;  suc¬ 
cession  to  the  kingdom  in,  152-8 
Latukas  of  the  Upper  Nile,  85,  87,  229 
Laurel,  95,  148 
Laws  of  Manu,  89,  100 
Le  Mole,  on  the  Lake  of  Nemi,  4 
Leaf  Man,  the  Little,  128  ;  King,  130 
Leaping,  to  make  crops  grow  high,  28  ; 
over  bonfires,  560,  610,  613,  621,  624-6, 
630,  631,  646,  656 

Learchus,  son  of  King  Athamas,  290,  291 
Leaves,  disease  transferred  to,  539 ; 
fatigue  transferred  to,  540 ;  used  to 
expel  demons,  567 

Lechrain,  646  ;  burying  the  Carnival  in, 
307 

Legs  not  to  be  crossed,  239,  240 
Leinster,  taboos  observed  by  the  ancient 
kings  of,  173 

Lemon,  external  souls  of  ogres  in  a,  669 
Lendu  tribe  of  Central  Africa,  85 
Lengua  Indians,  the,  82,  88,  253,  294,  526 
Lent,  personification  of,  304 
Lenten  fires,  609 
Leo  the  Great,  359 

Leopard’s  blood  drunk  or  heart  eaten  to 
make  eater  brave,  495 
Leopards,  523  ;  external  human  souls  in, 
684-6 

Lepers  sacrificed  by  the  Mexicans,  444 
Leprosy,  473 

Lerida  in  Catalonia,  funeral  of  the  Carnival 
at,  304 

Lerotse  leaves  used  in  purification,  484 
Leti,  island  of,  marriage  of  the  Sun  and 
Earth  in,  136  ;  annual  expulsion  of 
diseases  in,  566 
Leto,  120 

Letts  of  Russia,  swing  to  make  the  flax 
grow  high,  289 
Leucadians,  579 

Leucippe,  daughter  of  Minyas,  292 
Lewis,  the  island  of,  81 
Lhota  Naga,  the,  433 
Libyans,  the  Alitemnian,  156 


Licence,  periods  of,  158,  553,  555,  558,  575, 

583 

Lightning,  magical  imitation  of,  63  ;  imita¬ 
tion  of,  by  kings,  77,  149  ;  talismans 
against,  614,  615,  626,  637,  638,  649  ; 
regarded  as  a  god  descending  out  of 
heaven,  708  ;  strikes  oak  oftener  than 
any  other  tree,  708,  709  ;  places  struck 
by,  enclosed  and  deemed  sacred,  709 
Lime-trees,  sacred,  161 
Linus  or  Ailinus,  Phoenician  vintage  song, 
425,  442 

Lion,  purification  of  killer  of  a,  221  ;  flesh 
or  heart  eaten  to  make  eater  brave,  495 
Lithuania,  tree-worship  in,  no ;  sacred 
groves  in,  118  ;  May  Day  in,  126  ;  last 
sheaf  in,  405  ;  harvest  customs  in,  406, 
428  ;  ceremonies  observed  at  eating  the 
new  corn  in,  480,  481  ;  Midsummer  fires 
in,  627 

Lithuanians,  161,  227,  665 
Lityerses,  424-47 

Lizard,  soul  in  form  of,  182  ;  or  snake,  in 
ceremony  for  riddance  of  evils,  568 
Ljeschie,  Russian  wood-spirits,  465 
Llama,  black,  as  scapegoat,  565 
Loango,  king  of,  86,  98,  199-201  ;  taboos 
observed  by  kings  of,  171  ;  food  tabooed 
to  priests  in,  238  ;  girls  secluded  at 
puberty  in,  595 

Locks  unlocked  at  childbirth,  238,  239  ; 
thought  to  prevent  consummation  of 
marriage,  240 ;  unlocked  to  facilitate 
death,  243  ;  mistletoe  as  a  master-key 
to  open  all,  663 

Locusts,  chiefs  held  responsible  for  ravages 
of,  87  ;  superstitious  precautions  against, 
53i 

Logan,  W.,  276 
Loki  and  Balder,  608 
Lokoiya,  the,  of  the  Upper  Nile,  85 
Lolos  of  Western  China,  the,  183 
Lombok,  island  of,  418 
Longevity,  charms  to  ensure,  35 
“  Longevity  garments  ”  in  China,  36 
Loom  not  to  be  touched  by  a  man,  21 1 
“Lord of  the  Heavenly  Hosts  ”  in  Siam,  284 
Lorraine,  harvest  customs  in,  428,  440,  4.S7 
Love  charms,  44 

“  Love  Chase  ”  among  the  Kirghiz,  156 
Loyalty  Islands,  recall  of  a  lost  soul  in  the, 
185 

Lules  or  Tonocotes  of  the  Gran  Chaco,  550 
Lusatia,  “  carrying  out  Death  ”  in,  310-13 
Luxor,  paintings  at,  142 
Lycurgus,  king  of  the  Thracian  Edonians, 
378,  379,  392 

Lydia,  religious  prostitution  in,  331  ; 
festival  of  Dionysus  in,  390 

Ma,  goddess  at  Comana  in  Pontus,  331 
Mabuaig,  continence  observed  during 
turtle-season,  217;  seclusion  of  girls  at 
puberty  in,  598 


INDEX 


Macahity,  a  Hawaiian  festival,  282,  283 
M'Carthy,  Sir  Charles,  eaten  by  the 
Ashantees  to  make  them  brave,  497 
Macdonald,  Rev.  James,  18,  680 
Macedonian  calendar,  443 
MacGregor,  Sir  William,  84 
Macpherson,  Major  S.  C.,  437 
Macusis  of  British  Guiana,  181,  601 
Madagascar,  king  of,  as  high  priest,  9  ; 
foods  tabooed  in,  22  ;  custom  of  women 
while  men  are  at  war  in,  26  ;  magical 
use  of  stones  in,  33  ;  modes  of  counter¬ 
acting  evil  omens,  37  ;  fear  of  being 
photographed  in,  193  ;  taboo  on 
mentioning  personal  names  in,  246 ; 
names  of  chiefs  and  kings  tabooed,  258  ; 
crocodiles  respected  in,  519.  See  also 
Malagasy 

Madanassana  Bushmen,  474 
Madi  tribe  of  Central  Africa,  534 
Madonna  and  Isis,  their  resemblance,  383 
Madura,  inspired  mediums  in,  95 
Magic,  principles  of,  11  ;  sympathetic,  10- 
48,  200,  202,  211,  219,  233,  237,  386,  403, 
533  ;  homoeopathic  or  imitative,  11-37, 
63,  221,  239,  240,  341,  444,  494-9,  581, 
642, 704  ;  contagious,  n,  37-45,  230,  233, 
235  ;  positive  and  negative,  19,  21,  29  ; 
public  and  private,  45-61  ;  and  religion, 
48-60,  64,  90,  92,  162,  324  ;  and  science, 
48,  49,  712  ;  attraction  of,  49  ;  the  Age 
of,  55,  56  ;  universality  of  belief  in,  55, 
56  ;  fallacy  of,  59,  90  ;  movement  of 
thought  from  magic  through  religion  to 
science,  71 1 

Magician,  public,  45,  60  ;  and  priest,  52 
Magicians,  claim  to  compel  the  gods,  52  ; 
professional,  61  ;  as  kings,  83-91  ; 
develop  into  gods  and  kings,  92  ;  the 
oldest  professional  class  in  the  evolution 
of  society,  105  ;  Egyptian,  52,  261 
Magnets  thought  to  keep  brothers  at  unity, 
34 

Magondi,  a  Mashona  chief,  98 
Magyar  story  of  the  external  soul,  674 
Maharajas  as  incarnations  of  Krishna,  101 
Mahrattas,  100 
Mai  Darat,  a  Sakai  tribe,  493 
Maiden,  the  (Persephone),  the  descent  of, 
371  ;  name  given  to  the  last  corn  cut  in 
the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  403,  409 
M  aidhdeanbuain,  “  the  shorn  maiden,”  407 
Maidu  Indians  of  California,  707,  708 
Maize,  goddess  of,  28  ;  magic  to  promote 
its  growth,  28,  and  increase,  33  ; 
personified  as  an  Old  Woman  who  Never 
Dies,  419  ;  goddess  of  the  young,  588 
Maize-mother,  the,  412,  413 
Makololo,  the,  of  South  Africa,  236 
Makrizi,  Arab  historian,  64 
Malabar,  custom  of  Thalavettiparothiam 
in,  278  ;  cows  as  scapegoats  in,  570  ; 
seclusion  of  girls  at  puberty  in,  602 
Malagasy,  217,  519;  faditras  among  the,  541 


735 

Malay  charms  and  magic,  13,  19,  28,  80  ; 
taboos,  21 

Malays,  the,  88,  113,  179,  181,  183,  184, 
188,  230,  248,  413,  417,  541,  676,  683 
Maidive  Islands,  virgin  sacrificed  as  bride 
to  a  jinnee  of  the  sea  in  the,  146 
Malians  of  India,  565 
Malta,  Midsummer  fires  in,  631 ;  Phoenician 
temples  of,  330 ;  fires  on  St.  John’s  Eve 
in,  631 

Mamurius  Veturius,  577,  580 
Man,  Isle  of.  See  Isle  of  Man 
Man-god,  10,  60,  92,  203,  265 
Mandan  Indians,  419,  562 
Mandelings  of  Sumatra,  the,  116,  239 
Maneros,  chant  of  Egyptian  reapers,  365, 
37i,  372,  424 

Mangaia,  Pacific  island,  separation  of 
religious  and  civil  authority  in,  177 
Mangaians,  the,  191 
Mani  of  Chitombe  or  Jumba,  234 
Manii  at  Aricia,  many,  491 
Manipur,  Rajah  of,  and  his  human  scape¬ 
goat,  543 

Manius  Egerius,  6,  492 
Mannhardt,  W.,  118,  127,  129,  316,  399, 
401,  402,  419,  459,  460,  465,  580,  642, 
643,  654,  658 

Man-slayers  tabooed,  212-16 
Manu,  the  Laws  of,  89 
Maori  chiefs,  204,  230,  231,  235,  259 
Maoris,  114,  197,  205,  210,  233,  234,  528, 
682 

Maraves,  the,  of  South  Africa,  116 
Marcellus  of  Bordeaux,  16,  17,  544 
Mare,  corn-spirit  as,  459 
Marena  (Winter  or  Death)  on  Midsummer 
Eve  in  Russia,  318 
Marigolds  in  magic,  44 
Marimos,  Bechuana  tribe,  433 
Marquesans,  180,  231-3 
Marquesas  or  Washington  Islands,  human 
gods  in  the,  96 

Marriage,  of  men  and  women  to  trees,  8  ; 
treading  on  a  stone  at,  33  ;  the  pole-star 
at,  34  ;  of  the  Sun  and  Earth,  136,  145  ; 
the  Sacred,  139-46  ;  of  the  Gods,  142-5  ; 
consummation  of,  prevented  by  knots, 
240  ;  mock  or  real,  of  human  victims, 
581 

Marriott,  Fitzgerald,  26 
Mars,  577,  578  ;  temple  of,  77  ;  the  planet, 
444  ;  Field  of,  478 
Mars  Silvanus,  578 
Marsaba,  a  devil,  696 
Marseilles,  human  scapegoats  at,  578  ; 
Midsummer  king  of  the  double  axe  at, 
630 

Marsh  marigold,  hoop  wreathed  with,  121 
Marsyas,  his  musical  contest  with  Apollo, 
354  ;  perhaps  a  double  of  Attis,  354 
Martens,  magic  to  snare,  18 
Masai  of  East  Africa,  219,  232,  238 
Mashona  of  South  Africa,  98 


INDEX 


736 

Masks  worn  by  devil-dancers,  542  ;  at 
expulsion  of  demons,  548,  553  ;  by 
members  of  a  secret  Wolf  society,  699 
Maspero,  Sir  Gaston,  53 
“  Mass  of  the  Holy  Spirit,”  53 
Mass  of  Saint  Secaire,  54 
Massagetae  sacrifice  horses  to  the  sun,  79 
Masset,  in  Queen  Charlotte  Islands,  dances 
of  Haida  women  at,  27 
Matabele,  the,  72,  645 
Matacos  or  Mataguayos,  the,  601 
Matiamvo,  a  potentate  in  Angola,  271 
Matuana,  Zulu  chief,  498 
May,  King  of,  129,  130,  299  ;  King  and 
Queen  of,  157,  320  ;  Queen  of,  129,  131 
May  Bride,  135,  317,  320  ;  Bridegroom, 
133  ;  Lady,  in  Cambridge,  127  ;  Rose, 
the  Little,  125 

- Day,  celebration  of,  119-35,  316,  621  ; 

“  Burning  out  of  the  Witches  ”  on,  560  ; 
bonfires  on,  617-22 

May-bushes,  119,  129,  130,  132;  -garlands, 
121  ;  -poles,  1 19,  120,  122-4,  132,  479; 
-trees,  119-21,  123,  124,  297,  299,  311, 
314,  614,  651 
Mbaya  Indians,  the,  293 
M’Bengas  of  the  Gaboon,  681 
Mecca,  pilgrims  to,  238 
Mecklenburg,  magic  in,  44  ;  locks  unlocked 
at  childbirth  in,  239  ;  harvest  customs 
in,  430,  449,  454  ;  treatment  of  the  after¬ 
birth  in,  682 
Medea  and  Aeson,  496 
Medicine  bag,  at  initiation,  698 

- men,  64,  85,  87,  88,  92,  105,  180,  183-7, 

484,  520,  679,  693 

Melanesia,  homoeopathic  magic  of  stones 
in,  33  ;  contagious  magic  of  wounds  in, 
41  ;  confusion  of  magic  and  religion  in, 
52  ;  supernatural  power  of  chiefs  in,  84  ; 
continence  while  yam  vines  are  being 
trained  in,  138  ;  malignant  spirits  in, 
192  ;  disposal  of  cut  hair  and  nails  in, 
235  ;  names  of  relations  by  marriage 
tabooed  in,  251  ;  conception  of  the 
external  soul  in,  684 
Melanesians,  52,  246 

Melicertes,  son  of  King  Athamas,  290, 
291 

Melos,  milk-stones  in,  34 
Memphis,  head  of  Osiris  at,  366 
Men,  evil  transferred  to,  542  ;  disguised  as 
demons,  562,  563  ;  as  scapegoats,  565  ; 
divine,  as  scapegoats,  571,  576 ;  dis¬ 
guised  as  women,  610 
Menedemus,  sacrifices  to,  224 
Menelik,  Emperor  of  Abyssinia,  66 
Menstruation,  women  tabooed  at,  207 ; 
seclusion  of  girls  at,  595  ;  reasons  for 
secluding  women  at,  606 
Meriahs,  human  victims  sacrificed  among 
the  Khonds,  434,  437 
Merlin,  the  wizard,  76 
Meroe,  Ethiopian  kings  of,  266 


Mesopotamia,  artificial  fertilisation  of  the 
date-palm  in,  582 

Messiah,  pretended,  in  America,  102 
Metsik,  a  forest-spirit,  315 
Mexican  kings,  their  oath,  87,  104  ;  sacra¬ 
ments,  488  ;  temples,  589 
Mexicans,  the  ancient,  79,  380,  432 
Mexico,  ancient,  festival  in  honour  of  the 
goddess  of  maize,  28  ;  treatment  of  the 
navel-string  in,  40  ;  human  sacrifices  in, 
380,  431,  432  ;  killing  the  god  in,  587-92 
Micah,  the  prophet,  51 
Mice,  in  magic,  39  ;  eaten  by  the  Jews  as 
a  religious  rite,  472  ;  superstitious  pre¬ 
cautions  of  farmers  against,  530,  531 
Midsummer,  death  of  the  spirit  of  vegeta¬ 
tion  celebrated  at,  319 ;  bonfire  at, 
called  “  fire  of  heaven,”  644  ;  procession 
of  giants  at,  654  ;  sacred  to  Balder, 
664 

Midsummer  bonfires,  122,  622.  See  also 
Midsummer  fires 

- Bride  and  Bridegroom,  133 

- Day,  ancient  Roman  festival  of,  153. 

See  also  St.  John’s  Day 

- Eve,  in  Sweden,  122  ;  in  Russia,  318  ; 

trolls  and  evil  spirits  abroad  on,  625  ; 
oak  thought  to  bloom  on,  706.  See  also 
St.  John’s  Eve 

- festival,  in  Europe,  153,  622  ;  named 

after  St.  John,  343  ;  the  most  important 
of  the  year  among  the  primitive  Aryans 
of  Europe,  656 

- fires,  622-32  ;  animals  burnt  in,  655 

Midwinter  fires,  636 

Mikado  of  Japan,  168,  169,  176,  202,  593, 
595 

Miklucho-Maclay,  Baron,  197 
Milk,  women’s,  promoted  by  milk-stones, 
34  ;  of  cows,  thought  to  be  promoted  by 
green  boughs,  119  ;  customs  observed 
when  the  king  of  Bunyoro  drinks,  199  ; 
of  pig  thought  to  cause  leprosy,  472, 
473  ;  omens  from  boiling,  482  ;  taboos 
referring  to,  488  ;  not  to  be  drunk  by 
menstruous  women,  604 ;  stolen  by 
witches  from  cows,  620,  62 7,  628,  648 
Milk-stones,  magical,  34 
Milkmen  of  the  Todas  sacred  or  divine, 
100  ;  taboos  of,  175 

Millet,  homoeopathic  magic  of,  29  ;  the 
deity  of,  481 

Minangkabauers  of  Sumatra,  180,  183,  415, 
604 

Minahassa,  inspired  priests  in,  95  ;  cere¬ 
mony  at  house-warming  in,  186,  679  ; 
names  of  parents-in-law  tabooed  in,  250  ; 
sowing  and  plucking  the  new  rice  in, 
482  ;  dummies  to  deceive  demons  in, 
492  ;  hair  of  slain  foe  used  to  impart 
courage  in,  498  ;  expulsion  of  devils  in, 
548 

Minnetaree  Indians,  419,  529 
Minos,  king  of  Cnossus,  280 


INDEX 


Minotaur,  the  legend  of  the,  280 
Minyas,  king  of  Orchomenus,  291 
Miracles,  god-man  expected  to  work,  93 
Miris  of  Assam,  496 
Mirrors,  superstitions  as  to,  192 
Mirzapur,  rearing  of  silkworms  in,  218 
Miscarriage  in  childbed,  dread  of,  209 
Misrule,  Lord  of,  585,  586 
Missouri,  the  cottonwood  trees  in  the 
valley  of,  in 

Mistletoe,  160,  658,  659,  701  ;  Balder  and 
the,  608,  658-67,  701,  702,  710  ;  and  the 
Golden  Bough,  703-4 

Mistress,  sanctuary  of  the,  at  Lycosura, 
243  i  “  of  Turquoise,”  330 
Mithra,  Persian  deity,  358 
Mithraic  religion,  467 
Mnevis,  sacred  Egyptian  bull,  366,  476 
Moab,  Arabs  of,  32,  378  ;  king  of,  293  ; 
wilderness  of,  334 

Mock  sun,  79  ;  execution,  283  ;  kings,  284  ; 

marriage  of  human  victims,  581 
Moffat,  Dr.  R.,  86 
Mogk,  Professor  Eugen,  642 
Mohammed  bewitched  by  a  Jew,  241 
Mohammedan  calendar,  lunar,  632 
Mohammedans,  celebration  of  Midsummer 
festival  by,  632 

Moloch,  sacrifice  of  children  to,  281 
Molonga,  a  demon  of  Queensland,  562 
Moluccas,  the,  clove- trees  in  blossom 
treated  like  pregnant  women  in,  115  ; 
fear  of  offending  forest  spirits  in,  117  ; 
abduction  of  souls  in,  186 
Mombasa,  king  of,  99 
Mon,  island  of,  456 

Monarchy,  in  ancient  Greece  and  Rome,  9  ; 
rise  of,  essential  to  emergence  of  man¬ 
kind  from  savagery,  47 
Mondard,  the  great,  466 
Money,  magical  stones  to  bring,  33 
Mongolia,  incarnate  human  gods  in,  103  ; 

story  of  the  external  soul  in,  676 
Mongols,  103,  252,  529 
Monkey  sacrificed  for  riddance  of  evils, 
569 

Montanus  the  Phrygian,  10 1 
Montezuma,  king  of  Mexico,  104,  593 
Moon,  the,  and  Endymion,  4  ;  ceremony 
at  an  eclipse  of,  78  ;  charm  to  hasten, 
80  ;  Diana  conceived  as,  141  ;  ceremony 
at  new,  175  ;  human  victims  sacrificed 
to,  444  ;  pigs  sacrificed  to,  472  ;  the 
“  dark,”  557  ;  temple  of,  571  ;  reflected 
in  Diana’s  Mirror,  71 1 
Mooraba  Gosseyn,  a  Brahman,  100 
Moors  of  Morocco,  540 
Moquis  of  Arizona,  225,  504 
Moravia,  “carrying  out  Death”  in,  310, 
313  ;  harvest  customs  in,  408  ;  fire's  to 
burn  witches  in,  622 
Mori  clan  of  the  Bhils,  474 
Morning  Star,  the,  346  ;  human  sacrifice 
enjoined  by,  432 


737 

Morocco,  iron  a  protection  against  demons 
in,  226  ;  annual  temporary  king  in,  286  ; 
homoeopathic  magic  in,  496  ;  boars  used 
to  divert  evil  spirits  in,  540  ;  Midsummer 
fires  in,  631,  632,  646 
Moru  tribe  of  Central  Africa,  534 
Mosyni  or  Mosynoeci,  the,  200 
Mota,  in  the  New  Hebrides,  conception  cf 
the  external  soul  in,  684 
Mother,  of  a  god,  333  ;  of  the  gods,  5,  346, 
356  ;  the  Great  (Cybele),  353;  of  the 
Maize,  413  ;  of  the  Rice,  415  ;  or  Grand¬ 
mother  of  Ghosts,  491-3 
Mother-corn,  405  ;  -sheaf,  401 

- Goddess  of  Western  Asia,  330,  331 

- kin,  152,  248,  332 

in-law,  savage’s  dread  of  his,  190 
Motu  of  New  Guinea,  246 
Motumotu,  the,  81,  192,  246 
Mourners,  tabooed,  205  ;  change  their 
names,  253 

Mouse,  soul  in  form  of,  182 
Moxos  Indians  of  Bolivia,  23 
Mozcas,  the,  104 

Mukasa,  god  of  the  Victoria  Nyanza  lake 
i45 

Mukyl6in,  the  Earth-wife  among  the 
Wotyaks,  144 

Mullein,  used  as  a  charm,  629 
Mummers,  126,  127;  the  Whitsuntide, 
296-301  ;  at  Hallowe’en  in  Isle  of  Man, 
633 

Mundaris  of  Assam,  118,  557 
Mundas  of  Bengal,  342 

Munster,  taboos  observed  by  the  ancient 
kings  of,  173 

Mura-muras,  appealed  to  for  rain,  65 
Murderers,  taboos  imposed  on,  216 
Murrain,  need-fire  kindled  as  a  remedy  for, 
641 

Music,  as  a  means  of  prophetic  inspiration, 
334  ;  and  religion,  334-5 
Muysca  Indians  of  Colombia,  104 
Muzimbas  or  Zimbas,  the,  97 
Myrrh,  the  mother  of  Adonis,  337 
Mysteries,  Eleusinian.  See  Eleusinian 
mysteries 

“  Naaman,  wounds  of  the,”  336 
Nagual,  external  soul,  687 
Nails,  used  in  magic,  44  ;  knocked  into 
trees,  127 ;  used  as  charms  against 
fairies,  226 

Nails,  parings  of,  used  in  magic,  13,  233  ; 
swallowed  by  attendants,  229  ;  disposal 
of,  233-7 
Namaquas,  495 

Names  tabooed :  personal,  244-8  ;  of 
relations,  249-51  ;  of  the  dead,  251-6; 
of  kings  and  other  sacred  persons,  257-9  ; 
of  gods,  260-62 

Namuci  and  Indra,  legend  of,  702 

Nana,  mother  of  Attis,  347 

Nandi  of  East  Africa,  214,  235,  247,  372,  483 

3  B 


INDEX 


738 

Nanumea,  island  of,  precautions  against 
strangers  in,  195 
Narcissus  and  his  reflection,  192 
Narrinyeri  of  South  Australia,  201 
Natal,  the  Caffres  of,  483 
Natchez  Indians  of  North  America,  63,  215 
Nativity  of  the  Sun  at  the  winter  solstice, 

358 

Nature,  conception  of  the  immutable  laws 
of,  not  primitive,  91-2  ;  the  order  and 
uniformity  of,  162 

Nauras  Indians  of  New  Granada,  497 
Navajoes  of  New  Mexico,  678 
Navel-string,  39-4U  IX9 
Ndembo,  secret  society  on  the  Lower  Congo, 

697 

Nebseni,  the  papyrus  of,  380 
“  Neck,  crying  the,”  in  Devonshire,  445 
Need-fire,  617,  638-41 
Nekht,  the  papyrus  of,  380 
Nemi,  1,  4,  5,  8  ;  priest  of  Diana  at,  1,  8, 
106,  161,  167  ;  lake  of,  1,  704  5  sacred 
grove  of,  1,  4,  8,  140-42,  147  ;  at  evening, 

7U 

Nephele,  wife  of  King  Athamas,  290 
Nephthys,  sister  of  Osiris,  363 
Net  to  catch  the  sun,  79 
Nets,  marriage  of  girls  to,  144;  to  catch 
souls,  182  ;  as  amulets,  242  ;  fumigated 
with  smoke  of  need-fire,  641 
New  birth,  through  blood  in  the  rites  of 
Attis,  351  ;  savage  theory  of,  356  ;  of 
novices  at  initiation,  697 
New  Britain,  rain-making  in,  63  ;  the 
Sulka  of,  64,  76 ;  magical  powers 

ascribed  to  chiefs  in,  84  ;  avoidance  of 
wife’s  mother  in,  191  ;  expulsion  of 
devils  in,  547-8  ;  secret  society  in,  680 
New  Caledonia,  rain-making  by  means  of 
a  human  skeleton  in,  71  ;  making  sun¬ 
shine  and  drought  in,  78  ;  detaining  the 
soul  in  the  body  in,  180  ;  ideas  as  to 
reflections  in,  192  ;  burying  the  evil 
-T-Mrit  in,  548  ;  taro  plants  beaten  to 
make  them  grow  in,  581 
New  Guinea,  charm  to  hasten  the  moon  in, 
80  ;  charm  for  making  wind  in,  80  ; 
constitution  of  society  in,  84  ;  leavings 
of  food  destroyed  in,  201  ;  seclusion  and 
purification  of  man-slayers  in,  213  ;  con¬ 
tinence  observed  during  the  turtle  season 
in,  217  ;  dread  of  sorcery  in,  229 

- ,  British,  charms  used  by  hunters  in, 

18  ;  charm  against  snake-bite  in,  31  ; 
no  despots  in,  84  ;  double  chieftainship 
in  the  Mekeo  district  of,  178  ;  a  widower 
an  outcast  in,  207  ;  changes  in  language 
caused  by  fear  of  naming  the  dead  in, 
255  ;  girls  secluded  at  puberty  in,  597 

- ,  Dutch,  213  ;  names  of  relations  by 

marriage  tabooed  in,  250 

- - ,  Northern,  rites  of  initiation  in,  694, 695 

- - ,  South-eastern,  annual  expulsion  of 

demons  in,  556 


New  Hebrides,  contagious  magic  in  the,  43  ; 
magic  of  refuse  of  food  in  the,  201  ;  con¬ 
ception  of  the  external  soul  in  the,  684 
New  Ireland,  596 

New  Mexico,  the  aridity  of,  76 ;  the 
Indians  of,  502,  551 

New  South  Wales,  natives  of,  bury  their 
dead  at  flood-tide,  35  ;  tribes  of,  38  ; 
way  of  stopping  rain  in,  64  ;  the  drama 
of  resurrection  at  initiation  in,  692,  693 
New*- Year,  Chinese,  468  ;  the  Celtic,  on 
November  first,  633 

New  Year’s  Day,  558,  569  ;  Eve,  538,  561 
New  Zealand,  sanctity  of  chiefs  in,  204  ; 
sacredness  of  chiefs’  blood  and  heads  in, 
230,  231  ;  customs  at  hair-cutting  in, 
233  ;  magic  use  of  spittle  in,  237  ;  names 
of  chiefs  tabooed  in,  259  ;  effect  of  con¬ 
tact  with  a  sacred  object  in,  474  ;  eyes 
of  slain  chief  swallowed  by  warriors  in, 
498  ;  human  scapegoats  in,  542 
Ngarigo  tribe  of  New  South  Wales,  498 
Ngoio,  a  province  of  Congo,  rule  of  succes¬ 
sion  to  the  chiefship  in,  283 
Nias,  island  of,  magic  in,  18  ;  natives  of, 
believe  in  demons  of  trees,  116  ;  con¬ 
ception  of  the  soul  in,  179  ;  detaining 
the  soul  in  the  body  in,  180  ;  taboos 
observed  by  hunters  in,  218  ;  super¬ 
stition  as  to  personal  names  in,  245  ; 
succession  to  the  chieftainship  in,  294  ; 
expulsion  of  demons  in,  549  ;  story  of 
the  external  soul  in,  677 
Nicaragua,  the  Indians  of,  138 
Nicholson,  General,  worshipped  as  a  god, 
100 

Nicknames,  247 

Nicobar  Islands,  heavy  rains  attributed  to 
the  wrath  of  spirits  in  the,  225  ;  custom 
of  mourners  in  the,  253  ;  changes  in 
language  caused  by  fear  of  naming  the 
dead,  255  ;  expulsion  of  demons  in  the, 
567 

Niger,  belief  as  to  external  human  souls 
lodged  in  animals  on  the,  686 
Nigeria,  Northern,  custom  of  putting  kings 
to  death  in,  271 

- ,  Southern,  the  priest  of  the  Earth  in, 

594  ;  theory  of  the  external  soul  in,  677, 
684,  685 

Nightingale  in  magic,  32 
Nightjars,  the  lives  of  women  in,  687 
Nile,  the  rise  and  fall  of  the,  369  ;  thought 
to  be  swollen  by  the  tears  of  Isis,  370  ; 
the  “  bride  ”  of  the,  370  ;  money  and 
offerings  of  gold  thrown  into  the,  371 

- ,  the  Upper,  medicine-men  as  chiefs 

among  the  tribes  of,  85  ;  Kings  of  the 
Rain  on,  107 

- ,  the  White,  266,  565 

Nine,  a  number  used  in  magical  ceremonies, 
etc.,  18,  241,  242,  284,  480,  618,  620,  625, 
626,  628,  639 

Niska  Indians  of  British  Columbia,  699 


INDEX 


Nisus,  king  of  Megara,  story  of,  670 
Noessa  Laut,  magic  in,  18 
Nonnus,  on  death  of  Dionysus,  388 
Noon,  fear  to  lose  the  shadow  at,  191 
Nootka  Indians,  66,  179,  217,  522,  599, 
698  ;  wizard,  18 

Normandy,  burial  of  Shrove  Tuesday  in, 
305  ;  harvest  customs  in,  429  ;  Brother¬ 
hood  of  the  Green  Wolf  in,  628-9  >  pro¬ 
cessions  on  the  eve  of  Twelfth  Day  in,  647 
Norrland,  Midsummer  bonfires  in,  625 
Norse  stories  of  the  external  soul,  673 
North- American  Indians,  210,  228,  494, 
496,  524,  529,  533,  594,  605,  678,  698 
Norway,  133  ;  harvest  customs  in,  428, 
429,  453,  454  ;  Midsummer  fires  in,  625  ; 
superstitions  about  a  parasitic  rowan  in, 
702 

Nubas  of  Jebel-Nuba,  203 
Nufoors  of  Dutch  New  Guinea,  246,  250 
Numa,  4,  147,  149,  151,  158,  164 
Nut,  Egyptian  sky-goddess,  mother  of 
Osiris,  362,  363 

Nuts  passed  across  Midsummer  fires,  629 
Nyakang,  first  of  the  Shilluk  kings,  267 
Nyanza,  Lake,  incarnate  human  god  of,  98 
Nyassa,  Lake,  596 

Oak,  the  worship  of  the,  159-61,  659,  710  ; 
effigy  of  Death  buried  under  an,  309  ; 
the  principal  sacred  tree  of  the  Aryans, 
665  ;  human  representatives  of  the  oak 
perhaps  originally  burnt  at  the  fire- 
festivals,  665,  666  ;  life  of,  in  mistletoe, 
701  ;  supposed  to  bloom  on  Midsummer 
Eve,  706  ;  struck  by  lightning  oftener 
than  any  other  tree,  708 
Oak  branch,  in  rain-charm,  77  ;  crown, 
sacred  to  Jupiter  and  Juno,  148,  15 1  ; 
god,  15 1,  161  ;  leaves,  148,  661  ;  mistle¬ 
toe,  an  “  all-healer,”  660-62  ;  nymphs, 
at  Rome,  147  ;  -spirit,  701,  703  ;  -trees, 
sacrifices  to,  161,  and  ague  transferred 
to,  546 

-  wood,  perpetual  fire  of,  161,  704 ; 

used  for  the  Yule  log,  637,  638,  666  ; 
used  to  kindle  the  Beltane  fires,  the  need- 
fire,  and  the  Midsummer  fires,  618,  620, 
639,  665 

Oaths,  on  stones,  33  ;  taken  by  Mexican 
kings,  87,  104 

Oats  Bride,  408  ;  -cow,  457,  458  ;  -goat, 
447,  454,  457  ;  -mother,  400  ;  -sow,  460  ; 
-stallion,  459  ;  -wolf,  448,  449 
O’Brien,  Murrogh,  229 
Octennial  cycle  based  on  an  attempt  to 
harmonise  lunar  and  solar  time,  279-80 
October  horse,  sacrifice  of  the,  478 
Odin,  sacrifice  of  king’s  sons  to,  278-9,  290  ; 
legend  of  the  deposition  of,  279  ;  human 
sacrifices  to,  354 
O’Donovan,  E.,  242 
Offspring,  charms  to  procure,  14,  15 
Ogres  in  stories  of  the  external  soul,  669,  670 


739 

Oil,  in  magic,  23,  25,  26,  76  ;  of  St.  John, 
661,  662,  706  ;  human  victim  anointed 
with,  435 

Ointment,  magical,  41 
Ojebway  Indians,  13,  45,  78,  113,  21 1,  245 
Olala,  secret  society  of  Niska  Indians,  699 
Old  Calabar,  119,  493  ;  expulsion  of  devils 
and  ghosts  in,  567 

Old  Man,  Arab  custom  of  burying  the,  378  ; 
the  last  sheaf  called  the,  402,  426,  427’ 
457 

- men,  savage  communities  ruled  by,  47 

- Rye  woman,  428,  465 

- Wife,  name  given  to  last  corn  cut,  403 

- Witch,  burning  the,  429 

- Woman,  of  the  Corn,  372  ;  last  ears 

of  corn  called,  400  ;  last  sheaf  called, 
402  ;  killing  the,  428  ;  burning  the,  614 

-  Woman  who  Never  Dies,  North 

American  Indian  personification  of 
maize,  419 

Oldenberg,  Professor,  67 
Oldfield,  A.,  251 

Oleae,  the,  at  Orchomenus,  291,  292 
Olive  wood,  sacred  images  carved  of,  7 
Olofaet,  a  fire-god,  in  Namoluk,  707 
Oloh  Ngadju  of  Borneo,  the,  492 
Olympia,  races  for  the  kingdom  at,  156 
Omaha  Indians,  63,  216,  473,  474 
Omens,  magic  to  annul  evil,  37 ;  from 
observation  of  the  sky,  279  ;  from  boil¬ 
ing  milk,  482  ;  from  the  smoke  and 
flames  of  bonfires,  612,  615,  616,  621, 
624,  645  ;  from  cakes  rolled  down  hill, 
620  ;  of  marriage,  626,  646 
Omonga,  a  rice-spirit,  416 
On  or  Aun,  king  of  Sweden,  278,  290 
Ongtong  Java  Islands,  ceremony  at  re¬ 
ception  of  strangers  in  the,  196 
Onitsha,  on  the  Niger,  king  of,  200  ;  cere¬ 
mony  at  eating  the  new  yams  at,  483  ; 
human  scapegoats  at,  569 
Oracles,  given  by  the  king  as  representa- 
tive  of  the  god,  94  ;  by  inspired  priests, 
94 

Oracular  spring  at  Dodona,  147 
Oraons  of  Bengal,  144,  342,  434 
Orchomenus  in  Boeotia,  human  sacrifices 
at,  291 

Ordeal  of  battle,  158  ;  by  poison,  294 
Orestes  at  Nemi,  2,  6,  216 
Oriental  religions  in  the  West,  356-62 
Orinoco,  Indians  of  the,  27,  28,  71,  73,  78, 

524 

Orion,  the  constellation,  355 
Orissa,  Queen  Victoria  worshipped  as  a 
deity  in,  100 

Orkney  Islands,  transference  of  sickness  by 
means  of  water  in  the,  544 
Orotchis,  bear- festivals  of  the,  514 
Orpheus,  the  legend  of  his  death,  379 
Osiris,  52,  325,  443  ;  the  myth  of,  362-8  ; 
the  ritual  of,  368 -77  ;  the  nature  of,  377- 
382  ;  and  the  sun,  384  ;  the  cults  of 


INDEX 


740 

Adonis,  Attis,  Dionysus,  and,  424  ;  key 
to  mysteries  of,  444  ;  and  the  pig,  472, 
475  ;  in  relation  to  sacred  bulls,  476 
Osiris,  Adonis,  Attis,  their  mythical  simi¬ 
larity,  325 

Osiris  of  the  mysteries,”  376 
Osiris-Sep,  title  of  Osiris,  375 
Ostiaks,  the,  521 
Ostrich,  ghost  of,  deceived,  526 
Ot  Danoms  of  Borneo,  195,  597 
Ottawa  Indians,  214,  522,  52 7 
Ounce,  ceremony  at  killing  an,  523 
“  Our  Mother  among  the  Water,”  Mexican 
goddess,  588 

Ovambo  of  South-west  Africa,  224 
Owl,  eyes  of,  eaten  to  make  eater  see  in  the 
dark,  496  ;  life  of  a  person  bound  up 
with  that  of  an,  684  ;  sex  totem  of 
women,  688 

Ox,  in  magic,  22,  31,  72  ;  corn-spirit  as, 
457,  466-8  ;  slaughtered  at  threshing, 
459  ;  sacrificed  at  the  Bouphoma,  466  ; 
effigy  of,  broken  as  a  spring  ceremony  in 
China,  468 

Oyo,  king  of,  among  the  Yorubas,  274 

Pacific,  oracular  inspiration  of  priests  in 
the  Southern,  94 

Paddy  (unhusked  rice),  the  Father  and 
Mother  of  the,  419 
Padlock  as  amulet,  242 
Paganism  and  Christianity,  resemblances 
explained  as  diabolical  counterfeits,  358, 
361 

Palatinate,  mimic  contest  between  Summer 
and  Winter  in  the,  316 

- ,  the  Upper,  trees  asked  for  pardon  on 

being  felled  in,  113 
Palatine  Hill  at  Rome,  hi 
Palenque  in  Central  America,  ruins  of,  10 
Palm-branches,  in  ceremony  to  procure 
rain,  74  ;  ashes  of,  mixed  with  seed  at 
sowing,  615  ;  stuck  in  fields  to  protect 
them  against  hail,  617 

- - Sunday,  74,  125,  705 

- tree,  thought  to  ensure  fertility,  119 

Pan’s  image  whipped  with  squills,  580 
Panes,  festival  of,  499 
Pango,  title  signifying  god,  98 
Pans,  rustic  Greek  deities,  464 
Panther,  ceremony  at  the  killing  of  a,  221 
Panua,  tribe  of  Khonds,  434 
Paphos  in  Cyprus,  329  ;  sanctuary  of 
Aphrodite  at,  330  ;  religious  prostitution 
at,  331 

Papuans,  the,  43,  496,  682  ;  of  Finsch 
Haven,  246 

Papyrus,  of  Nebseni,  380  ;  of  Nekht,  380 
Parents-in-law,  their  names  not  to  be  pro¬ 
nounced,  249-50 

Parilia,  the,  Roman  festival  of  shepherds, 

154,  360 

Parkinson,  John,  281 

Parrot,  external  soul  of  warlock  in  a,  669 


Parrots’  eggs,  a  signal  of  death,  273 
Parthian  monarchs  brothers  of  the  Sun,  104 
Parvati  and  Siva,  marriage  of  the  images 
of,  320 

Paschal  candle,  614 

- Mountains,  Easter  fires  on  the,  615 

Passier,  in  Sumatra,  king  of,  277 
Pastoral  tribes,  animal  sacraments  among, 
533 

Patagonia,  236  ;  remedy  for  smallpox  in, 
550 

Patani  Bay,  the  Malays  of,  183 
Paternity  of  kings  a  matter  of  indifference 
under  female  kinship,  154 
Paton,  W.  R.,  580 
Pawnees,  the,  225,  432 
Payaguas  of  South  America,  82 
Pea-mother,  399,  400  ;  -wolf,  448 
Peacock,  a  totem  of  the  Bhils,  474 
Pear-tree  as  protector  of  cattle,  119  ;  as 
life-index  of  a  girl,  682 
Pearls,  in  homoeopathic  magic,  3 7 
Peas-cow,  458  ;  -pug,  448 
Pebbles  thrown  into  Midsummer  fires,  628 
Pelew  Islands,  116 ;  seclusion  of  man- 
slayers  in,  215  ;  taboos  observed  by 
relations  of  murdered  man  in  the,  227 
Pelops  and  Hippodamia,  156 
Penance  observed  after  building  a  new 
house,  1 17  ;  for  killing  a  boa-constrictor, 
222 

Pennefather  River  in  Queensland,  the 
natives  of  the,  39 

Pennyroyal,  burnt  in  Midsummer  fire,  631 
Pentheus,  king  of  Thebes,  378,  392 
Pepper  as  a  cure  or  exorcism,  196  ;  dropped 
into  eyes  of  strangers,  198 
Perche,  in  France,  homoeopathic  cure  for 
vomiting  in,  16 
Perils  of  the  soul,  178-94 
Perkunas  or  Perkuns,  the  Lithuanian  god 
of  thunder  and  lightning,  161 
Persephone,  327,  393-6,  398>  4*4,  420-24, 
469 

Persia,  horses  sacrificed  to  the  Sun  in,  79  ; 

temporary  kings  in,  289  ;  king  of,  593 
Personification  of  abstract  ideas  not 
primitive,  315 

Peru,  Indians  of,  30,  33,  144,  236,  527 ; 

theocratic  despotism  of  ancient,  48 
Perun,  the  thunder-god  of  the  Slavs,  161 
Peruvian  Andes,  79 
Peruvians,  the  ancient,  412 
Pessinus,  priestly  kings  at,  9  ;  local  legend 
of  Attis  at,  347  ;  image  of  the  Mother  of 
the  Gods  at,  348  ;  high-priest  of  Cybele 
at,  353  ;  high-priest  perhaps  slain  in  the 
character  of  Attis  at,  440 
Phaedra  and  Hippolytus,  4,  7 
Phalaris  and  his  brazen  bull,  281 
Phaya  Phollathep,  “  Lord  of  the  Heavenly 
Hosts,”  temporary  king  in  Siam,  284 
Pheneus,  lake  of,  no 
Philae,  the  sculptures  at,  376,  381 


INDEX 


Philippine  Islands,  the,  belief  that  souls  of 
ancestors  are  in  certain  trees  in,  115  ; 
grave  of  the  Creator  in,  264  ;  human 
sacrifices  in,  355,  433  ;  head-hunting  in, 
441 

Philo  of  Byblus,  293 

Philosophy,  as  a  solvent  of  religion,  162  ; 
primitive,  263 

Philostratus,  on  death  at  low  tide,  35 
Phoenicia,  song  of  Linus  in,  425 
Phoenician  temples,  330,  331  ;  kings  in 
Cyprus,  332  ;  vintage  song,  425,  442 
Phrixus  and  Helle,  *  children  of  King 
Athamas,  290 

Phrygia,  347,  354  ;  Lityerses  in,  425,  426 
Phrygian  cosmogony,  347  ;  cap  of  Attis, 
353 

Picardy,  harvest  customs  in,  451  ;  Lenten 
1  fire-customs  in,  612 

Piets,  female  descent  of  kingship  among 
the,  156 

Piers,  Sir  Henry,  120 
Pig,  sacrificed  for  rain  or  sunshine,  73  ; 
blood  of  a,  drunk  as  a  means  of  inspira¬ 
tion,  95  ;  and  lamb  as  expiatory  victims, 
224  ;  corn-spirit  as  a,  460-62  ;  in  relation 
to  Demeter,  469,  and  Attis,  471  ; 
attitude  of  Jews  to  the,  472  ;  in  ancient 
Egypt,  472  ;  used  to  decoy  demons,  549, 
556-7.  See  also  Pigs 
Pigeon,  family  of  Wild,  in  Samoa,  474 
Pigs,  magical  ceremonies  to  catch  wild,  18  ; 
magical  stones  to  breed,  33  ;  sacrificed 
at  the  marriage  of  Sun  and  Earth,  136  ; 
at  the  Thesmophoria,  469,  476  ;  sacri¬ 
ficed  to  the  moon  and  to  Osiris,  472  ; 
reasons  for  not  eating  the  flesh  of,  494  ; 
driven  through  Midsummer  fire,  627, 
and  through  the  need-fire,  640  ;  offered 
to  monster  who  swallows  novices  in 
initiation,  694,  696 
Pillar,  fever  transferred  to  a,  545 
Pine-cones,  symbols  of  fertility,  353  ; 
thrown  into  vaults  of  Demeter,  353 

- tree,  in  the  myth  and  ritual  of  Attis, 

347,  348,  350,  352  ;  in  the  rites  of  Osiris, 
380  ;  sacred  to  Dionysus,  387 
Pipiles  of  Central  America,  136 
Pima,  granary  of  maize,  412 
:  Pitteri  Pennu,  Khond  god  of  increase,  557 
Placenta  (afterbirth)  and  navel-string, 
contagious  magic  of,  39-41 
Plague,  transferred  to  camel,  540  ;  sent 
away  in  scapegoat,  565 
Plane-tree,  Dionysus  in,  387 
Planets,  human  victims  sacrificed  to,  444 
Plantain-tree,  afterbirth  buried  under  a, 
40  ;  fertilised  by  parents  of  twins,  137 
Plants,  magic  to  make  them  grow,  28  ; 
influence  persons  homoeopathically,  29  ; 
sexes  of,  114;  thought  to  be  animated 
by  spirits,  487  ;  external  soul  in,  681 
Plataea,  festival  of  the  Daedala  at,  143  ; 
the  Archon  of,  224 


741 

Plough,  in  relation  to  Dionysus,  387 ; 

piece  of  Yule  log  inserted  in  the,  645 
Ploughing,  by  women  as  a  rain-charm,  70  ; 
ceremony  of,  performed  by  temporary 
king,  284,  288  ;  Prussian  custom  at, 
342  ;  in  rites  of  Osiris,  375 
Plurality  of  souls,  doctrine  of  the,  690 
Pluto,  carries  off  Persephone,  393,  469-70 
Plutus,  begotten  in  thrice-ploughed  field, 
421 

Poison,  continence  observed  at  brewing, 
219 

Poison  ordeal,  294 

Poland,  objection  to  iron  ploughshares  in, 
225  ;  harvest  customs  in,  404,  406,  451  ; 
Christmas  custom  in,  450  ;  need-fire  in, 
641 

Pole-star,  homoeopathic  magic  of  the,  34 
Pollution  and  holiness  not  differentiated  by 
savages,  223 

Polynesia,  taboos  in,  205,  206,  259  ;  sacred¬ 
ness  of  the  head  in,  231  ;  infanticide  in, 
293 

Polynesian  chiefs  sacred,  205 
Polynesians,  oracular  inspiration  of  priests 
among  the,  94  ;  their  way  of  ridding 
themselves  of  sacred  contagion,  473 
Polytheism  evolved  out  of  animism,  117 
Pomegranate  causes  virgin  to  conceive,  347 
Pomegranates  sprung  from  the  blood  of 
Dionysus,  389  ;  seeds  of,  not  eaten  at 
the  Thesmophoria,  389 
Pomerania,  harvest  custom  in,  430 
Pometia  sacked  by  the  Romans,  6 
Pommerol,  Dr.,  61 1 
Pomos  of  California,  562 
Pompey  the  Great,  328 
Ponape,  one  of  the  Caroline  Islands,  treat¬ 
ment  of  the  navel-string  in,  40  ;  king  of, 
232 

Pongol,  Hindoo  family  festival,  482 
Pons  Sublicius  at  Rome,  225 
Poona,  rain-making  at,  70  ;  incarnation  of 
elephant-headed  god  at,  100 
Poor  Man,  name  applied  to  the  corn-spirit 
after  harvest,  465 

- Old  Woman,  last  sheaf  left  for,  465 

-  Woman,  name  applied  to  the  corn- 

spirit  after  harvest,  465 
Poplar  wood  used  to  kindle  need-fire,  639 
Porta  Capena  at  Rome,  4,  351 
Portraits,  souls  in,  193 
Portugal,  belief  as  to  death  at  ebb  tide  in, 
35 

Poseidon,  97,  471 

Potato  Woman,  the  Old,  405  ;  -mother, 
413  ;  -wolf,  448,  449  ;  -dog,  449 
Potatoes,  magical  stones  for  increase  of, 
33  ;  custom  at  eating  new,  481 
Prayers,  to  the  sun,  14,  26,  78  ;  for  rain,  71, 
77,86,118,159-61;  to  Dionysus,  387  ;  to 
dead  animals,  507,  522-4 
Precious  stones,  magic  of,  34 
Pregnancy,  238,  239 


742 


INDEX 


Pretenders  to  divinity  among  Christians, 

IOI 

Priest,  of  Diana,  x,  8,  710  ;  of  Nemi,  8,  161, 
163,  167  ;  and  magician,  their  antagon¬ 
ism,  52  ;  drenched  with  water  as  a  rain- 
charm,  70  ;  rolled  on  fields  as  a  fertility 
charm,  139  ;  of  Zeus,  159  ;  brings  back 
lost  souls  in  a  bag,  186  ;  of  Dionysus, 
291  ;  sows  and  plucks  the  first  rice,  482  ; 
of  Aricia,  592  ;  of  the  Earth,  594 
Priestesses,  94,  594 
Priestly  kings,  9 

Priests,  magical  powers  attributed  to,  53, 
54 ;  inspired  by  gods,  94 ;  influence 
wielded  by,  196  ;  their  hair  unshorn, 
232  ;  foods  tabooed  to,  238  ;  of  Attis, 
the  emasculated,  347  ;  sacrifice  human 
victims,  589,  591 

Princesses  married  to  foreigners  or  men  of 
low  birth,  154 

Processions,  for  rain  in  Sicily,  74  ;  with 
bears  from  house  to  house,  512  ;  with 
sacred  animals,  535  ;  to  the  Midsummer 
bonfires,  628,  630  ;  of  giants  (effigies)  at 
popular  festivals,  654 
Progress,  the  magician’s,  45-8 
Prophets,  Hebrew,  their  ethical  religion,  51 
Propitiation,  essential  to  religion,  50 ;  of 
the  souls  of  the  slain,  212  ;  of  the  spirits 
of  slain  animals,  217,  220  ;  of  the  spirits 
of  plants,  487 ;  of  wild  animals  by 
hunters,  518-32  ;  of  vermin  by  farmers, 
530 

Prostitution,  sacred,  before  marriage,  330  ; 

suggested  origin  of,  331 
Provence,  priests  thought  to  possess  the 
power  of  averting  storms  in,  53  ;  May- 
trees  in,  124  ;  mock  execution  of  Cara- 
mantran  on  Ash  Wednesday  in,  304  ; 
Midsummer  fires  in,  630  ;  the  Yule  log 
in,  637 

Prussia,  contagious  magic  in,  44  ;  custom 
at  spring  ploughing  in,  342  ;  harvest 
customs  in,  421,  426;  the  Corn-goat  in, 
454  ;  the  Bull  at  reaping  in,  459  ;  Mid¬ 
summer  fires  in,  627 

• - ,  East,  harvest  customs  in,  401,  453, 

454)  457 

- ,  West,  harvest  customs  in,  402,  457  ; 

pretence  of  birth  of  child  on  harvest- 
field  in,  406,  421 

Prussian  rulers  formerly  burnt,  274 
Prussians,  the  old,  288  ;  their  funeral 
feasts,  227  ;  supreme  ruler  of,  274 
Psoloeis,  the,  at  Orchomenus,  291,  292 
Psylli,  a  Snake  clan,  83,  502 
Ptarmigans  and  ducks,  dramatic  contest 
of  the,  among  the  Esquimaux,  317 
Puberty,  girls  secluded  at,  595  ;  initiatory 
rites  at,  692 

Punchkin  and  the  parrot,  story  of,  669, 
687,  690 

Punjaub,  the,  General  Nicholson  wor¬ 
shipped  in  his  lifetime  in,  100  ;  human 


sacrifice  in,  112  ;  belief  as  to  tattooing 
in,  180 ;  Snake  tribe  in,  535,  536 ; 
human  scapegoat  in,  566 
Puppets,  of  rushes  thrown  into  the  Tiber, 
493  ;  used  to  attract  demons  of  sickness 
from  living  patients,  564 
Puppies,  red-haired,  sacrificed  by  the 
Romans  to  the  Dog-star,  444 
Purification,  of  man-slayers,  212,  215  ;  of 
hunters  and  fishers,  216  ;  after  contact 
with  a  pig,  472  ;  by  washing,  473  ;  before 
partaking  of  new  fruits,  484,  488  ;  by 
emetics,  485,  488  '  by  standing  on  sacri¬ 
ficed  human  victim,  572  ;  by  beating, 
602 

Purificatory  ceremonies,  at  reception  of 
strangers,  195  ;  on  return  from  a  journey, 
197 

- theory  of  the  fires  of  the  fire- festivals, 

642,  647  ;  more  probable  than  the  solar 
theory,  650 
Puyallup  Indians,  256 
Pygmalion,  king  of  Cyprus,  332 
Pythagoras,  maxims  of,  44,  45 
Python  clan,  in  Senegambia,  502 

Quartz  used  in  circumcision,  224 
Quartz-crystal  used  in  rain-making,  76 
Queen,  name  given  to  last  corn  cut  at 
harvest,  407  ;  the  Harvest,  in  England, 
405  ;  of  Athens,  married  to  Dionysus, 
142  ;  of  the  Corn-ears,  405  ;  of  Egypt 
the  wife  of  Ammon,  142  ;  of  Heaven,  337, 
711  ;  of  May,  127,  129,  131,  320 
Queensland,  beliefs  as  to  the  afterbirth  in, 
39  ;  namesakes  of  the  dead  change  their 
names  in  some  of  the  tribes  of,  253  ; 
expulsion  of  a  demon  in  Central,  562  ; 
seclusion  of  girls  at  puberty  in,  598 
Quetzalcoatl,  Mexican  god,  491 
Quilacare,  suicide  of  the  kings  of,  274-5 
Quinoa-mother,  the,  413 
Quiteve,  title  of  king  of  Sofala,  273 
Quito,  the  kings  of,  431 
Quonde,  in  Nigeria,  king-killing  at,  271 

Ra,  the  Egyptian  sun-god,  362,  364,  366, 
475  ;  and  Isis,  260 

Race,  to  determine  the  Whitsuntide  king, 
129  ;  succession  to  a  kingdom  deter¬ 
mined  by  a,  156  ;  for  a  bride,  156  ;  of 
reapers  to  last  sheaf,  459 
Races,  at  Whitsuntide,  124,  129  ;  on  horse¬ 
back  to  the  Maypole,  132  ;  at  fire- 
festivals,  61 1 

Radica,  a  festival  at  the  end  of  the  Carnival 
in  Frosinone,  302 

Rain,  the  magical  control  of,  62-78,  234, 
629,  645  ;  prayers  for,  71,  77,  86,  118, 
159-61  ;  kings  expected  to  give,  85-7, 
98-9  ;  supposed  to  fall  only  as  a  result 
of  magic,  87  ;  Zeus  as  the  god  of,  159  ; 
prevented  by  the  blood  of  a  woman  who 
has  miscarried,  209 


INDEX 


743 


Rain-bird,  72  ;  -charms,  71,  131,  210,  234, 
300,  341,  400,  437,  438  ;  doctor,  among 
the  Toradjas  of  Celebes,  68  ;  -gods,  73-5  ; 
king,  70,  107  ;  -makers,  62,  84-6,  107, 
269,  270  ;  song,  sung  by  women,  118  ; 
-stones,  76,  85  ;  temple,  in  Angoniland, 
64 

Rajah,  temporary,  after  death  of  rajah,  287 
Rajahs,  among  the  Malays,  supernatural 
powers  attributed  to,  88  ;  two,  in  Timor, 

1 77 

Rajputana,  gardens  of  Adonis  in,  343 
Rali,  the  fair  of,  in  India,  3r9 
Ram,  with  golden  fleece,  290  ;  as  vicarious 
sacrifice  for  human  victim,  292  ;  sacri¬ 
ficed  to  Ammon,  477  ;  Tibetan  goddess 
riding  on  a,  492  ;  killing  the  sacred,  500  ; 
consecration  of  a  white,  534 
Ram’s  skull  in  charm  to  avert  demons,  492 
Rama,  his  battle  with  the  king  of  Ceylon, 
670 

Ramanga,  among  the  Betsileo,  229 
Raratonga,  in  the  Pacific,  39 
Rarhi  Brahmans  of  Bengal,  602 
Raskolnik,  Russian  Dissenter,  71 
Raspberries,  wild,  ceremony  at  gathering 
the  first,  486 
Rat’s  hair  as  a  charm,  31 
Rats,  in  magic,  39 ;  superstitious  pre¬ 
cautions  of  farmers  against,  531 
Rattle,  wooden,  swung  by  twins  to  make 
fair  or  foul  weather,  66 
Rattlesnakes  respected  by  North- American 
Indians,  520 

Raven’s  eggs  in  homoeopathic  magic,  32 
Reapers,  contests  between,  401,  403,  404, 
407,  426,  439  ;  throw  sickles  at  the  last 
standing  corn,  401,  403,  404,  407,  446, 
452  ;  blindfolded,  404,  407 ;  of  rice 
deceiving  the  rice-spirit,  414  ;  pretend 
to  mow  down  visitors  to  the  harvest- 
field,  430  ;  remedies  for  pains  in  the 
back,  455 

- ,  Egyptian,  their  lamentations,  338, 

371,  382,  443,  444 
Reaping-match  of  Lityerses,  426 
Rebirth  from  a  golden  cow,  197 ;  of 
ancestors  in  their  descendants,  256 
Recall  of  the  soul,  180 
Red  colour  in  magic,  15  ;  wool,  242 
Red  -  haired  men  sacrificed  by  ancient 
Egyptians,  378,  380,  443,  476  ;  puppies 
sacrificed  by  the  Romans,  444,  476 
Reddening  the  face  of  a  god,  148 
Reddis  or  Kapus  in  Madras  Presidency,  73 
Reflection,  the  soul  identified  with  the, 
192 

Reflections  in  water,  supposed  dangers  of, 
192 

Regalia,  sanctity  of,  in  Celebes,  295 
Regeneration  from  a  golden  cow,  197 
Regicide  among  the  Slavs,  278  ;  modified 
custom  of,  283 

Regifugium  at  Rome,  i57>  3QI 


Reincarnation  of  animals,  526-7 
Relations,  names  of,  tabooed,  249-51  ;  of  . 
the  dead  take  new  names  for  fear  of  the 
ghost,  253 

Religion,  and  magic,  48-60,  64,  90,  92,  162, 
324,  71 1  ;  defined,  50  ;  two  elements  of, 
a  theoretical  and  a  practical,  50  ;  and 
’  science,  51,  712  ;  the  Age  of,  56  ;  transi¬ 
tion  from  magic  to,  57  ;  and  music,  334, 
335 

Religions,  oriental,  in  the  West,  356-62 
Religious  associations  among  the  Indians 
of  North  America,  698 
Remission  of  sins  through  the  shedding  of 
blood,  356 

Remulus,  149.  See  Romulus 
Renan’s  theory  of  Adonis,  340,  341 
Renouf,  Sir  P.  le  Page,  384 
Reproductive  powers,  beating  people  to 
stimulate  their,  581-2 
Reptile  clan  of  the  Omaha  Indians,  474 
Resurrection,  236  ;  of  the  god,  300,  386  ; 
of  the  tree-spirit,  300  ;  of  a  god  in  the 
hunting,  pastoral,  and  agricultural 
stages  of  society,  301  ;  enacted  in  Shrove¬ 
tide  and  Lenten  ceremonies,  307  ;  of  the 
effigy  of  Death,  312  ;  of  the  Carnival, 
315  ;  of  the  Wild  Man,  315  ;  of  Kostru- 
bonko,  317;  of  Attis,  350,  360  ;  of  Osiris, 
374)  376  ;  of  Dionysus,  468  ;  of  animals, 
516,  529  ;  of  fish,  52 7 ;  divine,  in 
Mexican  ritual,  592  ;  ritual  of  death  and, 
691-701 

Rex  Nemorensis,  King  of  the  Wood,  3 
Rheumatism,  and  magic,  44,  45  ;  popular 
cure  for,  196 

Rhine,  dramatic  contest  between  Winter 
and  Summer  on  the  middle,  316 
Rhodes,  worship  of  Helen  in,  356 
Rhodians  worship  the  sun,  79 
Rhys,  Sir  John,  635,  636 
Rice,  in  homoeopathic  magic,  28,  29  ;  in 
bloom  treated  like  a  pregnant  woman, 

1 15,  414  ;  used  to  attract  the  soul  con¬ 
ceived  as  a  bird,  i8r,  184  ;  in  water, 
divination  by,  256  ;  soul  of,  413-15,  417  ; 
two  sheaves  as  “  husband  and  wife,” 

418  ;  (paddy)  father  and  mother  of  the, 

419  ;  “  eating  the  soul  of  the  rice,”  482  ; 
the  new,  ceremonies  at  eating,  482 

Rice  bride  and  bridegroom,  418  ;  cakes, 
490  ;  child,  417  ;  mother,  413,  415,  4*7 
Rickets,  cure  for,  682 
Riedel,  J.  G.  F.,  696 

Rings  to  prevent  the  escape  of  the  soul, 
180  ;  as  amulets,  226,  243  ;  as  spiritual 
fetters,  243  ;  and  knots  tabooed,  238-44 
Ritual,  of  Adonis,  335-41  I  °f  Attis,  347- 
352  ;  of  Dionysus,  389  ;  primitive, 
marks  of,  411 ;  magical  or  propitiatory, 
41 1  ;  myths  dramatised  in,  608  ;  of 
death  and  resurrection,  691-701 
Rock-crystal  in  rain-charms,  72,  85 
Roepstorff,  F.  A.  de,  255 


INDEX 


744 

Romans,  sacrificed  pregnant  victims  to 
ensure  fertility,  28  ;  the  ancient,  their 
ceremonies  for  procuring  rain,  77,  78  • 
superstition  as  to  egg-shells,  201  ;  cut¬ 
ting  hair  or  nails  on  shipboard,  234  ; 
superstitious  objection  to  clasped  hands 
or  crossed  legs,  240  ;  belief  in  the  magic 
virtue  of  divine  names,  261  ;  adopt  the 
worship  of  the  Phrygian  Mother  of  the 
Gods,  348  ;  their  sacrifice  of  red-haired 
puppies,  444,  476  ;  their  cure  for  fever, 
543  >  deemed  sacred  the  places  struck  by 
lightning,  709 

Romanus  Lecapenus,  the  emperor,  680 
Rome,  the  Sacrificial  King  at,  9,  106  ;  rain¬ 
making  in,  78,  149  ;  sacred  trees  in,  in  ; 
kings  of,  146-51 ;  King  and  Queen  of,  147, 

15 1  ;  founded  by  settlers  from  Alba 
Longa,  148  ;  descent  of  the  kingship  in, 

152  ;  Midsummer  festival  in  ancient, 
x53>  154 )  priests  in,  224 ;  name  of 
guardian  deity  kept  secret,  262  ;  Regi- 
fugium  at,  301  ;  Phrygian  Mother  of  the 
Gods  brought  to,  348  ;  Festival  of  Joy 
(Hilaria)  at,  350-51  ;  sacrifice  of  she- 
goat  to  Vedijovis  at,  392  ;  annual  sacri¬ 
fice  of  October  horse  at,  478  ;  festival 
of  the  Compitalia  at,  491 ;  the  Mother 
and  Grandmother  of  Ghosts  at,  491-3; 
human  scapegoats  in  ancient,  577 ; 
Saturnalia  at,  583 ;  sacred  fire  of  Vesta 
at,  665 

Romulus,  in,  148,  158,  378 
Romulus  or  Remulus,  King  of  Alba,  149 
Rook,  island  of,  expulsion  of  the  devil  from 
the,  547  ;  initiation  of  young  men  in  the, 
695 

Rope  used  to  keep  off  demons,  559 
Rose,  the  Little  May,  125  ;  the  white, 

^  dyed  red  by  the  blood  of  Aphrodite,  336 
Roumania,  festival  of  Green  George  in,  126 
Roumanians  of  Transylvania,  191,  227,  341 
Rowan,  parasitic,  702 

Rowan-tree,  a  protection  against  witches, 
620 

Royalty,  the  burden  of,  168-78 
Runaways,  knots  as  charms  to  stop,  242 
Runes,  magic,  Odin  and  the,  355 
Rupert’s  Day,  effigy  burnt  on,  614 
Rupture,  cure  for,  682 
Russia,  thieves  candles  in,  56  ;  rain- 
making  in,  63,  71  ;  celebration  of  Whit¬ 
suntide  in,  121,  128,  134  ;  St.  George’s 
Day  in,  128  ;  priest  rolled  on  the  fields 
to  fertilise  them,  137  ;  use  of  knots  as 
amulets  in,  242  ;  funeral  ceremonies  of 
Kostrubonko,  etc.,  in,  317-18;  harvest 
customs  in,  405,  425  ;  wood-spirits  in, 
465  ,  expulsion  of  demons  in  Eastern, 
559-6o  ;  Midsummer  fires  in,  627,  656  ; 
treatment  of  the  effigy  of  Ivupalo  in,  652  ; 
story  of  the  external  soul  in,  671  ;  birth 
trees  in,  682  ;  fern-seed  at  Midsummer 
in,  704 


Rustling  of  leaves  regarded  as  the  voice  of 
spirits,  1 15 

Ruthenia,  Midsummer  bonfires  in,  627 
Ruthenian  burglars,  their  charms  to  cause 
sleep,  30 

Rye-boar,  460,  461  ;  -mother,  399,  400 ; 
-dog,  449  ;  -goat,  454  ;  -pug,  449  ; 
-sow,  447-60  ;  -wolf,  447,  448  ;  -woman, 
428  ;  Woman,  the  Old,  405 

Sabaea  or  Sheba,  kings  of,  200 
Sabarios,  a  Lithuanian  festival,  480 
Sabine  priests,  224 

Sable-hunters,  rules  observed  by,  525 
Sacaea,  a  Babylonian  festival,  281  ;  mock 
king  of,  443 

Sacrament  in  the  rites  of  Attis,  351  ;  of 
swine  s  flesh,  470 ;  of  first-fruits,  479,  com¬ 
bined  with  a  sacrifice  of  them,  488  ;  of 
eating  a  god,  498  ;  types  of  animal,  532-8 
Sacramental  bread,  491  ;  eating  of  corn- 
spirit  in  animal  form,  470  ;  meal  of  new 
rice,  482 

Sacred  persons,  names  of  tabooed,  257-9 
Sacrifice,  of  the  king’s  son,  289  ;  of  virility, 
349>  350  ;  not  to  be  touched,  473  ; 
annual,  of  a  sacred  animal,  475  ;  of  first- 
fruits,  488  ;  of  heifer  at  kindling  need- 
fire,  641 

Sacrifices,  offered  to  ancestors,  71,  72 ; 
human,  79,  96,  112,  117,  146,  2 79,  281’ 
29°,  354,  355,  378-8o,  431,  569,  571,  579, 
587,  609,  617,  653,  657,  658  ;  offered  to 
kings,  104  ;  offered  to  a  sacred  sword, 
109  ;  offered  to  trees,  112,  113,  115,  116, 
118  ;  on  roof  of  new  house,  117  ;  to 
water-spirits,  146 ;  to  the  dead,  175  ; 
at  foundation  of  buildings,  191  ;  to  souls 
of  slain  enemies,  212  ;  vicarious,  292  ;  of 
children  among  the  Semites,  293  ;  offered 
in  connection  with  irrigation,  370 
Sacrificial  king  at  Rome,  9,  106 
Sagard,  Gabriel,  527 
Saghalien,  facilitating  childbirth  in,  240 
Sahagun,  B.  de,  587 
St.  Andrews,  witch  burned  at,  243 
St.  Angelo,  ill-treated  in  drought,  75 
St.  Bride,  her  Day  in  the  Highlands  of 
Scotland,  134 ;  an  old  goddess  of 
fertility,  135 
St.  Bridget,  134 
St.  Columba,  101 
St.  Dasius,  martyrdom  of,  584-5 
St.  Denys,  his  seven  heads,  366 
St.  Francis  of  Paolo,  74 
St.  Gens,  his  image  used  in  rain-making,  77 
St.  George,  festival  of,  360 
St.  George  s  Day,  fertilisation  of  barren 
women  by  fruit-trees  on,  119  ;  Green 
George  on,  126-8  ;  ceremony  to  fertilise 
the  fields  on,  137 
St.  Gervais,  spring  of,  77 
St.  Hippolytus,  5 
St.  James,  50,  51 


INDEX 


745 


St.  John,  Midsummer  festival  of,  in 
Sardinia,  343  ;  Sweethearts  of,  343  ;  oil 
of,  found  on  oak  leaves  at  Midsummer, 
661-2,  706 

-  the  Baptist,  bathing  on  his  day,  70  ; 
his  chapel  at  Athens,  545  ;  associated 
with  Midsummer  Day,  622 

,  the  Knights  of,  630  ;  Grand  Master 
of  the  Ord  er  of,  631 

St.  John’s  Day,  swinging  on,  289  ;  Mid¬ 
summer  fires  on,  624,  628  ;  fern -seed 
blooms  on,  704.  See  Midsummer  Day 
St.  John’s  Eve,  in  Sweden,  122  ;  Russian 
ceremony  on,  318  ;  in  Malta,  631 
St.  Joseph,  ill-treated  in  drought,  75 
St.  Lawrence,  fire  of,  536 
St.  Louis,  90 
!  .  St.  Mary,  Isle  of,  523 

St.  Ma  ugh  old,  gives  veil  to  St.  Bridget,  134 
St.  Michael,  ill-treated  in  drought,  75 
St.  Patrick,  canon  attributed  to,  90 
St.  Paul,  on  immortality,  398 
St.  Peter,  as  giver  of  rain,  77 
St.  Peter’s  Day,  318,  360 
St.  Pons,  his  image  used  in  rain-making,  77 
St.  Rochus’s  Day,  need-fire  kindled  on,  641 
Saint  Secaire,  Mass  of,  54 
St.  Stephen’s  Day,  537 
St.  Sylvester’s  Day,  561 
St.  Tecla,  falling  sickness  cured  in  her 
church  at  Llandegla  in  Wales,  545 
St.  Vitus’s  Day,  644 

Saints,  violence  done  to  images  of,  to 
procure  rain,  75  ;  images  of,  dipped  in 
water  as  a  rain-charm,  77 
Sakalavas  of  Madagascar,  172,  258,  295 
Sakvari  song,  ancient  Indian  hymn,  67 
Sal  tree,  145 

Salish  or  Flathead  Indians,  187,  486 
Salmon,  twins  thought  to  be,  66  ;  cere¬ 
monies  at  catching  the  first  of  the 
season,  528 

Salmoneus,  king  of  Elis,  77,  149,  159,  292 
Salt,  abstinence  from,  23,  138  ;  not  to  be 
eaten,  218,  510,  595,  602;  Mexican 
Goddess  of,  588 

Salt-pans,  continence  observed  by  workers 
in,  219 

Salvation  of  the  individual  soul,  importance 
attached  to,  in  Oriental  religions,  357 
Samarcand,  homoeopathic  magic  applied 
to  babies  in,  32  ;  New  Year  ceremony  in, 
285 

I  Samaveda,  the,  67 

ISamhnagan,  Hallowe’en  borrfires,  635 

Samoa,  rain-making  in,  75  ;  taboo  on 
persons  who  have  handled  the  dead  in, 
206  ;  butterfly  god  in,  474  ;  the  Wild 
Pigeon  family  in,  474 
Samorin,  title  of  the  kings  of  Calicut,  275 
Samoyed  shamans,  their  familiar  spirits, 

^  683 

Samoyeds  of  Siberia,  252 
Sampson,  Agnes,  a  Scotch  witch,  542 


Samyas  monastery,  near  Lhasa,  573 
San  Pellegrina,  church  of,  at  Ancona,  585 
Sanctity  and  uncleanness  not  clearly 
differentiated  in  the  primitive  mind,  607 
Sandwich  Islands,  the  king  personated  the 
god  in  the,  93,  94  ;  precaution  as  to 
spittle  of  chiefs  in  the,  237 
Saning  Sari,  rice  goddess,  415 
Sanitation  improved  through  superstition, 
201 

Sankara  and  the  Grand  Lama,  189 
Santals,  their  belief  in  the  absence  of  the 
soul  in  dreams,  182 

Saparoea,  East  Indian  island,  fishermen’s 
magic  in,  18 

Sarawak,  15,  25,  89  ;  taboos  observed  in, 

24 

Sardines  worshipped  by  Indians  of  Peru, 

527  _ 

Sardinia,  gardens  of  Adonis  in,  343  ; 
Sweethearts  of  St.  John  at  Midsummer 
“b  343-4  ;  Midsummer  fires  in,  344 
Sarmata  Islands,  marriage  of  the  Sun  and 
Earth  in,  136 

Satan,  annually  expelled  by  the  Wotyaks, 
559>  and  by  the  Cheremiss,  560  ; 
preaches  a  sermon  in  North  Berwick 
church,  681 

Saturn,  the  god  of  sowing,  583  ;  his  festival 
the  Saturnalia,  584 

Saturnalia,  136,  153,  553,  575  ;  the  Roman, 
158,  583-7 

Satyrs  in  relation  to  goats,  464 
Savage,  the,  47  ;  his  awe  and  dread  of 
everything  new,  225  ;  our  debt  to,  262-4; 
not  to  be  judged  by  European  standards, 
294  ;  not  illogical,  517  ;  his  belief  that 
animals  have  souls,  518  ;  unable  to  dis¬ 
criminate  clearly  between  men  and 
animals,  532  ;  secretiveness  of,  691  ; 
his  dread  of  sorcery,  691 
Savage  Island,  kings  killed  on  account  of 
dearth  in,  87  ;  cessation  of  monarchy 
in,  176 

Savage  philosophy,  263 
Saxo  Grammaticus,  33,  155 
Saxons  of  Transylvania,  238,  239,  306,  312, 
316,  456,  530,  672 

Saxony,  May  or  Whitsuntide  trees  in,  123  ; 
Whitsuntide  mummers  in,  298,  300 ; 

“  carrying  out  Death  ”  in,  309  ;  Oats 
bride  and  bridegroom  in,  409  ;  fires  to 
burn  the  witches  in,  622 
Scandinavia,  female  descent  of  the  king- 
ship  in,  155 

Scandinavian  custom  of  the  Yule  Boar,  461 
Scapegoat,  Jewish  use  of,  569  ;  a  material 
vehicle  for  expulsion  of  evils,  575 
Scapegoats,  animals  as,  540,  565,  568  ; 
birds  as,  541  ;  public,  562-77  ;  divine 
animals  as,  570,  576  ;  divine  men  as, 
57i,  576  ;  in  general,  574 

- ,  human,  542,  565,  569  ;  in  classical 

antiquity,  577-87 


INDEX 


746 

Scheube,  Dr.  B.,  507 
Schleswig,  custom  at  threshing  in,  431 
Schrenck,  L.  von,  511 
Schuyler,  E.,  543 
Science,  and  magic,  48,  71 1  ;  and  religion, 
712 

Scorpion’s  bite,  pain  transferred  to  an  ass, 
544 

Scorpions,  Isis  and  the,  364 
Scotland,  magical  images  in,  56  ;  witches 
raise  wind  in,  80  ;  iron  as  a  safeguard 
against  fairies  in,  226  ;  witch  burnt  in, 
243  ;  harvest  customs  in,  341,  403,  406-8, 
452  ;  names  given  to  last  corn  cut  in, 
403,  409,  480  ;  saying  as  to  the  wren  in, 
536  ;  witchcraft  in,  542  ;  worship  of 
Grannus  in,  61 1  ;  Beltane  fires  in,  617- 
620  ;  few  traces  of  Midsummer  fires  in, 
631 ;  Hallowe’en  fires  in,  635  ;  need-fire 
in,  639-41.  See  also  Highlands 
Scouvion,  or  Escouvion,  in  Belgium,  610 
Scrofula,  90,  203,  204 
Scylla,  daughter  of  Nisus,  670 
Scythians,  the,  87 
Sea  Dyaks,  25,  239,  249,  531 
Sea-god,  human  sacrifice  to,  579 
Seals,  care  taken  of  the  bladders  and  bones 
of,  526 

Sealskins  in  sympathy  with  the  tides,  35 
Seasons,  magical  and  religious  theories  of 
the,  324 

Seb  (Keb  or  Geb),  Egyptian  earth-god, 
father  of  Osiris,  362 
Secretiveness  of  the  savage,  691 
Sedna,  Esquimau  goddess,  552 
Seed-corn,  420,  452,  461,  463,  469,  470, 
666  ;  -rice,  284  ;  -time,  annual  expulsion 
of  demons  at,  557 

Segera,  a  sago  magician  of  Kiwai,  379 
Seker  (Sokari),  title  of  Osiris,  375 
Selangor,  rice-crop  supposed  to  depend  on 
the  district  officer  of,  89  ;  durian-trees 
threatened  in,  113 
Seligman,  Dr.  C.  G.,  266,  270 
Semele,  mother  of  Dionysus,  265,  389 
Seminole  Indians  of  Florida,  486,  520 
Semites,  the,  293 

Semitic  Baal,  281  ;  kings  as  hereditary 
deities,  333  ;  personal  names,  indicating 
relationship  to  a  deity,  333  ;  worship  of 
Adonis,  325 

Senal  Indians  of  California,  707 
Sencis  of  Peru,  the,  78 
Senegambia,  Python  clan  in,  502  ;  the 
mistletoe  in,  660 

Serbia,  rain-making  ceremony  in,  69  ; 
Midsummer  fires  in,  627  ;  the  Yule  log 
in,  638  ;  need-fire  in,  640 
Serbian  women’s  charm  to  hoodwink  their 
husbands,  32 

Serpents,  in  magic,  32  ;  ceremonies 
observed  after  killing,  222  ;  killing  the 
sacred,  501  ;  burnt  alive,  655,  658 
Servius  Tullius,  Roman  king,  152 


Set,  or  Typhon,  brother  of  Osiris,  363,  365, 
475 

Seven,  the  number  in  magical  ceremonies, 
etc.,  242,  280,  417,  610,  631 
Sex  totems,  687-8 

Sexes,  of  plants,  recognised  by  some 
savages  and  by  the  ancients,  114; 
influence  of  the,  on  vegetation,  135-9  ; 
danger  apprehended  from  the  relation 
of  the,  700 

Sexual  intercourse  practised  to  make  the 
crops  and  fruit  grow,  135-6 
Seyf  el-Mulook  and  the  jinnee,  story  of,  674 
Shadow,  the  soul  identified  with  the,  189- 

192 

Shadows,  of  people  drawn  out  by  ghosts, 
190  ;  animals  injured  through  their,  190  ; 
of  certain  persons  dangerous,  190,  207  ; 
of  people  built  into  foundations  of 
edifices,  191 

Shakespeare  on  death  at  ebb  tide,  35 
Shamans,  88,  683 
Shanghai,  geomancy  at,  36 
Shans  of  Burma,  77 
Sheba  or  Sabaea,  kings  of,  200 
Sheep,  torn  by  wolf  in  homoeopathic  magic, 
32  ;  used  in  purificatory  ceremony,  214  ; 
black,  sacrificed  for  rain,  72 
Shell,  called  the  “  old  man,”  33 
Shenty,  Egyptian  cow-goddess,  375 
Shetland,  witches  in,  81 
Shilluk,  the,  266,  294  ;  their  kings,  295 
Shoes,  of  priestess,  174  ;  of  boar’s  skin 
worn  by  king  at  inauguration,  594 
Shooting  star,  superstition  as  to,  279 
Shrove  Tuesday,  customs  on,  134,  302,  305, 
317,  461,  614,  651,  656 
Shrovetide  customs,  298  ;  Bear,  306 
Shuswap  Indians,  66,  190,  207 
Siam,  kings  of,  99,  224,  257,  593  ;  objection 
to  the  king’s  image  on  coins  in,  193  ; 
mode  of  executing  royal  criminals  in, 
228  ;  belief  that  a  guardian  spirit  dwells 
in  the  head  in,  230  ;  ceremony  at  cutting 
a  child’s  hair  in,  235  ;  temporary  kings 
in,  284,  289  ;  annual  expulsion  of  demons 
in,  559  ;  human  scapegoat  in,  570 
Siamese  monks,  112  ;  story  of  the  external 
soul,  669 

Siaoo,  belief  as  to  sylvan  spirits  in,  116 
Siberia,  bear- festival  in,  510  ;  sable- 
hunters  in,  525  ;  external  souls  of 
shamans  in,  683 

Sibyl,  the,  and  the  Golden  Bough,  3 
Sibylline  Books,  the,  348 
Sicily,  attempts  to  compel  the  saints  to 
give  rain  in,  74,  75  ;  gardens  of  Adonis 
in,  344  ;  Good  Friday  ceremonies  in, 
345  ;  Midsummer  fires  in,  631 
Sickness,  homoeopathic  magic  for  the  cure 
of,  15  ;  explained  by  the  absence  of  the 
soul,  183  ;  ascribed  to  possession  by 
demons  and  cured  by  exorcism,  196, 
547  ;  cured  or  prevented  by  effigies,  492  ; 


INDEX 


747 


transferred  to  things,  539,  or  people,  540, 
544>  or  animals,  540,  544  ;  bonfires  a 
protection  against,  610 
Sicknesses  expelled  in  a  ship,  563 
Sierra  Leone,  174  ;  custom  of  beating  a 
king  on  the  eve  of  his  coronation  in, 
176 

Sieve,  water  poured  through,  as  a  rain- 
charm,  7 1 

Sikkim,  fear  of  the  camera  in,  193 
Silenuses,  minor  deities  associated  with 
Dionysus,  464 

Silesia,  Whitsuntide  King  in,  129;  Whit¬ 
suntide  customs  in,  132  ;  “  carrying  out 
Death  ”  in,  309-11,  314,  614  ;  bringing 
in  Summer,  31 1  ;  the  Grandmother  at 
harvest  in,  401  ;  names  given  to  last 
sheaf  in,  402 ;  the  Wheat  Bride  at 
harvest  in,  409  ;  harvest  customs  in, 
428,  449,  451,  453,  457  ;  expulsion  of 
witches  and  evil  spirits  in,  560,  561  ; 
need-fire  in,  640 

Silk-cotton  trees  reverenced,  112 
Silkworms,  taboos  observed  by  breeders  of, 
218 

Silvanus,  the  Roman  wood-god,  140,  141 
Silvii,  family  name  of  kings  of  Alba,  149, 
163 

Simeon,  prince  of  Bulgaria,  680 
Similarity  in  magic,  law  of,  n 
Singarmati  Deva,  Indian  goddess,  218 
Singhalese,  the,  226 

Sins,  confession  of,  198,  217,  540,  541-2, 
553>  569  ;  the  remission  of,  through  the 
shedding  of  blood,  356  ;  transferred  to  a 
buffalo  calf,  541  ;  transferred  vicariously 
to  human  beings,  542  ;  of  the  Children 
of  Israel  transferred  to  scapegoat,  569 
Sioux  Indians,  497 
Sirius,  the  Dog-star,  370,  384 
Sisters,  taboos  observed  by,  23,  25 
Situa,  annual  festival  of  the  Incas,  553 
Siva  and  Parvati,  marriage  of  the  images 
of,  320 

Skeat,  W.  W.,  417 

Skeleton  drenched  with  water  as  a  rain- 
charm,  71 

Skin  disease  caused  by  eating  a  sacred 
animal,  473 

Skins  of  sacrificed  animals,  uses  made  of, 
466,  477,  499-501,  529  ;  of  human 
victims,  591 

Skipping-rope  played  at  bear  -  festival, 
512 

Skulls,  of  head-hunters’  victims  preserved 
as  relics,  433  ;  of  bears  and  foxes 
worshipped  and  consulted  as  oracles, 
505  ;  of  turtles  propitiated,  526 
Sky,  twins  called  children  of  the,  67  ; 

observation  of  the,  for  omens,  279 
Skye,  last  sheaf  called  the  Cripple  Goat  in, 
455  ;  the  need-fire  in,  618 
Slave,  charm  to  bring  back  a  runaway,  31 
.Slave  priest  at  Nemi,  3 


Slave  Coast  of  West  Africa,  negroes  of  the, 
1 16  ;  exorcism  of  demons  from  children 
on  the,  196,  226  ;  precautions  as  to  the 
spittle  of  kings  on  the,  237 
Slaves,  license  granted  to,  at  the  Satur¬ 
nalia,  158,  583 

Slavonia,  harvest  customs  in,  404  ;  the 
Corn-spirit  in,  448  ;  custom  of  “  carrying 
out  Death  ”  in,  578  ;  the  Yule  log  in, 
638  ;  need-fire  in,  641  ;  stories  of  the 
external  soul  in,  671 

Slavonians,  South,  30,  32,  114,  119,  649. 
See  also  Slavs 

Slavs,  no,  161,  278,  302,  400,  649,  665  ; 

of  Carinthia,  126  ;  South,  44,  636 
Sleep,  charms  to  cause,  30  ;  absence  of  the 
soul  in,  181-2  ;  forbidden  in  house  after 
a  death,  182  ;  sick  people  not  allowed 
to,  193 

Slovenes,  128  ;  of  Oberkrain,  134 
Smallpox,  493  ;  demon  of,  transferred  to 
a  sow,  540  ;  blood  of  monkey  used  to 
exorcise  the  devil  of,  549  ;  flight  from 
the  evil  spirit  of,  550  ;  demon  of,  ex¬ 
pelled  by  means  of  an  image,  563  ; 
expelled  in  a  boat,  564 
Smith’s  craft  sacred,  86 
Smoke,  in  rain-making,  73 ;  of  cedar  inhaled 
as  means  of  inspiration,  95 ;  of  bonfires, 
612,  622,  645  ;  of  need-fire,  640  ;  used 
to  stupefy  witches  in  the  clouds,  650 
Smoking  as  a  means  of  inducing  a  state  of 
ecstasy,  484 ;  in  honour  of  slain  bears,  522 
Snail  supposed  to  suck  blood  of  cattle,  190 
Snake,  used  in  rain-charm,  72  ;  respected 
by  Indians  of  Carolina,  519  ;  worshipped, 
535  ;  said  to  wound  a  girl  at  puberty, 
601  ;  seven-headed,  external  soul  of 
witch  in  a,  676 

Snake-bite,  charm  against,  32  ;  clan, 
exposed  infants  to  snakes,  502  ;  -god, 
married  to  women,  145  ;  -stone,  34 ; 
tribe,  in  the  Punjaub,  535 
Snipe,  fever  transferred  to  a,  545 
Snorri  Sturluson,  379 
Sochit  or  Socket,  epithet  of  Isis,  383 
Society,  uniformity  of  occupation  in  primi¬ 
tive,  61  ;  ancient,  built  on  the  principle 
of  subordination  of  the  individual  to  the 
community,  357 

Sofala,  kings  of,  put  to  death,  272 
Sogamosa  or  Sogamoza,  the  pontiff  of,  104  ; 
heir  to  the  throne  not  allowed  to  see  the 
sun,  595 

Sokari  (Seker),  a  title  of  Osiris,  375 
Solar  theory  of  the  fires  of  the  fire- festivals, 
642,  643 

Solomon  Islands,  the,  disposal  of  cut  hair 
in,  235  ;  ceremony  for  getting  rid  of 
fatigue  in,  540 

Solstice,  the  summer,  its  importance 
for  primitive  man,  622  ;  the  winter, 
reckoned  by  the  ancients  the  Nativity 
of  the  Sun,  358 


INDEX 


748 

Solstitial  fires  perhaps  rain-charms,  706 
Son  of  God,  alleged  incarnation  of  the,  in 
America,  102  ;  of  the  king,  sacrificed  for 
his  father,  289 

Songs  of  the  corn-reapers,  424 
Sopater  accused  of  binding  the  winds,  81 
Sorcerers,  84,  233,  235,  236 ;  souls  ex¬ 
tracted  or  detained  by,  187,  188  ;  in¬ 
fluence  wielded  by,  196 ;  injure  men 
through  their  names,  245  ;  exorcise 
demons,  548 

Sorcery,  the  dread  of,  233,  691  ;  protec¬ 
tions  against,  621,  629,  663 
Sorrowful  One,  vaults  of  the,  371 
Sothis,  Egyptian  name  for  Sirius,  370 
Soul,  the  perils  of  the,  178  ;  as  a  mannikin, 
178  ;  absence  and  recall  of  the,  180  ;  .as 
a  shadow  and  a  reflection,  189-92  ;  in 
the  blood,  228,  230  ;  identified  with  the 
personal  name,  244  ;  of  man-god,  265  ; 
succession  to  the,  293-5  ;  of  the  rice,  413, 
415  ;  thought  to  be  seated  in  the  liver, 
497  ;  the  notion  of  a,  690  ;  the  unity 
and  indivisibility  of  the,  690.  See  also 
Souls 

- ,  the  external,  in  folk-tales,  667-78  ; 

in  inanimate  things,  679  ;  in  plants,  681  ; 
in  animals,  683  ;  kept  in  totem,  690 
Soul-boxes,  amulets  as,  679-80 ;  -stone, 
680 

Souls,  of  the  dead  in  trees,  115  ;  every 
man  thought  to  have  four,  179  ;  light 
and  heavy,  thin  and  fat,  179  ;  trans¬ 
ference  of,  184,  185  ;  abducted  by 
demons,  186  ;  extracted  or  detained  by 
sorcerers,  187-8  ;  supposed  to  be  in 
portraits,  193  ;  of  slain  enemies  pro¬ 
pitiated,  213  ;  of  beasts  respected,  223  ; 
of  the  dead  transmitted  to  successors, 
294  ;  immortal,  attributed  to  animals, 
518  ;  the  plurality  of,  690 
South  Sea  Islands,  human  gods  in  the,  96 
Sow,  corn-spirit  as,  460 ;  the  cropped 
black,  at  Hallowe’en,  636 
Sowing,  homoeopathic  magic  at,  28 ; 
sexual  intercourse  before,  136 ;  con¬ 
tinence  at,  138  ;  rites  of,  in  Egypt,  371  ; 
and  ploughing,  ceremony  of,  in  the  rites  of 
Osiris,  375  ;  expulsion  of  demons  at,  575 
Spain,  belief  as  to  death  at  ebb  tide  in,  35  ; 

Midsummer  fires  in,  631 
Spark  Sunday  in  Switzerland,  613 
Sparrows,  charm  to  keep  them  from  the 
corn,  530 

Sparta,  state  sacrifices  at,  9  ;  sacrifices  to 
the  sun  at,  79  ;  king  not  to  be  touched, 
224  ;  warned  by  oracle  against  a  lame 
reign,  273  ;  octennial  tenure  of  kingship 
at,  279 

Spears,  sacred,  351,  571 
Speke,  Captain  J.  H.,  196 
Spells,  cast  by  strangers,  19 7  ;  at  hair¬ 
cutting,  233  ;  cast  by  witches  on  union 
of  man  and  wife,  650 


Spelt-goat,  last  sheaf  called  the,  456 
Spices  used  in  exorcism  of  demons,  196 
Spiders  in  homoeopathic  magic,  31  ;  cere¬ 
mony  at  killing,  524 

Spindles  not  to  be  carried  openly  on  the 
highroads,  20  ;  not  to  be  twirled  while 
men  are  in  council,  20 
Spinning  forbidden  to  women  under  certain 
circumstances,  20 

Spirit,  Brethren  and  Sisters  of  the  Free, 
101  ;  of  vegetation,  see  Vegetation ; 
the  Great,  of  American  Indians,  264 
Spirits,  in  trees,  112  ;  water,  145  ;  averse 
to  iron,  225  ;  evil,  fear  of  attracting  the 
attention  of,  248  ;  distinguished  from 
gods,  41 1  ;  of  the  woods,  465  ;  retreat 
of  the  army  of,  546 

Spitting,  forbidden,  218  ;  upon  knots  as 
a  charm,  241  ;  at  ceremony  of  expulsion 
of  evils,  568 

Spittle,  used  in  magic,  13,  233,  234,  237  ; 
tabooed,  237  ;  used  in  making  a  cove¬ 
nant,  237  ;  magical  virtue  of,  435,  437 
Sprenger,  the  inquisitor,  681 
Spring,  magical  ceremonies  for  the  revival 
of  nature  in,  320  ;  ceremony  at  the 
beginning  of,  in  China,  468 
Spring  customs  and  harvest  customs  com¬ 
pared,  410 

Spring,  oracular,  at  Dodona,  147 
Springbok,  not  eaten  by  Bushmen,  495 
Squirrels  burnt  in  Easter  bonfires,  616,  656 
Stabbing  men’s  shadows  in  order  to  injure 
the  men,  189 

Standing  on  one  foot,  custom  of,  284,  285, 
288 

Star,  falling,  in  magic,  17;  the  Evening,  in 
Keats’s  last  sonnet,  34;  of  Salvation, 
346 ;  of  Bethlehem,  347 ;  the  Morning, 
432 

Stars,  shooting,  superstitions  as  to,  279 
Stella  Maris,  an  epithet  of  the  Virgin  Mary, 

383 

Stepping  over  persons  forbidden,  211  ; 

over  dead  panther,  221 
Sternberg,  Leo,  513,  5*7 
Sticks,  charred,  uses  of,  614,  616,  624,  626  ; 
and  stones,  evils  transferred  to,  540  ; 
whittled,  508,  512 
Stiens  of  Cambodia,  the,  524 
Stinging  with  ants  as  a  form  of  purification, 
601 

Stone,  used  in  ceremony  to  facilitate  child¬ 
birth,  14  ;  supposed  to  cure  jaundice, 
16  ;  treading  on  a,  as  a  homoeopathic 
charm,  33  ;  ( lapis  manalis)  used  in  rain¬ 
making  at  Rome,  77-8  ;  holed,  in  magic, 
to  make  sunshine,  78  ;  external  soul  in 
a,  680  ;  magical,  put  into  body  of  novice 
at  initiation,  699 

Stone-throwing  as  a  fertility  charm,  7 ; 

-curlew  as  a  cure  for  jaundice,  16 
Stones  anointed  in  order  to  avert  bullets 
from  warriors,  26  ;  homoeopathic  magi; 


INDEX 


of,  33  ;  precious,  magical  qualities  of, 
34  ;  rain-making  by  means  of,  75,  85  ; 
in  charms  to  make  the  sun  shine,  78  ; 
in  wind  charms,  80  ;  ghosts  in,  190  ; 
sacred,  235  ;  in  last  sheaf,  402,  403  ; 
criminal  crushed  between,  431  ;  fatigue 
transferred  to,  540 
Stoning  human  scapegoats,  579 
Storms,  Catholic  priests  thought  to  possess 
the  power  of  averting,  53  ;  caused  by 
cutting  or  combing  the  hair,  234 
Stow,  in  Suffolk,  witch  at,  44 
Strangers,  taboos  on  intercourse  with,  194  ; 
suspected  of  practising  magic  arts,  194  ; 
ceremonies  at  reception  of,  195  ;  slain 
as  representatives  of  the  corn-spirit,  426  ; 
regarded  as  representatives  of  the  corn- 
spirit,  429,  431,  439 

Straw,  wrapt  round  fruit-trees  as  a  pro¬ 
tection  against  evil  spirits,  561  ;  tied 
round  trees  to  make  them  fruitful,  612 
Straw-bull  at  harvest,  457  ;  -goat,  456 
Strength  of  people  bound  up  with  their 
hair,  680 

Strings,  knotted,  as  amulets,  243 
Strudeli  and  Stratelli,  female  spirits  of  the 
wood,  561 

Stseelis  Indians  of  British  Columbia,  605 
Stubbes,  Phillip,  his  Anatomie  of  Abuses, 
123 

Stubble-cock,  name  of  harvest  supper,  451 
Styx,  passage  of  Aeneas  across  the,  707 
Substitutes,  put  to  death  instead  of  kings, 
278,  282,  289 ;  temporary,  for  the  Shah 
of  Persia,  289  ;  for  human  sacrifices,  354 
Substitution  for  human  victims,  of  animals, 
292,  392,  436  ;  of  rice-cakes,  490  ;  of 
effigies,  491 

Suffocation  as  a  mode  of  executing  royal 
criminals,  228 

Sulka,  the,  of  New  Britain,  64,  76,  247 
Sulla  at  the  temple  of  Diana,  164 
“  Sultan  of  the  Scribes,”  at  Fez,  286 
Sumatra,  magical  image  to  obtain  offspring 
in,  14  ;  pregnant  woman  not  to  stand 
at  the  door  in,  21  ;  homoeopathic  magic 
at  sowing  rice  in,  28  ;  rain-charm  by 
means  of  a  black  cat  in,  72  ;  personifica¬ 
tion  of  the  rice  in,  415  ;  tigers  respected 
in,  519  ;  human  scapegoat  in,  570 
Summer,  bringing  in  the,  311-16;  and 
Winter,  battle  of,  316-17 
Summer-trees,  311,  314 
Sun,  prayers  offered  to  the,  14,  26,  78  ; 
magical  control  of  the,  78-80  ;  cere¬ 
monies  at  eclipses  of  the,  78  ;  ancient 
Egyptian  ceremony  for  the  regulation 
of  the,  78  ;  sacrifices  to  the,  79  ;  chief 
deity  of  the  Rhodians,  79  ;  supposed  to 
drive  in  a  chariot,  79  ;  caught  by  net  or 
string,  79  ;  father  of  the  Incas,  104  ; 
Parthian  monarchs  the  brothers  of  the, 
104  ;  and  Earth,  marriage  of  the,  136, 
145  ;  not  allowed  to  shine  on  sacred 


749 

persons,  169,  170  ;  represented  as  a 
man  with  a  bull’s  head,  281  ;  Adonis  as 
the,  337  ;  Nativity  of  the,  358  ;  the 
Unconquered,  Mithra  identified  with, 
358  I  Osiris  as  the,  384  ;  first-fruits 
offered  to  the,  431 ;  ceremony  at  the  re¬ 
appearance  of  the,  in  the  Arctic  regions, 
551  ;  hearts  of  human  victims  offered  to 
the,  589  ;  rule  not  to  see  the,  595  ;  not 
to  shine  on  girls  at  puberty,  596-600, 
602  ;  symbolised  by  a  wheel,  644 ;  fern- 
seed  procured  by  shooting  at  the,  705  ; 
the  ultimate  cooling  of  the,  713 
Sun-god,  the,  73,  105  ;  -goddess,  168 
Sundanese,  30 

Sunflower  roots,  ceremony  at  eating,  487 
Sunshine,  use  of  fire  as  a  charm  to  produce, 
647-8 

Surinam,  the  Bush  negroes  of,  166,  473 
Swabia,  the  Harvest-May  in,  118  ;  May- 
trees  in,  123  ;  disposal  of  cut  hair  in, 
235  ;  Whitsuntide  mummers  in,  297  ; 
Shrovetide  or  Lenten  ceremonies  in,  307  ; 
the  Old  Woman  at  harvest  in,  402  ; 
harvest  customs  in,  454,  457,  458,  460  ; 
Lenten  fires  in,  612  ;  Easter  fires  in,  617  ; 
Midsummer  fires  in,  624 ;  “  fire  of 

heaven  ”  in,  644 
Swallows  as  scapegoats,  541 
Swami  Bhaskaranandaji  Saraswati,  100 
Swan-woman,  Tartar  story  of  the,  676 
Swazieland,  knots  as  charms  in,  242 
Swearing  on  stones,  33 
Sweat,  contagious  magic  of,  43 
Sweating  as  a  purification,  207 
Sweden,  sacred  grove  in,  no;  peasants 
stick  leafy  branches  in  cornfields  in,  118  ; 
guardian  trees  in,  120  ;  birch  twigs  on 
the  eve  of  Ma)7  Day  in,  122  ;  bonfires 
and  May-poles  at  Midsummer  in,  122  ; 
Midsummer  Bride  and  Bridegroom  in’ 
133  I  Frey  and  his  priestess  in,  143  ; 
dramatic  contest  between  Summer  and 
Winter  on  May  Day  in,  316  ;  harvest 
customs  in,  406  ;  custom  at  threshing  in, 
431  ;  Yule  Boar  in,  461  ;  Christmas 
custom  in,  462  ;  Easter  bonfires  in,  617  ; 
May  Day  bonfires  in,  621,  645  ;  Mid¬ 
summer  fires  in,  625  ;  the  need-fire  in, 
641  ;  the  mistletoe  in,  661,  663  ;  Balder’s 
balefires  in,  664  ;  superstitions  about  a 
parasitic  rowan  in,  702  ;  the  divining 
rod  in,  705 

Swedish  kings,  traces  of  nine  years’  reign 
of,  278 

“  Sweethearts  of  St.  John,”  343,  344 
Swine's  flesh,  sacramentally  eaten,  470, 
472  ;  not  eaten  by  worshippers  of  Attis, 
47i 

Swineherds  forbidden  to  enter  Egyptian 
temples,  472 

Swinging,  at  ploughing  rite  in  Siam, 
285,  288  ;  to  make  the  flax  grow  high, 
289 


750  INDEX 


Switzerland,  harvest  customs  in,  455,  457, 
458  ;  frightening  away  the  spirits  of  the 
wood  in,  561  ;  Lenten  fires  in,  613  ;  the 
need-fire  in,  641,  645  ;  the  mistletoe  in, 
661,  662  ;  fern-seed  on  St.  John’s  Night 
in,  705 

Sword,  a  magical,  109 
Swords  used  to  ward  off  or  expel  demons, 
549,  55i 

Sycamore  at  doors  on  May  Day,  12 1  ; 

effigy  of  Osiris  placed  on  boughs  of,  376 
Syleus,  the  legend  of,  442 
Sylvan  deities  in  classical  art,  117 
Sympathy,  magical,  38 
Syrians,  their  religious  attitude  to  pigs,  471; 

esteemed  fish  sacred,  473 
Syria,  241  ;  Adonis  in,  327  ;  precaution 
against  caterpillars  in,  531 
Szis,  the,  of  Upper  Burmah,  418 

Ta-ta-thi  tribe  of  New  South  Wales,  76 
Ta-uz  (Tammuz),  338 
Tabali,  chief  of,  237 

Taboo,  or  negative  magic,  19-22,  29  ;  of 
chiefs  and  kings,  204  ;  the  meaning  of, 
223  ;  conceived  as  a  dangerous  physical 
substance  which  needs  to  be  insulated, 
594.  See  also  Taboos 
Taboo  rajah  and  chief,  177-8 
Tabooed  acts,  194-202  ;  hands,  204-8,  210, 
214,  233  ;  persons,  202-23,  593-5  ; 

things,  223-4  ;  words,  244-62 
Taboos,  on  food,  21,  238  ;  on  parents  of 
twins,  66  ;  royal  and  priestly,  168-75  5 
on  intercourse  with  strangers,  194  ;  on 
eating  and  drinking,  198  ;  on  showing 
the  face,  199  ;  on  quitting  the  house, 
200  ;  on  leaving  food  over,  200  ;  on 
chiefs  and  kings,  202  ;  on  mourners, 
205  ;  on  women,  207  ;  on  warriors,  210  ; 
on  man-slayers,  212  ;  on  hunters  and 
fishers,  216  ;  as  spiritual  insulators,  223  ; 
on  iron,  224  ;  on  sharp  weapons,  226  ; 
on  blood,  227  ;  relating  to  the  head,  230  ; 
on  hair,  231  ;  on  spittle,  237  ;  on  knots 
and  rings,  238  ;  on  words,  244  ;  on 
personal  names,  244 ;  on  names  of 
relations,  249  ;  on  names  of  the  dead, 
251  ;  on  names  of  kings  and  other  sacred 
persons,  257  ;  on  names  of  gods,  260  ; 
regulating  the  lives  of  divine  kings,  593 

- observed  in  fishing  and  hunting,  20  ; 

by  children  in  the  absence  of  their 
fathers,  21,  22,  26  ;  by  wives  in  the 
absence  of  their  husbands,  21-5  ;  by 
sisters  in  the  absence  of  their  brothers, 
25  ;  after  house-building,  117  ;  for  the 
sake  of  the  crops,  138  ;  by  the  Mikado, 
169  ;  by  headmen  in  Assam,  173  ;  by 
ancient  kings  of  Ireland,  173  ;  by  the 
Flamen  Dialis,  174  ;  by  the  Bodia,  175  ; 
by  sacred  milkmen  among  the  Todas, 
175  ;  by  priest  of  Earth  in  Southern 
Nigeria,  594 


Tahiti,  seclusion  of  women  after  child¬ 
birth  in,  208  ;  king  and  queen  of,  224, 
593  ;  sanctity  of  the  head  in,  231  ; 
names  of  kings  not  to  be  pronounced  in, 
259 

Talismans  possessed  by  the  Fire  King  of 
Cambodia,  108 

Talmud,  the,  on  menstruous  women,  604 
Talos,  legend  of,  280 
Tamarind  tree,  sacred,  118 
Tammuz,  or  Adonis,  325  ;  the  lover  oi 
Ishtar,  325  ;  laments  for,  326  ;  mourned 
for  at  Jerusalem,  32 7  ;  as  a  corn-spirit, 
338  ;  his  bones  ground  in  a  mill,  338, 
442  ;  perhaps  represented  by  the  mock 
king  of  Sacaea,  442-3 
Tana  (Tanna),  one  of  the  New  Hebrides, 
contagious  magic  of  clothes  in,  43  ; 
magic  practised  on  refuse  of  food  in,  201 
Tapio,  woodland  god  in  Finland,  141 
Tar  barrel,  burning,  swung  round  pole  at 
Midsummer,  625 

Tara,  capital  of  ancient  Ireland,  173,  273 
Tari  Pennu,  earth  goddess,  434 
Taro  plants  beaten  to  make  them  grow,  581 
Tarquin  the  Elder,  152 
-  the  Proud,  150 

Tartar  Khan,  ceremony  at  visiting  a,  198 

- stories  of  the  external  soul,  675,  676 

Tartars,  the  Buddhist,  102 
Tasmania,  252 

Tatius,  king  of  Rome,  152,  158 
Tattoo  marks  of  priests  of  Attis,  352 
Tattooing  in  the  Punjaub,  180 
Tauric  Diana,  her  image  brought  by 
Orestes  to  Italy,  2  ;  only  to  be  appeased 
with  human  blood,  6 

Taygetus,  Mount,  sacrifices  to  the  sun  on, 
79 

Taylor,  Rev.  J.  C.,  570 
Teeth,  contagious  magic  of,  38-39  ;  of  rats 
and  mice  in  magic,  39  ;  of  ancestor  in 
magical  ceremony,  78  ;  of  sacred  kings 
preserved  as  amulets,  109  ;  loss  of, 
supposed  effect  of  breaking  a  taboo, 
206  ;  as  a  rain-charm,  234  ;  extracted, 
kept  against  the  resurrection,  236 
Tegner,  Swedish  poet,  664 
Tein-eigin ,  need-fire,  in  Scotland,  617,  618 
Telepathy,  magical,  22,  24,  25 
Telugus,  their  way  of  stopping  rain,  64 
Temple  at  Jerusalem,  built  without  iron, 
225 

Temples  built  in  honour  of  living  kings  of 
Babylon,  and  of  Egypt,  104 
Tenedos,  isle  of,  291,  392 
Tepehuanes  of  Mexico,  193 
Teton  Indians,  524 

Teutonic  kings  as  priests,  9  ;  stories  of  the 
external  soul,  672  ;  thunder- god,  160 
Tezcatlipoco,  Mexican  god,  587 
Thargelia,  Greek  festival  of  the,  579,  582 
Thebes,  the  Boeotian,  grave  of  Dionysus  at, 

389 


INDEX 


Thebes,  in  Egypt,  142,  174 ;  Valley  of  the 
Kings  at,  3 77  ;  annual  sacrifice  of  ram 
to  Ammon  at,  477,  500 
Theddora  tribe  of  South-east  Australia,  498 
Theocracies  in  America,  170 
Theogamy,  divine  marriage,  140 
Theology  distinguished  from  religion,  50 
Theseus  and  Hippolytus,  4 
Thesmophoria,  ancient  Greek  festival,  353, 
371,  389,  469,  470 
Thevet,  F.  A.,  88 
Thieves’  candles,  30,  31,  56 
Thlinkeet  or  Tlingit  Indians,  234,  528,  600 
Thompson  Indians  of  British  Columbia,  2 7, 
45,  487,  7o8 

Thonga,  Bantu  tribe  of  South  Africa,  708 
Thor,  the  Norse  thunder- god,  160 
Thorn  bushes  to  keep  off  ghosts,  207 
Thorns,  wreaths  of,  hung  up  as  a  sign  to 
warn  off  strangers,  558 
Thoth,  Egyptian  god  of  wisdom,  362,  364 
Thrace,  worship  of  Dionysus  in,  386  ;  the 
Bacchanals  of,  390  ;  human  scapegoat 
in,  579 

Thracian  gods  ruddy  and  blue-eyed,  260 
Thread,  use  of,  in  magic,  181,  242,  545 
Thresher  of  the  last  corn,  400,  405-6,  448, 
456,  458,  460 

Thresher-cow,  in  the  Canton  of  Zurich,  458 
Threshing,  customs  at,  400,  405,  418,  428-9, 
43i,  448,  449,  45i,  453,  456,  458,  460 
Threshing-dog,  448 

Thrumalun,  mythical  being  in  Australia, 
693 

Thunar  or  Donar,  German  thunder-god, 
160 

Thunder,  imitation  of,  63  ;  kings  expected 
to  make,  149  ;  expiation  for  hearing, 
174  ;  Midsummer  fires  a  protection 
against,  627,  629 

Thunder-beings,  524  ;  -besom,  662,  709  ; 

-bird,  the  mythical,  599  ;  -god,  161 
Thunderbolt,  Zeus  surnamed  the,  159 
Thuremlin,  a  mythical  being,  692 
Thuringen,  homoeopathic  magic  at  sowing 
flax  in,  28  ;  May  King  in,  129  ;  Whit¬ 
suntide  mummers  in,  298,  300  ;  carrying 
out  Death  in,  308  ;  customs  at  threshing 
in,  405,  458;  the  Harvest-cock  in,  451  ; 
“  the  Boar  in  the  corn  ”  in,  460  ;  Mid¬ 
summer  fires  in,  656 
Tiber,  puppets  thrown  into  the,  493 
Tibet,  the  Grand  Lamas  of,  102  ;  incarnate 
human  gods  in,  103  ;  vicarious  use  of 
images  in,  492;  human  scapegoats  in,  572 
Tibetan  new  year,  572 
Tides,  homoeopathic  magic  of  the,  34,  35 
Tigers,  respected  in  Sumatra,  519 
Timmes,  the,  of  Sierra  Leone,  176 
Timor,  island  of,  telepathy  in,  26  ;  fetish 
or  taboo  rajah  in,  177  ;  war  customs  in, 
212  ;  transference  of  fatigue  to  leaves  in, 
540 

Timorlaut  Islands,  526,  564 


751 

Tinneh  or  Dene  Indians,  208  ;  of  North¬ 
west  America,  486 
Titans  kill  Dionysus,  388 
Tiyans  of  Malabar,  602 
Tlingit  or  Thlinkeet  Indians,  234,  528,  600 
Tlokoala,  a  secret  society  of  the  Nootka 
Indians,  699 

Toads  in  relation  to  rain,  73 
Tobacco,  used  as  an  emetic,  484-5 
Tobacco  smoke,  priest  inspired  by,  95 
Toboongkoo,  the,  of  Central  Celebes,  116 
Todas,  a  tribe  of  Southern  India,  100,  175, 
534 

Togoland,  expulsion  of  devils  in,  555 
Tolalaki,  the,  of  Central  Celebes,  498 
Tolampoos,  the,  of  Central  Celebes,  244 
Tomori,  the,  of  Central  Celebes,  116,  416 
Tonapoo,  the,  of  Central  Celebes,  117 
Tonga,  chief’s  touch  thought  to  heal 
scrofula  in,  90 ;  veneration  paid  to 
divine  chiefs  in,  177  ;  kings  of,  203,  231  ; 
tabooed  persons  not  allowed  to  handle 
food  in,  206  ;  ceremony  performed  after 
contact  with  a  sacred  chief  in,  473 
Ton  quin,  division  of  monarchy  in,  177  ; 

annual  expulsion  of  demons  in,  558 
Toothache,  transferred  to  enemies,  539  ; 
remedy  for,  544 

Toradjas  of  Central  Celebes,  18,  21,  68,  71, 
75,  11 7,  197,  232,  416,  581 
Torches,  offered  by  women  to  Diana,  3  ; 
used  to  mimic  lightning,  77  ;  used  in 
expulsion  of  demons,  548,  550,  554,  555, 
557,  560,  562  ;  in  expulsion  of  witches, 
560,  561  ;  processions  with  lighted,  610, 
61 1,  647  ;  carried  round  folds,  631  ; 
applied  to  fruit  trees  to  fertilise  them,  647 
Torres  Straits  Islands,  604  ;  magic  in  the, 
18  ;  personal  names  tabooed  in,  250  ; 
seclusion  of  girls  at  puberty  in,  598 
Tortoises  in  magic,  36  ;  reasons  for  not 
eating,  495 

Totem,  skin  disease  supposed  to  be  caused 
by  eating,  473  ;  supposed  effect  of  kill¬ 
ing,  689  ;  receptacle  for  a  man’s  external 
soul,  690 ;  transference  of  soul  to,  692, 700 
Totem  animal,  artificial,  699  ;  clans,  1 7, 
504,  700 

Totemism,  in  Australia  and  America,  533 ; 

suggested  theory  of,  689 
Totems,  magical  ceremonies  for  the 
multiplication  of  the,  17,  85-6 
Toumbuluh  tribe  of  North  Celebes,  239,  240 
Toxcatl,  old  Mexican  festival,  587 
Transmigration  of  human  souls,  into 
turtles,  504  ;  into  bears,  51 1  ;  into 
totem  animals,  691 
Transubstantiation,  490 
Transylvania,  rain-making  in,  71  ;  festival 
of  Green  George  in,  126  ;  continence  at 
sowing  in,  138  ;  saying  as  to  sleeping 
child  in,  182  ;  harvest  customs  in,  451, 
452,  456  ;  customs  at  sowing  in,  530  ; 
story  of  the  external  soul  in,  672 


752 


INDEX 


Transylvania,  the  Germans  of,  239  ;  the 
Roumanians  of,  191,  227,  341  ;  the 
Saxons  of,  238,  306,  312,  316,  456,  530, 
672 

Travancore,  the  Rajah  of,  543 

Tree,  that  has  been  struck  by  lightning,  80, 
708  ;  decked  with  sham  bracelets,  etc., 
342  ;  burnt  in  the  Midsummer  bonfire, 
626,  628  ;  external  soul  in  a,  670,  680. 
See  also  Trees 

Tree-agates,  34 

- spirit,  represented  simultaneously  in 

vegetable  and  human  form,  125  ;  re¬ 
presentative  of,  thrown  into  water  to 
ensure  rain,  126  ;  killing  of  the,  296- 
323  ;  resurrection  of  the,  300  ;  in  rela¬ 
tion  to  the  vegetation-spirit,  315-16 ; 
Attis  as  a,  352  ;  Osiris  as  a,  380  ;  effigies 
of,  burnt  in  bonfires,  651  ;  human  repre¬ 
sentatives  of,  put  to  death,  652,  665 

—  - spirits,  109-17  ;  beneficent  powers 

of,  117-20,  651  ;  in  human  form  or 
embodied  in  living  people,  125 

—  - worship,  109  ;  among  the  ancient 

Germans,  no  ;  among  European  families 
of  the  Aryan  stock,  no;  among  the 
Lithuanians,  no  ;  in  ancient  Greece  and 
Italy,  in  ;  among  the  Finnish-Ugrian 
stock  in  Europe,  in  ;  notions  at  the 
root  of,  in  ;  in  modern  Europe,  relics 
of,  120-35 

Trees,  worship  of,  109;  oracular,  no; 
regarded  as  animate,  in  ;  sacrifices 
offered  to,  112,  113,  115,  116,  118  ;  sensi¬ 
tive,  112  ;  apologies  offered  to,  for 
cutting  them  down,  113  ;  bleeding,  113  ; 
threatened  to  make  them  bear  fruit,  113  ; 
married  to  each  other,  114  ;  in  blossom 
treated  like  pregnant  women,  115  ; 
animated  by  the  souls  of  the  dead,  115  ; 
planted  on  graves,  115  ;  demons  in,  116  ; 
ceremonies  at  cutting  down,  116  ;  grant 
women  an  easy  delivery,  120  ;  sacred, 
120  ;  represented  on  the  monuments  of 
Osiris,  380  ;  in  relation  to  Dionysus, 
387  ;  evils  transferred  to,  545  ;  burnt 
in  bonfires,  612,  616,  626,  630,  651  ;  lives 
of  people  bound  up  with,  681,  682  ; 
passing  through  cleft  trees  as  a  cure  for 
various  maladies,  682-3  5  fire  thought  by 
savages  to  be  stored  like  sap  in,  706 
Tribute  of  youths  and  maidens  sent  to  the 
Minotaur,  280 
Trinity,  the  Hindoo,  52 
Triptolemus,  prince  of  Eleusis,  394,  396, 
470 

Troezen,  sanctuary  of  Hippolytus  at,  6 
Trolls,  617,  625,  663,  707 
Tsetsaut  Indians  of  British  Columbia,  600 
Tshi-speaking  peoples  of  the  Gold  Coast,  26 
Tsimshian  Indians  of  British  Columbia,  66 
Tsuen-cheu-fu,  in  China,  geomancy  at,  36 
Tuaregs  of  the  Sahara,  252 
Tubingen,  burying  the  Carnival  near,  306 


Tuhoe  tribe  of  Maoris,  119 
Tullus  Hostilius,  king  of  Rome,  141,  158 
Tumleo,  island  of,  43 
Tuna,  a  spirit,  expulsion  of,  551 
Turcoman  cure  for  fever,  242 
Turkestan,  human  scapegoat  in,  543 
Turks,  exorcism  practised  by  the,  195  ; 
preserve  their  nail-parings  for  use  at  the 
resurrection,  236  ;  of  Central  Asia,  496 
Turmeric  cultivated,  434,  437 
Turner’s  picture  of  the  Golden  Bough,  1 
“  Turquoise,  Mistress  of,”  at  Sinai,  330 
Turtle,  magical  models  of,  18 
Turtles,  killing  the  sacred,  502  ;  trans¬ 
migration  of  human  souls  into,  504 
Twanyirika,  an  Australian  spirit,  693 
Twelfth  Day,  ceremony  of  the  King  at 
Carcassone  on,  537  ;  the  Eve  of,  561, 
609,  647 

- Night,  expulsion  of  the  powers  of  evil 

on,  561  ;  the  King  of  the  Bean  on,  586  ; 
the  Yule  log  on,  637 

Twelve  Days  from  Christmas  to  Twelfth 
Night,  precautions  against  witches 
during  the,  561  ;  Nights,  remains  of 
Yule  log  scattered  over  the  fields  during 
^  the,  637 

Twins,  29,  227 ;  taboos  laid  on  parents  of, 
66  ;  supposed  to  possess  magical  powers, 
66-7  ;  associated  with  salmon,  and  the 
grizzly  bear,  66  ;  called  children  of  Ihe 
sky,  67  ;  water  poured  on  graves  of,  67  ; 
parents  of,  thought  to  be  able  to  fertilise 
plantain  trees,  137 

“  Two  Brothers,  The,”  Egyptian  tale  of, 
674 

Tycoons,  the,  176 

Typhon,  or  Set,  the  brother  of  Osiris,  363, 
365,  475 

Tyrol,  the,,  witches  in,  234  ;  disposal  of 
loose  hair  in,  237 ;  wedding-ring  as 
amulet  in,  243  ,  customs  at  threshing  in, 
429  ;  the  last  thresher  in,  449,  456 ; 

“  burning  out  the  witches  ”  in,  560,  622  ; 
Lenten  fires  in,  612  ;  Midsummer  fires 
in,  625  ;  fern-seed  in,  705 

Ualaroi,  the,  of  the  Darling  River,  692 
Uap,  island  of,  taboos  observed  by  fisher¬ 
men  in,  218 

Uea,  one  of  the  Loyalty  Islands,  185 
Uganda,  208  ;  priest  inspired  by  tobacco 
smoke  in,  95  ;  taboos  observed  by  father 
of  twins  in,  227  ;  king’s  brothers  burnt 
in,  286  ;  human  scapegoats  in,  543,  565  ; 
king  of,  543,  565,  593 
Ukraine,  ceremony  to  fertilise  the  fields  on 
St.  George’s  Day  in  the,  137 
Uliase,  East  Indian  island,  191,  196 
Ulster,  taboos  observed  by  the  ancient 
kings  of,  173 

Umbrians,  ordeal  of  battle  among  the,  158 
Unconquered  Sun,  Mithra  identified  with 
the,  358 


INDEX 


Universal  healer,  mistletoe  called,  659 
Unmatjera  tribe  of  Central  Australia,  693 
Unreason,  Abbot  of,  586 
Upsala,  sacred  grove  at,  no  ;  festival  at, 
279  ;  sacrifice  of  king’s  sons  at,  290  ; 
human  sacrifices  at,  354 
Upulero,  the  spirit  of  the  sun,  14 
Ur,  the  fourth  dynasty  of,  104 
Urua,  divinity  claimed  by  the  chief  of,  98 

Valerius  Soranus,  262 
Vampyres,  need-fire  kindled  as  a  safe¬ 
guard  against,  641,  649 
Vancouver  Island,  599 
Vedijovis,  she-goat  sacrificed  to,  392 
Vegetable  and  animal  life  associated  in  the 
primitive  mind,  325 

Vegetation,  homoeopathic  influence  of 
persons  on,  29  ;  spirit  of,  124,  125,  127- 
I29>  ;  influence  of  the  sexes  on,  135- 

139  ;  men  and  women  masquerading  as 
•the  spirits  of,  140 ;  marriage  of  the 
powers  of,  146  ;  death  and  revival  of  the 
spirit  of,  300,  315,  318-19  ;  perhaps 
generalised  from  a  tree-spirit,  315-16, 
339  5  growth  and  decay  of,  324,  385  ; 
decay  and  revival  of,  in  the  rites  of 
Adonis,  337  j  gardens  of  Adonis  charms 
to  promote  the  growth  of,  341,  342  ; 
Attis  as  a  god  of,  352  ;  Osiris  as  a  god  of, 
381,  385  ;  decay  and  growth  of,  con¬ 
ceived  as  the  death  and  resurrection  of 
gods,  385  ;  ancient  deities  of,  as  animals, 
464-79  ;  Mars  a  deity  of,  578  ;  spirit  of, 
burnt  in  effigy,  651  ;  reasons  for  burning 
a  deity  of,  651  ;  leaf-clad  representative 
of  the  spirit  of,  burnt,  652  ;  view  that 
victims  of  the  Druids  represented  spirits 
of,  658 

“  Veins  of  the  Nile,”  371 
Veleda,  a  deified  woman,  97 
Vendee,  custom  at  threshing  in,  406 
Venison,  ill  effect  of  eating,  496 
Venus  (Aphrodite)  and  Adonis,  5,  7,  8 
Venus,  the  planet,  identified  with  Astarte, 
346,  370 

Vermin,  from  hair  returned  to  their  owner, 
236 ;  propitiated  by  farmers,  530  ; 
exorcised  with  torches,  647 
Verres,  Roman  governor,  397 
Vervain,  17,  623,  624 

Vesta,  temple  of,  3,  704 ;  perpetual  fire  of, 

3,  665 

Vestal  fire,  3  ;  at  Nemi,  163,  164 
- —  Virgins,  3,  i53,  235,  478,  493 
Vestals,  4,  145 

Victoria,  Queen,  worshipped  in  Orissa,  100 
Victoria,  aborigines  of,  45,  252  ;  sex 
totems  in,  688 
Victoria  Nyanza,  Lake,  87 
Vine,  the,  cultivation  of,  introduced  by 
Osiiis,  362,  380;  in  relation  to  Dionysus 
386  y  * 

Vintage  song,  Phoenician,  425,  442 


753 

Violets  sprung  from  the  blood  of  Attis,  348 
Virbius,  4,  5,  8,  141,  163,  164,  301,  476,  707 
Virgin,  the  Heavenly,  mother  of  the  Sun 
358 

Virgin  Mary  and  Isis,  383 
— —  mothers,  tales  of,  347 
Virgins,  sacrifice  of,  146,  370 
Vitu  Levu,  Fijian  island,  695 
Vitzilipuztli,  a  great  Mexican  god,  488 
Voigtland,  locks'  unlocked  at  childbirth  in 
239  ,*  bonfires  on  Walpurgis  Night  in,  623 
Volga,  sacred  groves  among  the  tribes  of 
the,  hi 

Vomiting,  homoeopathic  cure  for,  16;  as 
a  religious  rite,  485 

Vosges,  the,  disposal  of  cut  hair  and  nails 
in,  236  ;  harvest  customs  in,  449  ;  Mid- 
summei  fires  in,  629,  645  ;  cats  burnt 
alive  on  Shrove  Tuesday  in,  656 
Vosges  Mountains,  the,  May  customs  in, 
12 1  ;  “  catching  the  cat  ”  in,  453 
Voyages,  telepathy  in,  24 

Wadai,  Sultan  of,  200,  273 
Wageia  of  East  Africa,  215 
Wagogo  of  East  Africa,  23,  72,  85,  495 
Wagtail,  the  yellow,  in  magic,  15,  16 
Waizganthos,  an  old  Prussian  god,  288 
Wajagga  of  East  Africa,  237 
Wakanda,  a  spirit,  216 
Wakelbura  of  Australia,  180,  603 
Wakondyo  of  Central  Africa,  76 
Walber,  the,  126,  127 
Waldemar  I.,  King  of  Denmark,  89 
Wales,  belief  as  to  death  at  ebb  tide  in,  35  ; 
harvest  customs  in,  403  ;  falling  sickness 
transferred  to  fowls  in,  545  ;  Beltane 
fires  in,  620  ;  Midsummer  fires  in,  630, 
646  ;  Hallowe’en  fires  in,  635  ;  mistletoe 
in,  661,  663 

Walhalla,  mistletoe  growing  east  of,  608 
Walla chia,  crown  of  last  ears  of  corn  worn 
by  girl  at  harvest  in,  341 
Walos  of  Senegambia,  660 
Walpurgis  Day  in  Upper  Franken,  616 
Night,  witches  abroad  on,  560,  622  5 
annual  expulsion  of  witches  on,  561 
Wambugwe  of  East  Africa,  72,  84 
Wandorobbo  of  East  Africa,  219 
Wanika  of  East  Africa,  112 
War,  telepathy  in,  25-7;  rules  of  cere¬ 
monial  purity  observed  in,  210  ;  con¬ 
tinence  in,  210-12 

Warlock,  the  invulnerable,  stories  of,  668 
Warramunga  of  Central  Australia,  17 
Warriors  tabooed,  210,  594 
Warts,  transferred  to  ash-tree,  546 
Warua,  the,  198 

Washing,  forbidden  for  magical  reasons,  21, 

23>  68  ;  practised  as  a  ceremonial  puri¬ 
fication  by  the  Jews,  and  by  the  Greeks, 

473 

Wataturu  of  East  Africa,  85 
Watchdogs,  charm  to  silence,  31 

3  c 


INDEX 


754 

Water,  used  in  charms,  26,  63,  67,  71,  341 
kings  of,  108  ;  in  Midsummer  festival, 
154,  625  ;  of  Life,  Ishtar  sprinkled  with, 
326  ;  used  to  wash  away  sins,  543 
Water-ousel,  heart  of,  eaten  to  make  eater 
wise  and  eloquent,  496 

- spirits,  propitiation  of,  127  ;  women 

married  to,  145  ;  sacrifices  to,  146 ; 
danger  of,  192 

Wawamba  of  Central  Africa,  76 
Wax  figures  in  magic,  543-4 
Weapon  and  wound,  contagious  magic  of, 
4i-3 

Weapons,  prayers  to,  2 7  ;  of  warriors, 
purification  of,  214 ;  sharp,  tabooed, 
226 

Weariness,  transferred  to  stones,  540 
Weather,  magical  control  of  the,  60-83 
Weaving,  charm  to  ensure  skill  in,  32 
Wedding  ring  amulet  against  witchcraft, 

243 

Weevils  spared  by  Esthonian  peasants,  530 
Wells,  cleansed  as  rain-charm,  67  ;  men- 
struous  women  kept  from,  604,  606 
Wends,  the,  119,  402,  451  ;  of  Saxony,  708 
Wennland  in  Sweden,  treatment  of 
strangers  on  the  threshing-floor  in,  431  ; 
grain  of  last  sheaf  baked  in  a  girl-shaped 
loaf  in,  480 

Westermarck,  Dr.  Edward,  642,  643 
Westphalia,  the  Whitsuntide  Bride  in,  135  ; 
the  last  sheaf  at  harvest  in,  401  ;  the 
Harvest-cock  in,  451  ;  Easter  fires  in, 
615  ;  the  Yule  log  in,  637 
Wetar,  East  Indian  island,  stabbing 
people’s  shadows  in,  189  ;  belief  regard¬ 
ing  leprosy  in,  473 
Whale,  solemn  burial  of  dead,  223 
Whale’s  ghost,  fear  of  injuring,  220 
Whalers,  taboos  observed  by,  217,  220,  221 
Whales,  ceremonies  observed  at  the 
slaughter  of,  523 

Wheat  and  barley,  the  cultivation  of,  intro¬ 
duced  by  Osiris,  363  ;  discovered  by 
Isis,  382 

Wheat  Bride,  408  ;  -cock,  451  ;  -cow,  457  ; 
-dog,  448,  449  ;  -goat,  454  ;  -man,. 428  ; 
-mother,  400  ;  -pug,  449  ;  -sow,  460  ; 
-wolf,  449,  450 

Wheel,  effigy  of  Death  attached  to  a,  311  ; 
fire  kindled  by  the  rotation  of  a,  627, 
639,  644  ;  as  a  symbol  of  the  sun,  644 
Wheels,  burning,  rolled  down  hill,  612,  613, 
615,  622-4,  626,  641,  643,  645,  646 ; 
rolled  over  fields  at  Midsummer  to 
fertilise  them,  629,  647  ;  perhaps  in¬ 
tended  to  burn  witches,  649 
Whit-Monday,  custom  observed  by  Russian 
girls  on,  128 ;  the  Leaf  King  at  Hildes- 
heim  on,  130  ;  the  king  in  Bohemia  on, 
130  ;  the  king’s  game  on,  132  ;  pretence 
of  beheading  a  leaf-clad  man  on,  297  ; 
pretence  of  beheading  the  king  on,  298-9 
Whitsun-Bride  in  Denmark,  133 


Whitsuntide,  races  at,  124,  129  ;  contests 
for  the  kingship  at,  129,  132  ;  drama  of 
Summer  and  Winter  at,  317 
Whitsuntide  Basket,  129  ;  Bride,  132,  133, 
135  ;  Bridegroom,  133  ;  crown,  132, 
133;  customs,  121,  124,  128-35;  King, 
129,  132,  133,  298-9  ;  -lout,  128  ;  mum¬ 
mers,  296-301  ;  Queen,  131,  132,  299 
Wicker  giants  at  popular  festivals  in 
Europe,  654  ;  burnt  in  summer  bonfires, 
655 

Widows  and  widowers,  mourning  customs 
observed  by,  207 

Wife,  the  Old,  name  given  to  the  last  corn 
cut,  403 

Wife’s  infidelity  thought  to  injure  her 
absent  husband,  23,  25 
Wild  animals,  propitiated  by  hunters,  518- 
532 

- Man,  a  Whitsuntide  mummer,  467 

Willow,  mistletoe  growing  on,  660 
Willow-tree,  683  ;  at  festival  of  Green 
George  among  the  gypsies,  126-7 
Winamwanga  of  Northern  Rhodesia,  708 
Wind,  the  magical  control  of  the,  80-83  > 
of  the  Cross,  81  ;  in  the  corn,  sayings  as 
to  the,  399,  448,  454,  457,  459,  460,  463 
Winds,  charms  to  calm  the,  80  ;  sold  to 
sailors,  81  ;  tied  up  in  knots,  81  ;  kept 
in  jars,  170 

Wine,  the  sacramental  use  of,  498 
Winnowing  basket,  image  of  snake  in,  535 

- fan,  in  rain-making,  73  ;  used  to 

scatter  ashes  of  human  victims,  378, 
443  ;  an  emblem  of  Dionysus,  388 
Winter,  ceremony  at  the  end  of,  551  ; 
general  clearance  of  evils  at  the  beginning 
or  end  of,  575 

- and  Summer,  dramatic  battle  of,  316- 

3*7 

Witch,  burnt  in  Ireland,  56  ;  burnt  at  St. 
Andrews,  243  ;  name  given  to  last  corn 
cut  after  sunset,  403  ;  Old,  burning  the, 
429.  See  also  Witches 
“  Witch-shots,”  649 

Witchcraft,  dread  of,  194,  236  ;  strangers 
suspected  of  practising,  194  ;  practised 
in  Scotland,  542  ;  protections  against, 
610,  620,  626-8,  648,  656,  663,  666,  702, 
707  ;  need-fire,  a  sovereign  remedy  for, 
641  ;  ailments  attributed  to,  649  ;  fatal 
to  milk  and  butter,  663 
Witches,  44  ,  raise  the  wind,  80,  81  ;  make 
use  of  cut  hair,  234,  237  ;  protections 
against,  243,  620,  627  ;  expulsion  of, 
560  ;  burning  of,  560,  561,  621,  635,  658  ; 
shooting  the,  561  ;  effigies  of,  burnt  in 
bonfires,  610,  612,  613,  648,  658  ;  charm 
to  protect  fields  against,  615  ;  cast  spells 
on  cattle,  620  ;  steal  milk  from  cows, 
620,  627,  628,  648;  abroad  on  Walpurgis 
Night,  622  ;  driving  away,  622  ;  resort 
to  the  Blocksberg,  625  ;  steal  milk  and 
butter,  628  ;  abroad  at  Hallowe’en,  634  ; 


INDEX 


cause  hail  and  thunderstorms,  64 g  ; 
burning  missiles  thrown  at,  649  ;  brought 
down  from  the  clouds  by  shots  and 
smoke,  649-50  ;  thought  to  keep  their 
strength  in  their  hair,  680-81  ;  tortured 
in  India,  681  ;  animal  familiars  of, 
684 

Witchetty  grubs,  1 7 
Wives,  taboos  observed  by,  21-5 
Wizards,  43  ;  Finnish,  81  ;  capture  human 
souls,  187,  t88  ;  thought  to  keep  their 
strength  in  their  hair,  680-81  ;  animal 
familiars  of,  683,  684 

Wolf,  track  of,  in  contagious  magic,  44  ; 
corn-spirit  as,  448  ;  last  sheaf  at  harvest 
called,  4-(9,  450  ;  beast-god  of  Lycopolis 
in  Egypt,  500  ;  ceremonies  at  killing  a, 
520,  521  ;  the  Green,  628,  652,  664 
Wolf  society  among  the  Nootka  Indians, 
rite  of  initiation  into,  699 
Women,  taboos  observed  by,  20,  25,  26  ; 
dances  of,  26-8,  64  ;  employed  to  sow 
fields  on  the  principle  of  homoeopathic 
magic,  28  ;  plough  as  a  rain-charm,  70  ; 
worshipped  by  ancient  Germans,  97 ; 
married  to  gods,  142-5  ;  tabooed  at 
menstruation  and  childbirth,  207-10, 
603  ;  not  allowed  to  mention  husbands’ 
names,  249  •  influence  of  corn-spirit  on, 
4x0 ;  thought  to  have  no  soul,  497  ; 
ceremonies  performed  by,  to  rid  fields 
of  vermin,  531  ;  put  to  death  in  the 
character  of  goddesses  in  Mexico,  589  ; 
impregnated  by  the  sun,  603  ;  dread  of 
menstruous,  603 

- - ,  barren,  charms  to  procure  offspring, 

14  ;  sterilising  influence  ascribed  to,  29, 
137  ;  thought  to  conceive  through  eating 
nuts  of  a  palm-tree,  rig  ;  fertilised  by 
trees,  119,  120;  thought  to  blight  the 
fruits  of  the  earth,  137  ;  fertilised  by 
being  struck  with  a  certain  stick,  581 

- ,  pregnant,  forbidden  to  spin  or  twist 

ropes,  21  ;  not  to  loiter  in  the  doorways 
where  there  are,  22  ;  employed  to 
fertilise  crops  and  fruit-trees,  28 
Wonghi  tribe  of  New  South  Wales,  692 
Wood,  King  of  the,  at  Nemi,  1,  3,  8,  106, 
140,  .147,  163,  164,  167,  269,  296,  300, 
301,  586,  593,  703,  710 
Wood-spirits  in  goat  form,  465 
Woodmen,  ceremonies  observed  by,  at 
felling  trees,  112,  113 
Words,  tabooed,  244-62  ;  savages  take  a 
materialistic  view  of,  247 
World,  as  regarded  by  early  man,  91 
Wotjobaluk  tribe  in  Victoria,  43,  687 
Wotyaks,  the,  of  Russia,  143,  559 
Wound  and  weapon,  contagious  magic  of, 
4i-3 

Wrack  (Hag),  name  given  to  last  corn  cut 
in  Wales,  403,  404 
Wren,  hunting  the,  536-7 
Wiinsch,  R.,  344 


755 

Wiirtemberg,  bushes  set  up  on  Palm 
Sunday  in,  125  ;  the  thresher  of  the  last 
corn  at  Tettnang  in,  456  ;  effigy  of  goat 
at  Ellwangen  in,  456  ;  leaf-clad  mummer 
at  Midsummer  in,  653 
Wurunjeri  tribe  of  Victoria,  183 

Xerxes  in  Thessaly,  290 
Xnumayo  tribe  of  Zulus,  257 

Yabim  tribe  of  New  Guinea,  213,  597,  694 
Yakut  shamans  and  their  external  souls, 
683 

Yakuts,  80 

Yams,  feast  of,  200  ;  ceremony  at  eating 
the  new,  483 

Yap,  one  of  the  Caroline  Islands,  598 
Yarilo,  the,  funeral  of,  celebrated  in  Russia, 
318 

Year,  the  fixed  Alexandrian,  373  ;  the 
Caffre,  483  ;  the  Egyptian,  a  vague  year, 
368  ;  the  old  Roman,  577  ;  the  Slavonic, 
577 

Years,  cycle  of  eight,  in  ancient  Greece, 
279 ;  the  King  of  the,  in  Tibet,  573,  574 
Yellow  colour  in  magic,  15 
Yezo  or  Yesso,  Japanese  island,  the  Ainos 

of,  505,  507 

Ynglingar  family,  155 
Yorkshire,  “  burning  the  Old  Witch  ”  in, 
429  ;  clergyman  cuts  the  first  corn  in, 
481 

Yorubas  of  West  Africa,  230,  256,  273,  570 
Youths  and  maidens,  tribute  of,  sent  to 
Minos,  280 

Yuin  tribe  of  New  South  Wales,  191 
Yuki  Indians  of  California,  2 7 
\  ukon  River,  the  Lower,  the  Esquimaux 

of,  193 

Yule  Boar,  461-2,  478  ;  log,  636-8,  641, 
643,  646 

Yuracares  of  Eastern  Bolivia,  601 

Zafimanelo,  the,  of  Madagascar,  198 
Zagmuk,  Babylonian  festival,  281 
Zagreus,  a  form  of  Dionysus,  388 
Zaparo  Indians  of  Ecuador,  495 
Zapotecs  of  Central  America,  687 ;  the 
pontiff  of  the,  170,  593,  595 
Zara-mama,  Maize  Mother,  413 
Zemis  of  Assam,  248 

Zeus,  rain  made  by,  71  ;  the  priest  of, 
makes  rain  by  an  oak  branch,  77 ; 
mimicked  by  King  Salmoneus,  77 ; 
marriage  with  Demeter  at  Eleusis,  142  ; 
and  Hera,  143,  159  ;  and  Dione,  15 1, 
165  ;  as  god  of  the  oak,  the  rain,  and 
the  thunder,  159  ;  his  oracular  oak  at 
Dodona,  159  ;  prayed  to  for  rain,  159  ; 
Greek  kings  called,  159  ;  surnamed 
Thunderbolt,  159  ;  his  resemblance  to 
Donar,  Thor,  Perun,  and  Perkunas, 
160-61  ;  the  grave  of,  265  ;  his  oracular 
cave  on  Mount  Ida,  280  ;  his  intrigue 


INDEX 


756 

with  Persephone,  388  ;  said  to  have 
transferred  the  sceptre  to  young 
Dionysus,  388  ;  father  of  Dionysus  by 
Demeter,  389 ;  his  appearance  to 
Hercules  in  the  shape  of  a  ram,  500  ; 
and  Danae,  602 

Zeus,  the  Descender,  places  struck  by 
lightning  consecrated  to,  159  ;  Heavenly, 
at  Sparta,  9  ;  Lacedaemon,  at  Sparta,  9  ; 
Laphystian,  290-92  ;  Lightning,  sacri¬ 
ficial  hearth  of,  159  ;  Polieus  in  Cos,  466 

Zimbas,  or  Muzimbas,  of  South-east  Africa, 
97 

Zoganes,  temporary  king  at  Babylon,  put 
to  death  after  a  reign  of  five  days,  282 


Zoilus,  priest  of  Dionysus  at  Orchomenus, 
291 

Zulu  language,  its  diversity,  258 
Zululand,  rain-making  by  means  of  a 
“  heaven-bird  ”  in,  75  ;  children  buried 
to  the  neck  as  a  rain-charm  in,  75  ; 
names  of  chiefs  and  kings  tabooed  in, 
257  ;  kings  put  to  death  in,  272  ;  festival 
of  first-fruits  in,  483  ;  seclusion  of  girls 
at  puberty  in,  595  ;  gardens  fumigated 
with  medicated  smoke  in,  645 
Zulus,  192,  495,  498 

Zuni  Indians  of  New  Mexico,  502,  504, 
2ytniamatka ,  the  Corn-mother,  421 


THE  END 


Printed  in  Great  Britain  by  R.  &  R.  Clark,  Limited,  Edinburgh. 


WORKS  BY  SIR  J.  G.  FRAZER 

THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH 

A  STUDY  IN  MAGIC  AND  RELIGION 


Third  Edition,  revised  and  enlarged.  8vo. 

Part  I.  The  Magic  Art  and  the  Evolution  of  Kings.  Two 
volumes.  25s.  net. 

II.  Taboo  and  the  Perils  of  the  Soul.  One  volume. 
12s.  6d.  net. 

III.  The  Dying  God.  One  volume.  12s.  6d.  net. 

IV.  Adonis,  Attis,  Osiris.  Two  volumes.  25  s.  net. 

V.  Spirits  of  the  Corn  and  of  the  Wild.  Two  volumes. 

25s.  net. 

VI.  The  Scapegoat.  One  volume.  12s.  6d.  net. 

VII.  Balder  the  Beautiful:  The  Fire-Festivals  of  Europe 
and  the  Doctrine  of  the  External  Soul.  Two 
volumes.  25s.  net. 

Vol.  XII.  Bibliography  and  General  Index.  25s.  net. 


TIMES.—  “The  book  is  a  great  book,  in  just  the  sense  in  which  the  work 
of  Darwin,  Zola,  or  Balzac  is  great.  It  has  explored  and  mapped  out  a  new 
world.  But  it  combines  artistry  with  science.  Not  only  does  it  describe  the 
greater  part  of  the  magical  and  religious  beliefs  and  practices  of  the  lower  races 
and  peasant  peoples  of  the  world,  with  a  scientific  precision  and  completeness 
superior  to  those  of  the  encyclopaedic  biologist ;  it  also  narrates,  with  greater 
truth  and  vividness  than  has  ever  been  essayed,  the  tragi-comedy  of  human 
superstition.” 

Mr.  A.  E.  Crawley  in  NATURE.—11  This  new  edition  is  something  more 
than  a  mere  enlargement.  It  is  a  new  book,  or  a  series  of  books  ;  yet  it  is  the 
same  ‘  Golden  Bough.’  The  reader  will  find  it  full  of  good  things,  new  and  old. 
He  will  also  realise  that  ‘The  Golden  Bough’  is  a  great  book,  one  of  the 
great  books  of  our  time.” 

NA  T10N. — “  Dr.  Frazer  has  brought  to  the  work  of  interpretation  not  merely 
the  learning  of  a  master,  but  the  imagination  of  a  poet  and  the  shaping  skill  of  an 
artist.  The  big  book  is  probably  the  most  illuminating  and  the  most  durable 
classic  that  has  been  produced  in  our  language  in  this  generation.  It  is  more 
than  a  scientific  achievement.  It  is  a  noble  piece  of  literature,  a  spacious  chapter 
of  history,  and  one  thinks  of  it  as  one  thinks  of  the  work  of  Gibbon.” 

SATURDAY  REVIEW. — “‘The  Golden  Bough’  complete,  rightly  con¬ 
sidered,  is  an  event  in  England  ;  it  is  one  of  those  rare  literary  undertakings  that 
signify  prestige  for  a  country.” 

CAMBRIDGE  RE  VIEW. — “  It  has  won  its  way  not  only  into  the  respect, 
but  into  the  affection  of  its  readers.  We  take  it  as  a  gift  of  the  gods  and  a 
glory  to  English  learning.” 


LONDON  :  MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  Ltd. 


I 


WORKS  BY  SIR  J.  G.  FRAZER 


THE 

BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY 

AND  THE 

WORSHIP  OF  THE  DEAD 


8  vo. 


VOL.  I.  THE  BELIEF  AMONG  THE  ABORIGINES  OF 
AUSTRALIA,  THE  TORRES  STRAITS  ISLANDS, 
NEW  GUINEA,  AND  MELANESIA.  The  Gifford 
Lectures,  St.  Andrews,  1911-1912.  18s.  net. 

VOL.  II.  THE  BELIEF  AMONG  THE  POLYNESIANS.  r8s.  net. 


Press  Opinions  on  Vol.  I. 

Mr.  Edward  Clodd  in  the  DAILY  CHRONICLE.— “  « If  a  man  die,  shall 
he  live  again?’  is  a  question  asked  chiliads  before  Job  put  it,  and  the  generations 
of  mankind  repeat  it.  In  this  profoundly  interesting  volume,  Professor  Frazer, 
out  of  the  treasury  of  his  knowledge,  and  with  consummate  art  of  attractive 
presentment,  gives  the  answers  devised  by  the  Lower  Races.” 

FOLK-LORE. — “It  displays  all  the  best  qualities,  both  in  respect  of  style 
and  matter,  that  characterise  Dr.  Frazer’s  former  works.” 

NEW  STATESMAN. — “Dr.  Frazer  does  not  profess  to  explain  the 
ultimate  source  of  religion,  but  only  to  attempt  to  follow  the  steps  of  its  growth 
among  the  races  of  men.  It  is  his  aim  to  set  before  us  a  continent  of  facts  known, 
or  partly  known,  to  the  anthropologists,  not  a  solution  of  the  mystery  of  the 
Universe.  That  aim  he  has  achieved  with  masterly  success  and  lucidity.” 

Mr.  A.  E.  Crawley  in  NATURE.— 11  The  analysis  of  belief  and  practice 
among  the  aborigines  of  Australia,  the  Torres  Straits,  New  Guinea,  and 
Melanesia,  which  occupies  nearly  400  pages  of  this  volume,  is  a  masterly 
performance.” 

GUARDIAN. — “The  bare  facts  which  Dr.  Frazer  sets  before  us  are  of  an 
absorbing  interest.  .  .  .  The  Biblical  student  may  gain  much  from  the  perusal  of 
Dr.  Frazer’s  work.” 

OBSER  VER. — “The  importance  of  the  work  which  Dr.  Frazer  has  under¬ 
taken  cannot  be  over-rated.  His  study  of  religion  is  a  contribution  to  human 
knowledge  of  such  quality  that  the  country  to  which  he  belongs  may  well  be 
proud  of  him.  .  .  .  Dr.  Frazer  has  arranged  the  mass  of  detail  from  which  he 
has  had  to  draw  with  a  skill  and  judgment  which  in  the  work  of  another  man 
would  be  surprising  ;  and  he  tells  each  story  with  the  point  and  clarity  of  an 
artist,  so  that,  apart  from  the  book’s  high  mission,  it  could  be  read  as  a  storehouse 
of  good  tales.  His  comments,  moreover,  are  always  brief  and  decisive.” 

LONDON  :  MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  Ltd. 


2 


WORKS  BY  SIR  J.  G.  FRAZER 


FOLK-LORE  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  Studies 
in  Comparative  Religion,  Legend,  and  Law.  Three 
vols.  8 VO.  37s.  6d.  net. 

TIMES. — “The  idea  of  illustrating  the  Old  Testament  by  analogies  drawn 
from  the  myths,  customs,  and  superstitions  of  various  primitive  peoples  is  not,  of 
course,  a  new  one  .  .  .  but  no  one  has  hitherto  published  anything  to5 be 
compared  with  the  vast  and  varied  store  of  information  which  Sir  James  Frazer 
now  places  before  us.  .  .  .  His  book  is  a  mine  of  instructive  facts  for  which  all 
future  students  of  the  subject  will  be  grateful.” 

NATURE. — “These  three  volumes  should  be  the  household  companion  of 
every  religious  teacher,  nay,  of  every  one  who  cares  or  dares  to  see  what  that 
latest  daughter  of  science,  folk-lore,  has  to  say  about  the  cherished  beliefs  from 
the  Old  Testament,  absorbed  in  infancy,  and  rarely  visualised  differently  in 
later  life.” 

SPECTATOR. — “  We  may  say  at  once  that  Sir  Janies  Frazer’s  new  work  is 
profoundly  interesting,  and  that  it  throws  a  flood  of  light  on  many  familiar 
episodes  and  references.” 

TOTEMISM  AND  EXOGAMY.  A  Treatise  on  Certain 
Early  Forms  of  Superstition  and  Society.  With  Maps. 
Four  vols.  8 vo.  50s.  net. 

Mr.  A.  E.  Crawley  in  NATURE.—11  That  portion  of  the  book  which  is 
concerned  with  totemism  (if  we  may  express  our  own  belief  at  the  risk  of  offending 
Prof.  Frazer’s  characteristic  modesty)  is  actually  ‘The  Complete  History  of 
Totemism,  its  Practice  and  its  Theory,  its  Origin  and  its  End.’  .  .  .  Nearly  two 
thousand  pages  are  occupied  with  an  ethnographical  survey  of  totemism,  an  in¬ 
valuable  compilation.  The  maps,  including  that  of  the  distribution  of  totemic 
peoples,  are  a  new  and  useful  feature.” 

THE  MAGICAL  ORIGIN  OF  KINGS.  (Formerly 
published  as  “  Lectures  on  the  Early  History  of  the 
Kingship.”)  8vo.  10s.  6d.  net. 

ATHENAEUM. — “  It  is  the  effect  of  a  good  book  not  only  to  teach,  but  also 
to  stimulate  and  to  suggest,  and  we  think  this  the  best  and  highest  quality,  and 
one  that  will  recommend  these  lectures  to  all  intelligent  readers,  as  well  as  to  the 
learned.” 


PSYCHE’S  TASK.  A  Discourse  concerning  the  Influence 
of  Superstition  on  the  Growth  of  Institutions.  Second 
Edition,  revised  and  enlarged.  To  which  is  added 
“  The  Scope  of  Social  Anthropology.”  8vo.  6s.  6d. 
net. 

OUTLOOK. — “Whether  we  disagree  or  agree  with  Dr.  Frazer’s  general 
conclusions,  he  has  provided  us  with  a  veritable  storehouse  of  correlated  facts,  for 
which,  and  for  the  learning  that  has  gone  to  their  collection,  and  for  the 
intellectual  brilliance  that  has  gone  to  their  arrangement,  we  can  never  be 
sufficiently  grateful.” 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  Ltd. 

3 


WORKS  BY  SIR  J.  G.  FRAZER 


PAUSANIAS’S  DESCRIPTION  OF  GREECE.  Trans¬ 
lated  with  a  Commentary,  Illustrations,  and  Maps. 
Second  Edition.  Six  vols.  8vo.  126s.  net. 

ATHENrEUM. — “All  these  writings  in  many  languages  Mr.  Frazer  has 
read  and  digested  with  extraordinary  care,  so  that  his  book  will  be  for  years  the 
book  of  reference  on  such  matters,  not  only  in  England,  but  in  France  and 
Germany.  It  is  a  perfect  thesaurus  of  Greek  topography,  archaeology,  and  art.” 

STUDIES  IN  GREEK  SCENERY,  LEGEND  AND 
HISTORY.  Selected  from  Sir  J.  G.  Frazer’s  Com¬ 
mentary  on  Pausanias.  Globe  8vo.  5s.  net. 

GUARDIAN. — “Flere  we  have  material  which  every  one  who  has  visited 
Greece,  or  purposes  to  visit  it,  most  certainly  should  read  and  enjoy.  .  .  .  We 
cannot  imagine  a  more  excellent  book  for  the  educated  visitor  to  Greece.” 

SIR  ROGER  DE  COVERLEY,  AND  OTHER 
LITERARY  PIECES.  Crown  8vo.  8s.  6d.  net. 

DAILY  TELEGRAPH. — “These  various  studies,  biographical,  fantastic, 
and  romantic,  are  the  fine  flower  of  scholarship  and  taste,  touched  continually  by 
the  golden  light  of  imagination,  and  full  of  that  interpretative  sympathy  which  is 
half-sister  to  creation.” 


LETTERS  OF  WILLIAM  COWPER.  Chosen  and 
Edited,  with  a  Memoir  and  a  few  Notes,  by  Sir  J.  G. 
Frazer.  Two  vols.  Globe  8vo.  10s.  net. 

\Eversley  Series . 

Mr.  Clement  Shorter  in  the  DAILY  CHRONICLE. — “ The  intro¬ 
ductory  Memoir,  of  some  eighty  pages  in  length,  is  a  valuable  addition  to  the 
many  appraisements  of  Cowper  that  these  later  years  have  seen.  ...  Dr.  Frazer 
has  given  us  two  volumes  that  are  an  unqualified  joy.” 

ESSAYS  OP  JOSEPH  ADDISON.  Chosen  and 
Edited,  with  a  Preface  and  a  few  Notes,  by  Sir  J.  G. 
Frazer.  Two  vols.  Globe  8vo.  10s.  net. 

[Evers ley  Series . 

NATION— “  Sir  James  PTazer,  who  writes  a  Preface,  quite  in  the  Addison 
manner,  has  done  his  work  of  selection  as  only  a  scholar  of  his  breadth  and 
distinction  could  achieve.” 

LONDON  :  MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  Ltd. 

4 


\ 


J 


